Sheena Khan
Head - Environment and Culture Programs at Expo City Dubai
Sheena is a sustainability leader with over 17 years of professional experience, specialized in leading on Biodiversity, Corporate Sustainability and Environmental Education programs....
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- Sustainability Leadership: Empower teams to drive eco-initiatives
- Biodiversity Management: Strategies for enhancing urban ecosystems
- Environmental Education Programs: Engaging communities in sustainability literacy
- Corporate Sustainability Strategies: Integrating sustainable practices into business
- Nature Therapy Practices: Promoting wellbeing through biophilic design.
Meet the mentor
Tricky Workplace Situation Handled
- We can take a step back to establish common agreement and consensus. Often times the feeling of not 'communicating well' with another person is based on different assumptions and preconceived notions of where the other person is coming from.
- The enemy is just another person hook on to the one think you like about them turn them around separate the person from the work personality
- I would rise above my personal feelings towards them and work towards our common, defined goal.
- Stories that I tell myself about them.
- We have a colleague who regularly asks for help which is not a problem at all. The problem is that he doesn't even try to solve the issues before he asks for help. When help is given, he does not respect the time nor the other responsibilities that the helper has on their plate and he expects a lot. A few months ago, I changed my approach. Instead of doing the work for him, or explaining how to do it, I ask him critical thinking questions to get him to consider how he can solve it himself. Over time, his disruptive behavior is becoming less and less as he is learning how to solve the issues on his own.
- I have a fairly direct way of communicating, so I like to ask the person who I see is exhibiting disruptive behavior if we can grab a coffee or lunch and I talk to them about it through storytelling. I talk about a time when I exhibited similar behaviors and the work that I have done to overcome it. Thus, my solution to elimination isn't one size fits all. It's a non threatening approach to calling the person out on their behaviour, making them feel that it's ok that it has/is happening because others have done the same, but most importantly offers them suggestions for how to improve.
- The first step here would be to adjust the sales targets so that it isn't a win-loose structure. That is, if one person makes a sale than the other person does not. There should be financially rewarded team sales targets which makes it such that if you don't help your team members succeed, your own individual sales targets can't be met. Once those are transparently set, the next step is to rebuild the trust in the department. This can be done through classic team building and motivational activities, but also must be supplemented with customer service standards based training wherein appropriate (and inappropriate) behavior are clearly identified.
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- Customers can always sense the energy of a commercial environment. They are more relaxed and at ease in an environment where it is clear that colleagues like and support one another. I once purchased a car from a sales person who was clearly rewarded financially from her sales target, but on the day of the actual sale transaction (it took some time for me to make up my mind) she was not in the show room. Her colleague did all of the paperwork lovingly and willingly for her and gave her full credit. I still remember that feeling, because it automatically made me feel happy about my purchase and the brand. Years later when I started looking for a car again, I went back to that same dealership because I liked the vibe of it so much.
- All of these activities get team members used to relying on one another to contribute equally to achieve team goals. They all require trust as well as personal accountability. The idea is practice makes perfect. So although they might seem like silly activities, I guarantee you once they go back to the office it will be easier to continue to work collaboratively now that their relationships have been strengthened and they got used to the great feeling of working hard as a team to achieve identifiable goals.
- Relationship building is not systematically promoted at my company. Rather, the company has a lot of optional employee engagement options (such as winter wonderland fair, and world environment day activities) but not a lot of people participate in them and most teams aren't expected to join. Interestingly, my boss always insists that we go to these optional events as a team. Even if we don't want to or we are super busy. Every single time without fail we end up having a great time and comeback to the office with photos, stories and more history that is shared with one another as team members.
- Asking questions about process and the normal way of doing things, especially when new to an organization or team. When I first joined my team, I asked about the working hours because I noticed that some came and went at different times. I wanted to understand what the norm was so that I could follow suit. Listening and observing how work gets done, and adapting your own personal style to follow suit. When I first started in my role, I noticed the shaking hands was very rare for women (religious and culturally) so instead whenever I greet someone, I put my hand on my heart, even though I don't mind shaking hands with men personally. It is always well received.
