5 Keys to Establishing Meaningful and Fruitful Connections in the Workplace
This article comes from Entrepreneur.
5 Keys to Establishing Meaningful and Fruitful Connections in the Workplace
There are several keys to being successful in the business world, with the most important being the establishment of trusted and dependable relationships.
1. Know thyself.
To create and develop the relationships we crave to secure in the workplace we need to know how to work with and manage our own emotions. We must take time to analyze ourselves and identify the vulnerabilities and insecurities that may be holding us back.
Understanding and identifying these places in our own personalities is key to understanding what we need to change and work on to connect with others better. Personality is everything in business. If we have a cold, insensitive personality we may feel misunderstood, but we have no recourse if the people we work with or who work under us cannot stand us. We must be able to look in the mirror at the relationship skills which work for us and which don’t, and work hard to soften the edges of our personality where we run into conflict.
2. Mindfulness
Mindfulness essentially means awareness. If we are not aware of ourselves and the impact we have on others it will be difficult for us to establish the meaningful and supportive network we desire to create.
Most people are so self-focused in business they forget to think about how the way they operate may be holding them back from being even more successful. To be mindful we need to observe how others respond to us, especially in the face of conflict. What we have to realize is that even the most rational people when in conflict lose their capacity to think straight. In those moments we must maintain our composure. The best way to do this is listening. When we’re listening our mouth isn’t speaking. Listening allows us to think and to find solutions. Listening allows us to take our time because listening is about the other. It puts us in a proactive rather than a reactive state of mind.
3. Understanding emotion
To effectively manage our emotions it takes self-examination. Emotions follow a logical pattern if we know how to look at them. Emotions rise and emotions fall. When we’re hijacked by a negative emotion we want to refrain from acting out at the peak of the emotional wave. This takes self-restraint. We must allow ourselves to come down from this reactive place so we can take some time to digest what is going on before we respond.
When we’re dealing with the intensity of a positive emotion we do not want to make irrational decisions at the peak of this wave either, just because we’re feeling great. Emotional management and establishing connections means we practice the art of looking beyond the intensity of the moment to the bigger picture and how that bigger picture impacts everyone, not just how it impacts us individually.
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