Managing Relationships at work: Friends or Colleagues?

 

Sometimes I had the rude consultant in my mind; it helps me not to forget about how we need to take care and improve our communication or stakeholder management.

Honestly, I did not think at any time to share my intimacies or invite him to a close family party, I did not pretend to be his friend. A Simply, cordial relationship with co-workers.

Throughout my professional life, I’ve recognized that I made great friends as well as good co-workers. We spend many hours in our work, and over time the relationships between us never stop improving.

Personally, when I start a new project or start working in a new office, I do not go with the idea of making a lot of friends or inviting the whole department to a Saturday crazy party dinner in my home. I usually consider myself a reserved person, and the step to move from peer to friend, is not a fast step and usually occurs when I leave that company or project. I should point out that I have been a freelance for years, which has made me travel around Europe from project to project and from client to client, meeting amazing people.

I have been living in the United States less than two years, and I’m gratefully surprised that we can find statistics and data on anything, I love that.

A few days ago, I’ve taken a look to the Bureau of Labor statistical, I was curious about how the Americans spend their time. 

So, it is a fact that we spend more than 8 hours at work.

Some newspaper articles, important doctors, psychologists, coaches, and mentors, argue about the fact that we must stop separating professional life from the work.

As project managers, here are the key reasons can help us to improve our skills if we’ll stop separating both lifes. 

• We'll be better workers. Increasing productivity and reducing stress.
• We'll engage the teams better. By getting to know the team members better, it is easier to know their needs and get a buy-in.
• Improving communication
• Diminution of stress

But, there are also some inconvenient:

• Overconfidence makes the requests you make are not taken in the required way
• Falling into the error of talking about work during leisure time
• Possible conflict of interests or leave in a disadvantage relation to the rest of the team.
• Less productivity due to a more distractions, longer coffee breaks, more time to have lunch,
• Lose the boundaries, and then, the outside issues will affect to work.

Each of us is very different, and each of you will take different approach how to manage the ties at work, but, here few tips for the first days that will be useful not to  be rude but don’t spoil anything.

• Prioritize the work
• Be a little reserved. Avoid speak about religion, politics, money.
• Don’t participate in gossips
• Live together, share time at the office with your peers, don’t lunch alone, participate during the coffee breaks, or after works drinks
• Collaborate with the group, offer your help, and share your knowledge.
• Don’t exclude any team member, sometimes in a team, people try to join with people with the same role, be open! Talk with the technicians, or with the developers, you’ll discover an all-new world.

What’s your approach? Friends or Colleagues? 

Reference: Bureau of Labor Statistics - Charts from the American Time Use Survey. 

http://www.bls.gov/tus/charts/