Know Your Work Fam - Part 2 Of The People Skills Primer

You know that feeling of friendship. Wo dosti aur pyaar vaali feeling? Which is such a grand part of college life? 2 years at b- school were spent depending on your buddies. And now, you’ll be going your separate ways. And then you go to a new workplace. You see everyone knows everyone else. They too have that yaari- dosti wali equation. So how do you become a part of that group? Usually, it takes time to blend in. Meanwhile there’s some rules of professional life you have to keep in mind. So what are the cardinal rules of communicating with your colleagues?

Situation 1: Your teammate’s son is sick, and she is on a leave for a week. During her absence, your team realizes that there has been a goof-up, and nobody can pin whose fault it is. Someone suggests that you can place the blame on her, since she is not there to defend herself. What do you do?
Bad Idea - Some other members of the team are happy blaming the absent colleague. You too decide to pass the buck. Go with the flow, and don’t utter a word. Or you try to convince others that this is not a good direction. If they don’t relent, you give up.

Good Idea - Explain others that she must be given a chance to make her point. It is best to accept blame as a team rather than passing the buck. And if they still persist on blaming the absent colleague, you made your thoughts known by mentioning that you don’t know all the ins and outs yet and you’re not sure if your absent colleague is responsible.

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Situation 2: A teammate bitches about the team lead during the coffee break, and he expects you to say something.Bad Idea - You use your rich vocabulary to contribute to the big book of expletives and add to the insults. Or worse, you complain to your team lead! You know you’ll get a really bad reputation if you do that by the way.

Good Idea - Listen empathetically to detect the real issue behind the bickering and offer constructive advice on how to solve them.

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Situation 3: Your teammate has been having problems in his personal life, and you have some idea about it. During a meeting, you make a negligible mistake, and your teammate snaps in the presence of everybody and insults you. What do you do?
Bad Idea - Your pride is precious to you, so you strike back with a snarky comment and humiliate him in front of others. Or you stew about it for a few hours, and then send a long email to the HR describing how they hurt you.

Good Idea - Neither snapback, nor carry on. Instead, you inform your colleague politely that you understand he/ she is going through a tough time, but their rudeness was notices. You can also talk to them after the meeting and ask if you can be of any help.

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Situation 4: Back in school, you were the one person in group who did 90% of the project: not because others were lazy, but because you want things to be in a certain manner. You are a bit of a control freak, and you have come to accept it. While working on a project with some colleagues, you feel that there is too much conflict of opinion. How do you work things out with them?
Bad Idea - Old habits die hard. You try to be dominating and since nobody is anybody’s boss, you might be able to impose your preferences on them.Or worse, you beat everybody to planning, and prepare multiple plans or courses of action. You feel that since you have done so much work on these, your colleagues will be impressed and choose one of your options. You win!

Good Idea - You prepare a plan, and justify your reasons behind your opinions. You then present them to your team, and try to understand their viewpoints. In the end, unanimous decisions are reached.

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Situation 5: You are a part of a good team… Well, for the most part. Except for that one co-worker who always shirks work. It increases the work pressure on your team. And this shirker is also a smooth talker, making it difficult to pin down his fault upon him.
Bad Idea 1 - You talk to the team lead without proof. Let him deal with the work shirker. Note that sometimes, you’ll have no option left but doing this. But if you do decide to talk to the team lead about someone shirking work, carry the proof with you!Bad Idea 2 - You go to your team and get them all to carry out an intervention. You call out the shirker as a team, and warn him to start doing his job. Or else…Good Idea - You explain why his part is important to the project, and why it is better for the team why he does it. Appeal to his good instincts, if this doesn’t work, it might be time to go for the first “bad” idea.

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Situation 6: The know-it-all. The one who knows everything. The Jim Parsons (Sheldon Cooper, you purists) of your office. The colleague who knows the statistics to the last decimal point. If you work with him, he has ‘bullied’ you. Not stolen-your-lunch-box bullied. He picks on instances when you make mistakes, or your facts are not elaborate enough, and he might even just rephrase and repeat what you said just to feed his fat ego.
Bad Idea - You and the other colleagues decide to make a team, and bully him back. Or you fabricate a situation in which he is sure to interject, and prove him wrong. Revenge is a dish best served cold!

Good Idea - Ignore him. He doesn’t deserve your time and attention and mental space. However, if he crosses the line, hold on to the mean messages and emails you get and show them to HR.

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You don’t become a different person when you walk into the office. You are who you are - either a snarky, sarcastic person who is tough to crack, or a complete pushover who is not very assertive. Hopefully, you stand at the sweet spot somewhere in between the extremes. However, when you are working in a team, you need to find a balance between being aggressive and being meek.As you might have observed, in the situations described above, the first options are somewhat extreme, while the last option is the sane and ideal way to go about dealing with it. Pause before reacting to every situation. Think balance - how can you deal with the situation in the smartest way with least harmful repercussions? That would be your solution.

Hoping this really helped you. Look out for the next part detailing email etiquette!