Healing Relationships at Work

A majority of us spend 50% or more of our active time at work. We have to come in contact with a variety of people and work with them. Work will feel like a drag, impossible, and uninteresting if our frequency is not matching with the folks we interact with. Unhealthy work relationships generate feelings of exhaustion, hopelessness, and/or frustration. We end up carrying those negative feelings to our home. The feeling of frustration was created due to folks at work, but unknowingly all of those emotions are taken out on the innocent family. It is imperative to take care of relationships where lot of time and energy is spent. Else, it leads to a lot of hurt, stress, and frustration. It eventually causes us to offload the pain we felt at work on the innocent family.

Relationship with the Manager

How to deal with a micromanager?

It’s a no brainer that a person micromanages because they cannot trust people easily.
Few options to deal with this kind of situation:

1. Create Frustration: One option is to get frustrated at the behavior and complain to others that, “my manager is very annoying, s/he is constantly nagging me”. Does this help in resolving the issue? At Brahma Kumaris, I learnt that this increases the problem because we are spreading more negative vibes about a person with whom we are already having challenges. This entangles the relationship more because the manager receives the negative vibes from us and the folks we tater tale.
2. Escapist Attitude: Start looking for another position and ignore the problem at hand, but keep creating frustration and sadness. We are running away from a problem without trying to deal with the issue at hand. It might seem like an easy route, but what if the next manager turns out to be the same? Hence it is important to first put in effort (not just by complaining) in resolving the issue and if those efforts are unfruitful then this option might be the only way.
3. Build Trust: Since the manager is unable to trust, check if we have given them an opportunity in the past by not meeting deadlines or doing a shabby job? If everything seems healthy on our side, then the next step is to maintain patience and also proactively give them more updates on the project status. Let the manager observe our work quality, consistencies, and punctuality. In time, they are bound to develop trust and will become doubt free about our work quality.

4. Open Communication Channel: If the manager is unable to trust inspite of consistent high quality performance, then it is time to have an honest and open communication with them. It's best to actually have this kind of conversation in the beginning of the relationship, but it's never too late😊. In that conversation, it's good to mention few points below. The conversation below will automatically enable them to realize that they are micromanaging. They might end up asking about our working style preference.

• I prefer working independently and I like to reach out to others when I need help
• Do you need more updates from me, if so how frequent and what details should be included?
• Is there anything that you would like me to change?

How to deal with manager’s never ending expectations?

1. Self Introspection: Check if we lead the manager in having those expectations from us. For example ask questions like, “Did I work during non-office hours even though manager did not request it?, Did I keep saying YES to everything that was assigned to me even if it was not interesting or I did not have time for it? ”. If we set incorrect expectations with the manager, then it’s good to acknowledge.

2. Open Communication: The next step is to have an honest and direct conversation with the manager that due to personal reasons, a lot of work already on plate, etc, we are unable to take more tasks. Our fear of what manager will think prevents us from having this conversation, and we blame it on the manager.

Relationship with Colleagues

How to deal with peer pressure?

Peer pressure is mainly felt due to lack of self confidence or our own desires to be the best (competitiveness). We start copying others’ behavior of working till late evenings and even on weekends. The blame is put on the culture, manager, or the company. We fail to check if it is our own insecurities and desires to be very successful that are causing us to work extra hard. In my many years of work life, I have always maintained a regular schedule of coming early and leaving early.  I rarely work on the weekends. I do keep an aim of being accountable and doing high quality work. I generally don’t take long breaks other than the usual quick ones. My experience has been that setting up my own working style has not hindered in my career progression. It has allowed me to maintain a balance between work and home life. Due to my punctuality, consistency, and accountability lot of high priority projects are assigned to me. We don’t need to prove ourselves by killing ourselves (the work and home life balance). It can be easily be achieved when we maintain faith that we have many other skills, specialties, and qualities to keep shining at work.

How to deliver critical and sensitive feedback?

It is very important to deliver critical feedback, whether it is a manager to the folks who report to them or a colleague to another colleague. Most of us avoid giving this feedback because of our own needs of wanting to be in good books of others. Our selfishness prevents us from delivering a feedback that will help others in progressing and growing further. It is imperative that the feedback has to be delivered in a right and tactful manner. At Brahma Kumaris we are asked to first bring up few strengths and skills of the person. This exercise automatically generates a lot of respect for the other person within us. Then with enthusiasm and many detailed examples we should present to them their strengths. In the end, we can let them know that if they could work on a few minor things then their progress will be even further in their career.

How to deal with a variety of personalities at work?

1. Focus on their specialties: It is utter ego if we fail to find a single specialty in others. When we focus on others’ specialties more, their weaknesses don’t bother us anymore.
2. Acknowledge our strengths and weaknesses: Each one of us has specialties and weaknesses. We are able to be more accepting towards others when we acknowledge that we are not perfect either.
3. There is a sense in others’s senselessness behavior: It is a fact that due to culture, upbringing, and a variety of other reasons people behave differently. We know this but do we remember it in practical life? This enables us to be open to people’s contrasting opinion and behavior. We understand the sense in their senselessness when we are accommodating and maintain respect for others. Our respect and attitude of inclusion can transform others behavior positively. How powerful is that?

In conclusion, I would like to say that my aim of maintaining healthy relationships at work has enabled me to be more efficient, calm, and successful. In the same amount of time I am able to do almost twice as much work. The main reason for being so productive is that energy is not wasted in resolving conflicts that we create internally by judging others. I have a long way to go in making every relationship harmonious. My experience has been that every healthy relationship that I maintain gets me lot of cooperation from others and increases my inner power. Work becomes like a breeze when you have so many helping hands. I don't have to say anymore, "Oh no weekend is ending and the grind starts tomorrow'! 😊