The act of going together, and being vulnerable together, builds trust. And trust, as we have talked about before – is the fundamental component of an effective team. Vulnerability is key here; the willingness to show a more real, authentic, honest side of yourself.
It’s tempting to want to save space with an open plan office. There’s also something egalitarian around everyone having the same space. But this may be one of the areas where it is really worth doing the research before hand, as if doesn’t work, it could be a costly mistake.
When we communicate in real life, we can read the situation – and we (hopefully) adjust our approach according to the cues that we are picking up. If we see that the other person is getting flustered or annoyed by what we’re saying, we might choose to take another tack. Or perhaps pursue it again another day.
The key is really to dig deeper. What are you really worried about? Is it how the other person will react? Is it that you don’t know what to say or how to say it, and you’re worried it might be clumsy?
And the good news, is that it doesn’t need to be about siting cross legged and humming “ommm”. Both meditation and mindfulness are now packaged in many different ways. Without doubt, there will be a style and approach that suits you and your lifestyle.
It’s interesting what the HBR article says around why people don’t take the time to do this..The usual excuse is a lack of time, but often it’s because we don’t want to see what is already there. The reality is that it is rare that anyone else is going to do this for you. Definitely a case of what you put in you get out.
What I love about an approach like Dr Bradberry has suggested is that if you know that conflict isn’t really your thing – you can try some of these out. You can practise. Almost always that will be better than remaining passively silent or losing it to aggression.
Ask someone who doesn’t know the team or the workplace to do a walk through. Ask them to observe what they saw about the environment the way that people interacted with each other, what the general ‘feel’ was.
If you don’t want that sort of behaviour to be part of your culture – ultimately – you need to make a decision to do something about it. It’s unlikely the asshole is going to come to that conclusion of their own volition and just suddenly change.
Cultural fit (or lack thereof) is one of the key reasons that employees don’t work out. So it makes sense that when you’re recruiting you’re conscious of this.
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