Play Well With Others: Develop Effective Work Relationships

Face-to-face or person-to-person interpersonal communication is the most frequent communication method most people use at work. Additionally, people communicate via email, newsletters, phone messages, presentations and meetings. Poor communication is the most frequently cited problem in organizations.

You can submarine your career and work relationships by the actions you take and the behaviors you exhibit at work. No matter your education, your experience, or your title, if you can't play well with others, you will never accomplish your work mission.

Effective work relationships form the cornerstone for success and satisfaction with your job and your career. How important are effective work relationships? Effective work relationships form the basis for promotion, pay increases, goal accomplishment, and job satisfaction.

The Gallup organization studied indicators of work satisfaction. They found that whether you have a best friend at work was one of the twelve key questions that predicted job satisfaction.

A supervisor in a several hundred person company quickly earned a reputation for not playing well with others. He collected data and used the data to find fault, place blame, and make other employees look bad. He enjoyed identifying problems but rarely suggested solutions.

He bugged his supervisor weekly for a bigger title and more money so he could tell other employees what to do. When he announced he was job hunting, not a single employee suggested that the company take action to convince him to stay. He had burned his bridges.

These are the top seven ways you can play well with others at work. They form the basis for effective work relationships. These are the actions you want to take to create a positive, empowering, motivational work environment for people.

• (1) __________ Some employees spend an inordinate amount of time identifying problems. Honestly? That's the easy part. Thoughtful solutions are the challenge that will earn respect and admiration from coworkers and bosses.

• (2) __________ You alienate coworkers, supervisors, and reporting staff. Yes, you may need to identify who was involved in a problem. You may even ask the question: what about the work system caused the employee to fail? But, not my fault and publicly identifying and blaming others for failures will earn enemies. These enemies will, in turn, help you to fail. You do need allies at work.

• (3) __________ If you talk down to another employee, use sarcasm, or sound nasty, the other employee hears you. We are all radar machines that constantly scope out our environment. In one organization a high level manager said to me, "I know you don't think I should scream at my employees. But, sometimes, they make me so mad. When is it appropriate for me to scream at the employees?" Answer? Never, of course, if respect for people is a hallmark of your organization.

• (4) __________ If the first time a coworker hears about a problem is in a staff meeting or from an email sent to his supervisor, you have blindsided the coworker. Always discuss problems, first, with the people directly involved who "own" the work system. Also called ambushing your coworkers, you will never build effective work alliances unless your coworkers trust you. And, without alliances, you never accomplish the most important goals.

• (5) __________ In an organization, work is interconnected. If you fail to meet deadlines and commitments, you affect the work of other employees. Always keep commitments, and if you can't, make sure all affected employees know what happened. Provide a new due date and make every possible effort to honor the new deadline.

• (6) __________ How often do you accomplish a goal or complete a project with no help from others? If you are a manager, how many of the great ideas you promote were contributed by staff members? Take the time, and expend the energy, to thank, reward, recognize and specify contributions of the people who help you succeed. This is a no-fail approach to building effective work relationships.

• (7) __________ Every employee in your organization has talents, skills, and experience. If you can help fellow employees harness their best abilities, you benefit the organization immeasurably. The growth of individual employees benefits the whole. Compliment, recognize, praise, and notice contributions. You don't have to be a manager to help create a positive, motivating environment for employees. In this environment, employees do find and contribute their greatness.

If you regularly carry out these seven actions, you will play well with others and develop effective work relationships. Coworkers will value you as a colleague. Bosses will believe you play on the right team. You'll accomplish your work goals, and you may even experience fun, recognition, and personal motivation. Work can't get any better than that.

Ex. 4. Look through the text once again and find as many “Noun+Noun” phrases as possible. Then, paraphrase each of them using a suitable preposition or a linking phrase. Below are some examples of such transformations.

Model: work relationships – relationships at work.

More examples:

1. steam consumption = the consumption of steam

2. metal tubes = tubes made of metal

3. heat treatment = treatment with or by heat

4. steam jackets = jackets containing steam

5. cooling towers = towers for the purpose of cooling

6. butt weld = weld of the type called “butt”

7. friction losses = losses caused by friction

Ex. 5. VOCABULARY. In the text above, find the equivalents to the following words and phrases. (The sequence corresponds to their occurrence in the text.)

1. межличностное общение

2. частый

3. плохой, некачественный

4. «потопить», разрушить

5. демонстрировать

6. выполнить

7. краеугольный камень

8. увеличение зарплаты

9. предсказывать

10. придираться

11. сваливать вину

12. выявлять проблему

13. предлагать решения

14. прослушивать, устанавливать скрытое наблюдение

15. чрезмерный

16. трудная задача

17. восхищение

18. коллега

19. отчуждать

20. неудача, провал

21. в свою очередь

22. союзник

23. иметь значение

24. говорить свысока, пренебрежительно

25. подходящий, уместный

26. отличительная черта

27. нанести неожиданный удар

28. устраивать засаду

29. союз

30. взаимосвязанный

31. успеть в срок

32. достижение

33. вклад

34. сотрудник

35. тратить, расходовать

36. вознаграждать

37. признавать

38. уточнять, специально упоминать

39. преуспеть

40. беспроигрышный подход

41. использовать, делать полезным

42. неизмеримо

43. хвалить

Ex. 6. From the Vocabulary List above, find synonyms to the following items.

