Switch & Shift

A Better Way to Work Together

We are most familiar with treating employees as if they can split their personal from their professional life when coming to work. At its root is an inherently dehumanizing belief that employees can turn off the influences of one on the other.

 

Certainly employees’ financial struggles or ailing family member shouldn’t influence work performance.

 

For too long too many managers have falsely believed that employees’ personal struggles should be checked at the door. Certainly employees’ financial struggles or ailing family member shouldn’t influence work performance. Didn’t you see the “check your personal problems here” box to the left of the door?

 

Too many workplace cultures struggle to recognize our natural tendencies as human beings

 

To be fair plenty of managers have recognized the absurdity in this antiquated thinking. Yet too many workplace cultures struggle to recognize our natural tendencies as human beings: need for autonomy; need for affiliation; need for recognition; desire to make a difference; desire for meaning.

Thriving organizations must look at the relationship between managers-employees and find a better way to work together. Once such way is to create cooperative and collaborative work relationships.

To create cooperative and collaborative relationships requires managers to get to know the “whole employee,” and not just view them through the work they do. Every employee, from managers to individual contributors, has aspirations, interests, and goals, that when known and encouraged can help build deeper bonds.

 

Learning more about each team member and what is important to him or her helps create relationships that can be turned into value

 

Most of us respond positively when someone shows interests in what we want out of life. Such bonds can deepen trust. And the deeper the trust the more agile, flexible an employee and a team can become.

I remind you that when we spend nearly a third of our time working with each other, learning more about each team member and what is important to him or her helps create relationships that can be turned into value for the organization, for the manager and employee.

 

Managers must learn to better integrate leadership actions and management practices that recognize the humanity in the working relationships we hav

 

A better way to work in the 21st century is to create mutually-beneficial relationships for manager-employee and organization-employee. Both set of relationships need one another to be successful. The mutual-benefit underlying each pairing is to help the other achieve what it cannot do alone.

A fundamental shift, however, needs to be a diligent and consistent focus for managers to create a work environment that recognizes our natural human tendencies. Furthermore, managers must learn to better integrate leadership actions and management practices that recognize the humanity in the working relationships we have with each other and with the organization.

Art by  Jeff

Change Leader | Speaker | Writer Co-founder and CEO of ExchangeGain. Passionately explores the space where business & humanity intersect. Promoter of workplace optimism. Believes work can be a source of joy. Top ranked leadership blogger by Huffington Post. The Optimistic Workplace (AMACOM) out 2015

  • Richie

    Great post Shawn. I totally agree.

    Thinking out loud though – it is a fine balance. Employees who become “familiar” through increased relational bonds (friendships)with the boss/manager/upline can quickly digress into leverage to shirk the work!

    How hard is it for a boss-friend to manage performance? #Awkward

  • http://www.thecaremovement.com Al Smith

    Great post, my friend. You are on a roll.

    Show people you CARE and they have a tendency to respond positively. In everything.

    Al

  • http://www.WorkLifeNation.com Judy Martin (@judymartin8)

    Shawn,
    I think there is a fine line between the boss-friend and a boss-authentic leader. The later of which can infuse a human element into that relationship without feeling threatened but instead with a mindset of collaboration toward a better workplace culture.

    Part of the paradox is within the mindset of the leaders and management. In less progressive workplaces, there is still this “fear the c-suite” mentality as allows them to believe they have more control over subordinates. It’s Ayn Randish in nature, and flies in the face of the new world of work where many CEOs now know that exalting the human experience at work might encourage an employee that is more creative, less stressed and more innovative.

  • Robert McNeil

    Relationships are key to building strong teams and adding value to the organization. I like to look at 3 dimensions when discussing these interpersonal relationships: Inclusion, Control, and Openness. Workers want to feel included, they want to have control over their work, and they want to work in an open and easy going organization. Its been proven so many times. As Peter Drucker once quipped, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast. I think what’s missing these days are good, clean, clear roadmaps to creating high performing cultures.

  • http://exchangegain.com Shawn Murphy

    Hi Richie,
    Indeed, it is a fine line surrounded by gray in the boss-friend relationship. I’ve known and seen managers who can straddle both sides of that fine line. The key that makes it successful is consistently holding the roles separate and not backing away from the tough conversations AND stepping up when praise and recognition is due. Of course, easier said than done…bring us back to your observation.

  • http://exchangegain.com Shawn Murphy

    Hi Judy,
    I like the boss-authentic leader. We all should seek out authentic friends who have the guts to tell us the truth with respect and candor.

    Shawn

  • There’s a more human way to do business.

    In the Social Age, it’s how we engage with customers, collaborators and strategic partners that matters; it’s how we create workplace optimism that sets us apart; it’s how we recruit, retain (and repel) employees that becomes our differentiator. This isn’t a “people first, profits second” movement, but a “profits as a direct result of putting people first” movement.

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