Frankly Speaking…
“Working Relationships”
By Bob Franklin
Fundamental to having a proactive work environment, is establishing and maintaining working relationships. Working relationships, from time to time, can experience problems as in other types of relationships. When a relationship problem develops, let’s say, between a subordinate and a supervisor, the first step to a solution is talking about it—getting the issues out into the open.
A successful process often employed to accomplish this is to build mutual understanding and define your overall objective (goal). Mutual understanding means, often there are at least two sides to every relationship gone bad. Generally speaking, there is usually sufficient blame that can be equally distributed. The objective or goal is ideally to create a working relationship in which you can talk honestly with one another and work together. The goal should not be to become best friends, but rather to acknowledge problems and agree to work toward communicating in a productive manner. Acceptance of this fact is a huge step in the right direction in resolving the problem.
Disagreement is healthy and often lead to improvements, unless the individuals involved let the matter get out of hand. So when you are confronted with a deteriorating work relationship, remember reasonable people may disagree, but that should not stop the dialogue. Get it out into the open. Let’s talk about it!
