3 things we can do instead of complaining

In everyone of us there is a little complainer. 

Every now and then we find ourselves complaining about different things in our lives. We complain about all kind of things like weather, politicians, our financial situation, partners, our managers, colleagues, jobs, neighbours and the list can go on.

What is all the complaining for? 

Maybe for attention, sympathy or validation. Maybe because it's easier to complain than to find a solution, maybe to avoid responsibility or just because we might think it's a good conversation starter. 

Since we spend so much time at work, this is also most of the time a great source of reasons for complaining: colleagues, management, offices, policies, AC, equipment, coffee, Mondays, working hours, parking places, cleaning person and about so many other things. Whatever the reasons are, if we do it too often we will not even realize that it has become part of our attitude. It has become a habit and we have become complainers. 

Complainers usually transmit negative feelings, they are pesimistic and they are not open to think about solutions. If in the private life we can choose the persons we spend time with, at the workplace we can't always do this.  

Since it doesn't make  much sense to try and change the people around us, here is what we can do so that we don't end up being a complainer.  

Generally there are three healty things we can do about unpleasant situations: 

• Change the situation. We do something right now or make a plan that will help us change the situation and make it better in the future,
• Totally accept the situation. We take the things as they are and we will not have negative thoughts or complain about it.
• Leave the situation. We consciously decide to move on and leave behind  the things, environment or people related to the bad experience.                                                                                            (Eckhart Tolle, The power of now)

If we find ourselves in a situation we don't like, the worst thing we can do to ourselves and to the people around us is to stay in the same situation and complain.

Just complaining will not bring anything good.

Trust at workplace – from words to actions

Trust is one of the most important elements in building relationships both at work and in private life. It is one of the essential parts in managing people and building high-performance teams and organizations.

Trust is built on actions not on words. Many leaders see trust as one of the core values of the organization that need to be communicated to employees and to the public. However, communicating alone is not sufficient to change how people behave and what they believe. Trust should be seen as an operational necessity. Without it the members of the team will not feel safe enough to open up, to admit when they have made a mistake, to take risks and to collaborate with each other. Building and maintaining a work environment where trust is not just a declared value, is one of the keys to have a functional and productive team.

When looking at the organization form hierarchical point of view, the top management should be the source of inspiration for all employees when it comes to organizational values. Then, through departmental and team managers the values should be transmitted and adopted from all employees. How can managers build and maintain trust in their team? What are the behaviors and actions that help can built at the workplace?

Leading by example

Leaders need to be a living example of the values of the organization and show people that they trust others. Team members are always watching and learning from their managers. Every employee wants to trust and believe in their managers. They want see that their managers are really looking out for their best interests and that they can rely on them when it comes to work related situations. 

Consistency between words and actions

Doing what we say we will do is one of the basic conditions when it comes to gain other’s trust. People need to know that they can rely on us and that things agreed it will also be done. Without this the interactions will be superficial and unproductive. There are of course situations when because of different factors we will not be able to deliver what we initially said. When this happens it is essential to be open and communicate the obstacles as soon as possible, ask for help if necessary and/or communicate what we intend to do.

Ownership of mistakes

Working together often brings mistakes. Blaming others it might seem the easiest way, however when everyone starts pointing fingers, an unpleasant atmosphere will be developed. What can be done instead is to encourage the team to think about the mistake in a constructive way: find the best solution, think about ways to avoid that in the future and learn from the mistakes.

Trust is the foundation of all solid and healthy relationships and while it can take a long time to build, at the same time can be destroyed by a single action or misconception.

Can trust be rebuilt after it has been betrayed? What does it take for that to happen? People and situations are so different and is almost impossible to generalize and give a clear answer. What it can be done is trying to build and maintain trust and when we fail in doing that, to do our best in rebuilding trust. Only this way we will find the answer to the two questions from above. 

  

Workplace conflicts

Conflicts are never pleasant and almost everybody will say that they don’t want to be involved in one. However, conflicts appear quite often at the workplace due to the fact that this is a place where people with different education, professional and cultural background are put together to work and therefore to interact both at professional and personal level.

