I have bad relationships with my colleagues. What do I do?

Work is a very important part of life for any adult person. We spend a lot of time there. And if all these hours are spent in an unfriendly and toxic environment, this is not good. In this case, there is a much greater risk of burnouts, psychosomatic illnesses, or simply a chronic bad mood. 

We, humans, are social creatures. Therefore, our satisfaction with our jobs depends not only on a convenient schedule, good salary, and benefits but also on the quality of relationships with people who surround us, our colleagues.

Assume that you notice that you don’t enjoy your work relationships and they could be improved. Let’s figure out what could be the cause.

First of all, try to determine: what exactly don’t you like? Perhaps, you expect that your colleagues will be your close friends who will invite you home for dinner and accompany you to the movies? If you have unreasonably high expectations, then inevitably you will be disappointed with the communication that doesn’t match your fantasies.

But let’s assume that you are not trying to build friendships in an environment that is not suitable for that, but you just want fair collaborative relationships and you are not able to get them.

Let’s figure out how you should behave at work to avoid being sidelined:

• You need to communicate with your coworkers but not overload your conversations with personal information. It may happen that a colleague will become your close friend. But this is an exception, rather than a rule. To have this as a goal is unreasonable.
• Provide help when asked, but do not try to please them in every aspect or allow them to take advantage of you.
• Attend common events (morale events, holiday parties, etc.). It is at these events that coworkers establish good nonformal relationships.
• Take into account the individual traits of people with whom you work. Do not assume that “one size fits all”. 
• Give sincere compliments and praise (in small amounts!) and be attentive to other people.
• Respect other people’s opinions – they are entitled to have them as much as you do.
• Disagree, but in such a manner so that not to spoil the relationships or have a falling out. 

Now, you can evaluate whether you behave correctly at work. If you have doubts – now you know what you can try to change or improve.

But what if you are taking all these steps, but you still don’t have the desired outcome? Sometimes, the reasons are not so obvious. In this case, we recommend that you take our course “Connect”. It will help you to learn to build comfortable communication with different people, even if this always has been your weakness.