On Building Better Relationships at Work
It is hard to pick up the phone and talk shop. Asking for professional advice is intimidating. What if I catch them at a bad time? What if they don’t want to talk?
In a world with the internet, information is available at any second, on any topic, at any place. In such an information-rich world, the importance of building better relationships increases.
Everyday communications tend to lack substance. We have status meetings, we have IT meetings. The day is filled with people wanting to talk about work.
But to actually get the most out of your organization, I think it’s important to nurture relationships. To reach out to people you are working with, or have worked within the past, and talk about how they are doing. To ask for advice from people who have been where you are.
I am personally bad at keeping in touch and reaching out. Months pass before I rack up the courage to send out a simple hi. But these few things have helped me do incrementally better at connecting with the people in my life.
Your relationships with people matter. It was something I didn’t pay a lot of head to for a long time, but now I try to do better.
Most people will say yes.
The number one insecurity I have with reaching out is if I’m wasting their time. This came up in one of my catchups with an ex-manager, and he gave me terrific advice.
Put the onus of saying no on the person in front of you. I don’t need to think if I’m wasting their time, they’ll tell me if I am. Instead of blocking possible relationships with my own negativity, it’s better to accept the one-off rejection.
So now, I reach out to people, and rarely does anyone say no to catchup. These catchups have helped me expand my knowledge about the organization I work at, and the different innovations taking place all around.
Open up opportunities.
I am bad at thinking on my feet. I plan and prepare and overthink every little thing that can go wrong. At the workplace, my overthinking goes in hyperdrive, talking to all the smart(er) people around me, I obsess over every single word.
To make it easier, I try to prepare conversation touchpoints I can talk about in the catchups. First meetings with new people are harder to navigate, but it gets better with each passing moment.
Have easy to talk about subjects up to your sleeve, if you feel the conversation dying. Something from current affairs (like COVID-19) or news related to your organization is a good thing to have. It doesn’t hurt to show that you are updated with the current happenings of the world.
Such open-ended topics build attention span and make you better at thinking on your feet. Moreover, it opens you up to new ideas, a different point of view. The aim is to have a dialogue, and not convince anyone they are wrong. Having conversations about different topics can open up new avenues of thought, leading you to join the dots and come up with cross-domain solutions. Pretty neat huh?
Focus on them.
Keep the subject relevant to the person you are conversing with. For example, speaking to a technology manager in my Firm, I would prefer to talk about new technology developments. On the other hand, speaking to a business manager, I would prefer to talk about the news regarding my Firm’s business.
Generating value for someone else can seem intimidating, but no one has had the experiences you’ve had. No one comes exactly from where you come from or thinks exactly how you think. So stop underselling yourself, and speak your mind, it will take you places.
BONUS TIP: Offer to keep in touch by setting up a recurring placeholder on their calendar.
So those are the things I have picked up in my very brief time in the adult world. I would love to hear about your experiences navigating corporate waters in the comments below. If I have some really good tips that I missed in this post, I will come out with an updated piece sometime soon.
Thanks for reading!
Originally published at https://www.meghnabhave.com on September 2, 2020.
