Working Well Together

Let’s appreciate that not everyone can work well in groups. Some of us are too individualistic and thrive ‘alone’. Put that ‘solitary worker’ into a group or team situation, and challenges suddenly become obstacles! To work well ‘two-gether’ necessitates understanding fore-mostly who you are. If you are that die-hard ‘individual’ and prefer single ventures rather than ‘joint’ ones, accept that gracefully. Don’t try and be something that you’re inherently not!

So you’ve discovered you. And teams, groups, and a ‘working two-some’ is your forte, what then could come in your way and make you that ‘difficult’ worker, that grouchy colleague, or that run-a-mile-from boss? Strangely, your views! Good relating at work or otherwise is a result of some healthy, sensible attitudes. Ideas that will promote ‘getting-along’. Rockefeller, the great businessman, once said, “Give me two people with equal abilities, I will choose the one who gets along, because people who get along, get ahead!” The biggest saboteurs to good working relationships are beliefs like, ‘Others must do as I say, else they are worthless and deserve to be put in place.’ ‘My way is the way!’ ‘People should be fair and cooperate with me else they deserve to be taught a lesson.’ With such ideas, you seethe with anger when things are not the way as you think they should be, hostility becomes your style of life and you are far from constructing bridges between people. Wall-building is your domain, and the wall rarely cracks, it’s the people who meet the wall, that do!

Getting along at work is an art, though few are adept at it. When you live by the adages (not just pay lip service to them!) ‘Live and let live’, ‘When you are good to others you are best to yourself’, ‘Cooperation from others is desirable but not a necessity’, would you find it hard to allow each his/her style of problem solving? Would you feel that you’re being overpowered, if you accepted individual differences or would it be ‘impossible’ for you to deal with others idiosyncrasies? Giving each other ‘space’ even though most of your waking hours are spent together is possible only when you accept each other as is, believe that taking recourse into your inner world is healthy, and that you don’t have to befriend the colleague or associate that you work with.

• Understand you. Are you the team worker or would you rather work ‘alone’?
• Befriending colleagues, associates, is NOT a 'have to' for a good working relationship.
• Space for each other is possible if you accept each other as is, and believe that retreating into your mental world is healthy.