I've always been fascinated with how some teams work well together and how some managers get great results, but what is it that makes a team excel? In my experience as an employee and now as a manager, I've tried to pinpoint how to create an efficient and effective team.
When you're building a team or company, you simply can't afford to lose great people. Treat them with respect and you're one step closer to keeping them on your team long-term.
To do great things, you and your people need to consistently think outside the box. You need people who feel very comfortable disagreeing with you, trying new things, tossing out new ideas, and being okay with the fact that several of their ideas may turn out to be outright awful.
If you are the manager, make final decisions. And to do so decisively: evaluate all the options in front of you, hear and absorb everyone's arguments, and ultimately make the final call, with arguments.
Even if you've expressed dissent as an employee, it'll benefit you to let your manager make their call and then focus on what's next, rather than staying preoccupied with past decisions.
No matter how much you love your job, navigating workplace politics in any office can lead to a lot of awkward situations. We tackled most of them this year in our weekly Ask the Experts columns. Below we compiled 10 of the most common-and cringeworthy-scenarios with the hopes that in 2016, things can be a little more harmonious at work.
Others taking credit for your work: speak up when presenting your joint ideas, else the boss will remember that the other was the one who did all the talking.
Humans are social creatures who seek personal validation based on how others interact with them. We feel good and important when others share our belief system and dejected when there’s a conflict of opinions.
We are social creatures who desire validation. We feel good when others share our belief system. But we feel dejected when others do not value our inputs, crush our ideas, or ignore what we have to...
We view the world and the people in it from a specific paradigm.
How we relate to someone is driven by our personality, expectations, background, and experience. Why we find someone difficult is then a very personal affair.
T - Tagging. We are quick to label others as needy, manipulative, fake, arrogant, but explain away our own selfish acts and believe we are better than others.
R - Righteous. When we find someone difficult, we start believing in the righteousness of how we feel, what we want, and why the other person deserves to be treated in a certain way. We reject them as a person, as well as their ideas.
I - Intention. Once we know we are right, it's easy to assume they act out of bad intent.
C - Confirmation. Once we think someone is difficult, every interaction serves as a validation of our beliefs. We will reject the evidence that contradicts our beliefs and seek information that strengthens our views.
K - Keenness to fix others. Without changing our own behavior, we assume the other person is at fault and then desire to fix them.