It is more important to keep your peer happy than your boss

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Keeping your colleague happy is very important because you don’t want to fail in your job, you do not like having a stressful environment at office, and for sure you would not want to spend your time thinking what the next door guy is cooking up against you. Your manager has an obligation to be nice with you, to accommodate you and protect you but your colleague does not have any obligation what so ever. Hence it is extremely crucial to have good relations with your colleagues for positive reasons like below

·         To succeed : No matter how good you are , you still need a lot of support from your peers, it could be just a positive word about work to standing by you to support in your work.

·         To learn & grow: Most of the learning comes from colleagues by seeing them do things we will learn what not to do. We will acquire new skills with the help of them , good relationships lasts beyond the current organization – they will take you where they go or can refer you in a good place when you are looking out for change

·         To have a companion: We may be the strongest person on earth but – we still need someone to talk, we need a shoulder to lean on  a difficult day – to share things which we can’t share with our boss.

Am I saying you should keep pleasing everyone around?

No, one does not need to try hard to keep everybody happy; you don’t need to be nice all the time after all that is not the purpose why we are working.it is advisable to invest enough time to understand our colleagues well and operate. The ones who are difficult to manage or create obstacles on your way needs to be handled in a different  manner – flag it up to your superiors proactively if you see a potential threat, trouble on your way. Going back to the point of how we can maintain good relations without being submissive or trying to please everyone all the time. The naked fact we should remember here is our colleague also needs good relations with us; he/she also needs a friend at work. Hence we are playing on an equal field.

There are 2 ways of building good relations at work.

Avoid clashes: First let us think why clashes take place? Very few times we end up having a confrontation with a colleague because we are fighting for credit over one thing, or we may be competing for one promotion. But most of the times it is because of the reason that we don’t understand each other’s requirements well. “Transactional analysis” helps a lot to manage this particular problem. Look at the below image if anyone of them does not match we end up disliking our colleague.

Someone wants to be regarded as an intellect, other might like to be seen as a cool dude once we understand this part it becomes easy to sail through. Based on this we can build our conversations and rest all will fall in place slowly.

Understand who you are dealing with?

Everyone is not the same person, there are few people we need to be really careful of, and there are other we can just get along really well. I am classifying them to the below categories there could be more – this is purely based on my encounters and experiences so far.

Snakes: Very dangerous people, by nature manipulative, they do not need a real cause to fight, on a slight indication of danger, it could be completely wrong indication also – they will bite you. One should be sharp enough to identify this kind of colleagues early on make sure you have “stick” that they are sacred of – it may be your good relationship with your manager, or your ability of influencing bigger people in the organization – make sure they are aware of your influence so that they are careful and will think before targeting you. The below are must when dealing with people like this, I have seen this type in my career so far.

·         Maintain hello– how are you? Relationship – do not go any further, if you need to work with them closely, make sure a third person is involved and is aware of what is happening.

•         Never share your personal interests, opinions on others
•         Never talk about your failures and your weakness
•         Talk about your success if possible tell how you taught a lesson to a cunning fellow before

Foxes: Have all the abilities, smart, can work on their own that is the reason other will get attracted towards them initially only to the disappointment of knowing they are really dangerous and contagious. – Cribs all the time. Brags about themselves ever as if they are bearing planet earth on their shoulders. Always look for an opportunity to grab credit from others. Has foul mouth about anyone – can give any information about all most everyone but don’t fall pray – if you are getting along well closely with them – they might be telling others (Including your manager) that he/she guiding you all through. Not good for your career and life, at the same time you cannot afford to have him as an enemy unless you yourself is one like him, or a Tiger/Lion.

•          Massage his/her ego and giggle within yourself
•         Feed him/her with non-controversial information just have the relation going on
•         And finally do not try to do anything except the above J

Birds: Most of the people will fall into this group, they are not happy neither unhappy. Minds there work and go home. They don’t fail in their job and will not exceed exceptionally also. Very good people to trust and go along with – that is there maximum expectation too. They will stop talking to you the moment they realize that they are not important for you. But will not cause any harm. Good to have a colleague like this – you can go on on a party, movie and enjoy – they will not talk about work too much. But also remember they are not powerful people – will be of no help if you want to climb up the ladder.

Lions: Ambitious, hardworking people, very powerful – they know where their prey is, do not harm people unnecessarily but are capable of doing so if you scratch them on the wrong side. Very open in their agenda; you will know when they are hitting you. Good to be friends with them as long as you treat them like lions – massage there ego, talk hunting, exhibit ambitions. If not they will treat you like an insect. Never fight them until you are a lion yourself and also please be cautioned if you are a bird or if whole team is filled with birds you might mistake a fox for a lion.

Sages : Know it all people – they are really knowledgeable, but often get in to the filed they are not quite sure of too. Does not harm anybody – not interested in completion or in day to day politics. If your manager is also this type – he/she can be Lion too. So not to fight with. Make most of their presence, ask for a suggestion they will be over critical sometimes but it does help. If you do not ask for their opinion they will try to grill you in open forums. Very easy to manage them by just asking for their advice on things you are doing.