Interpersonal conflicts are caused generally by office politics, gossip, rumours as well as by language and personality styles clashes. Another source of workplace conflict can be different the various ideas about personal success. The strong drive for work related achievement in some employees can clash with co-workers who do not emphasize work-related success in their lives.

Organizational conflicts are frequently related to the hierarchy and to the inability to resolve conflicting interests. Resource allocation, the distribution of duties, workload and benefits, different levels of tolerance for risk taking and different views on accountability are just some of the sources of organizational conflicts.

For both interpersonal and organizational conflicts one of the things that generates or amplifies them is assuming. “Never assume, always double check” is one of the most valuable lessons I have learned until now in the different work environments I have been.

So many times we make mistakes just because we assume things. Why do we tend to make assumptions instead of verifying things? Here are some of the most frequent situations:

We consider that the other person thinks like us.  In our head what we think is so logical that we automatically believe that this is what is logical for everybody. This is most of the times wrong. We have different understanding of things and facts, different background, different opinions, we are so different one from another that the chances for two people to think exactly the same about a situation are extremely low.

We misinterpret the messages from others. Not everyone is paying very much attention to the way they say things verbally or in written and sometimes messages that have no harmful meaning are interpreted as aggressive or offensive. Assuming that the person who sends us the message has something against us, without clarifying the situation can only generate conflicts.

We think we know so well a certain issue and we don’t need any further information. Therefore, we tend to assume the things that we are actually not sure about. 

We think someone will do something because we are convinced that is their responsibility. This happens quite often in teams working for a project where the responsibilities are not clear. Everybody assumes that someone else will do a certain thing and in the end nobody does it.

Staying away from conflicts at work it doesn’t mean agreeing with everyone and everything. What we can do instead is to acknowledge the situations that might generate a conflict and react in a professional and constructive way. Not making assumptions and not taking things personal are from my point of view, some of the golden rules when it comes to workplace relations. 

Are your emails effective?

One of the first lessons I started learning at my first job where I also had my own email address was how to communicate in written. 
I was not sure about the way I was expressing things, if I was polite enough, if my message was clear and complete. Therefore I have sent my first important emails only after they have been checked by my manager.  Due to the fact that I was responsible for the internal communication procedures of the company, I have got deeper and deeper into the subject communication at the work place.

Did you ever write an email asking for something and receiving something else? Or did you ever write an email informing about something and then receiving a whole bunch of questions on that subject? Did you have to come back with a second email with information you didn't put in your initial email? Were your emails sometimes misunderstood or ignored?

If yes, you should know that most probably it was your fault even if what we tend to do in this kind of situations is to blame the receiver of our message. 

“How could he not understand that?”, “Why do they ask this basic things?”, “Why don’t they answer to my email in time? ”, “Why did she replied so aggressive to my email? ”

All these questions should be replaced with questions like: 
“Was my mail clear enough?”, 
“Did I give all necessary details?”, 
“Did I write to the right person?”, 
“Did I mention the deadline for answering or acting in certain way?”, 
“Was my message professional?”

Every time we don’t get what we want through an email we should read it again and try to put ourselves in the shoes of the reader. If that is too hard, what works most of the time is to ask a colleague to read our message and give us feedback. I find this method useful especially when there is a risk of being involved in a conflict. Now and then we might receive emails on an aggressive tone or in which we are accused of different things. Our first natural instinct tells us to defend ourselves and reply on the same tone. However this will only bring us in a stressful situation and damage the relations with our colleagues. It might be a better idea to wait a while before answering.

What I have learned in time and what works for me is to write my first answer as it comes on the moment, save it as a draft and continue working on other things. After at least one hour I go back to the draft, I read it carefully and try to adjust it so that it’s not aggressive and that will express an objective point of view and a possible solution if that’s the case.

The premises of a team should be trust and confidence that everyone works towards reaching a common goal. Having this in mind it will be easier to presume the good intentions of our colleagues no matter the way we perceive their messages. It could very well happen that their intentions are not aggressive at all and that they just didn't pay attention at the way they expressed what they wanted.