1. exploit

2. spend

3. forecast

4. bad

5. union

6. honour

7. manage

8. difficult task

9. achievement

10. criticize

11. show

12. recognize

13. common

14. excessive

15. typical feature

16. colleague

Ex. 7. Match words from Column A to the words from Column B in order to form phrases. Translate the resulting phrases into Russian. Make up three sentences with these phrases.

Column A	Column B
find in pay place meet suggest interpersonal	solutions increase deadlines communication turn blame fault

Ex. 8. Insert appropriate items from the box into the following sentences. Sometimes you will have to change the form of the word.

a) meet deadlines	h) cornerstone
b) rewarding	i) talk down
c) expend	j) contribution
d) coworker	k) find fault
e) succeed	l) frequent
f) accomplishment	m) failure
g) recognize	n) challenge

1. Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize for his __________ to Quantum Theory.

2. Smart managers know the importance of __________ good work and inspiring even better efforts.

3. The company is ready to meet the __________ of entering the foreign market.

4. Scientists claim they have __________ in finding a cure for cancer.

5. The theory of plate tectonics is commonly regarded as one of the __________ of modern geophysics.

6. It is time to __________ that San Francisco no longer is the center of the Bay Area.

7. However, students on the course felt that the professor__________ __________ to them as though they were children.

8. The manual explains what to do if a __________ at the factory is injured and in need of medical attention.

9. As the treatment began to take effect, her headaches became less __________.

10. Most employees of the company work at least 40 hours a week and may work much longer on occasion to __________ project __________.

11. Scoring twice was a major __________ for a player who had been injured so recently.

12. He could always __________ __________ with something, either in my writing or in my personality.

13. In practice, of course, many cases fall between complete success and complete__________.

14. Manufacturers have __________ a lot of time and effort trying to improve computer security.

Ex. 9. Word-formation. Fill in the following table based on the words from the text. Remember to check, if the negative prefixes can be used!

NOUN	VERB	ADJECTIVE
communication
	exhibit	-
	accomplish
	predict	1) 2)
challenge
admiration
contribution
	expend
	reward
	recognize	1) 2)
	specify
	succeed

Ex. 10. Translate the following sentences into English, using vocabulary from the text. (The items are underlined.)

2. Любая команда – это союз, где все элементы взаимосвязаны.

3. В межличностном общении важно уметь выбрать подходящий тон разговора, иначе вы будете отчуждать людей от себя.

4. Стоит потратить время и найти причину нашего провала, иначе мы никогда не преуспеем в нашей работе.

5. Плохое качество работы на начальном этапе может, в свою очередь, разрушить весь проект.

6. Очень трудно успеть в срок, если у вас чрезмерный объем работы.

7. Мой коллега всегда может точно выявить проблему, но редко предлагает решения.

8. Идеальный начальник никогда не будет говорить свысока со своими сотрудниками.

9. Вы должны иногда хвалить своих коллег не только за их профессиональные достижения, но и за их личные качества.

10. Отличительная черта нашей компании – внимание к потребностям общества.

11. Возраст сотрудника не имеет значения, если он может выполнить сложные задачи.

12. Беспроигрышный подход в командной работе – видеть в коллегах союзников, а не соперников.

13. Больше всего я не люблю, когда люди наносят неожиданный удар, сваливая вину на других.

14. Не могли бы вы уточнить, когда произойдет увеличение зарплаты, которое предсказывали еще два года назад?

15. Частые конфликты в нашем коллективе связаны с тем, что некоторые сотрудники постоянно придираются к коллегам.

16. На работе мне часто приходится сталкиваться с трудными задачами, но я рассматриваю их как возможность продемонстрировать свои навыки.

Ex. 11. Study the word combinations with the word “meeting”, then replace the underlined expressions in the text below with appropriate forms of the verbs from the box. In some cases, more than one verb is possible.

arrange set up fix	a meeting	organize a meeting
bring forward		make a meeting earlier than originally decided
put back postpone		making a meeting later than originally planned
cancel		not have a meeting after all
run chair		be in charge of a meeting
attend		go to a meeting
miss		not go to a meeting

A meeting of the Tennis Club Committee was (1) organized for 1 March, but not everyone could (2) go to it, so it was (3) delayed until March 31. One committee member said that this was too late, so eventually we (4) moved it to March 15. The chairperson (5) was in charge of it very efficiently, and we decided on some new membership rules. Only one committee member (6) did not go to the meeting.

Ex. 12. Below are some types of meetings. Decide at which type of meeting A-I you would be most likely to hear each of the phrases (1-9).