- Intercultural fluency allows you to join teams in various organizations around the world and be a valued, contributing member. In addition to making your resume more attractive and making you more employable, it also ensures that you will enjoy your work more. No one wants to feel like they don't fit in so if you can adapt yourself to work well with people from all different backgrounds and organizational cultures, it will make your work life much more enjoyable.
- I once worked on a team where my Lebanese colleague would tip his head upwards when he meant to say 'no' and my Philipino colleague would tip her head upwards when she meant to say 'yes'. Since it was a fast paced environment they often used body language to communicate with one another, even though I preferred using words to answer. After a while I felt very frustrated because that I was doing what they said but they were getting frustrated with me for not following instructions carefully. Only after a lot of honest discussion did we realize that I thought the head tipping for both of them meant yes, whereas they clearly understood what the other person meant. After a good laugh at ourselves, we agreed to use the words 'yes/no' to communicate within our team since it was just too confusing to interpret the instructions when in a rush.
- I have experienced a scenario where the KPI (Key performance Indicators) of sales teams are based on booked revenue from a narrow target audience, whereby marketing teams are rewarded for reach of their communications or campaigns to a wider audience of the general public. At the time, the departments were working in silos, so the communications messaging and spend of the marketing team was not actually setting up the sales teams to close deals from the specific audience. When the teams circled back to establish the overlap in their KPI's, a narrowed down customer focus with tailored messaging resulted in a successful campaign, sales wise.
- In a previous role, our organization designed buyer personas where all the different functions came together and shared what they knew about the broad target audiences based on the expertise on how they viewed them. It was a retail shop so the sales team wanted to segment by time of day that they shopped and what type of items they wanted to purchase, the marketing team looked more at lifestyle and drivers for visiting the store. I worked in the sustainability team so ensured we included what type of sustainable attributes were important (e.g. organic versus zero waste). All together we came up with much more nuanced personas than if we worked separately.
- We recently went through a company wide reorganization, which brought sales, marketing and communications under a common leadership. It has only been about a month, but already, we are seeing much better alignment because of an improved communication flow and
- They can provide training in intercultural fluency. One of the best sessions I had in the orientation on my first day at work in my company here in the UAE was from an Emirati woman sharing how to act and behave, but done through storytelling, through pictures and stories of her life. It was brilliantly done and we didn't feel that we were being told 'what to do'.
- Currently I would say that I'm an 8. I tick all the boxes of being intercultural. I was born and raised in a country to which my parents were immigrants, then I moved back to their original country to go to school, I moved to the current country I live in as an expat, met and married my husband who is from a different country/culture and I have two bi-lingual kids with him. I work for a mega event so my colleagues are from all over the world. However, I only rate myself as an 8 because I think when it comes to cultures, there is always more to learn about the best way to communicate, listen and understand.
- I really enjoy saying to people from different cultures: I don't know much about your country/your culture and I would love to learn more. Would you share some insights with me? Sometimes even sharing an anecdote about something you have learned, or already know about their country/culture is a great way to break the ice as long as you frame it in the context that they can correct you if you are not fully correct. I have found that sharing food has been a wonderful way to break down cultural barriers. Every single country and culture in the world loves food, and it's a great way to learn more/share stories. When it comes to greetings, first impressions can be lasting. So I always like to ask about what the best way to greet someone would be. For example, is it better to extend my hand for a handshake or place it on my heart and say hello? The answers to these can be found on the internet if you don't have someone directly whom you can ask.
- I had an Arabic speaking client on the phone recently and she wanted to speak with someone who was fluent in Arabic. Unfortunately, I was the only one in the office at the time and I don't speak Arabic. She was trying to ask me questions about how membership works but I couldn't understand what she was asking since her questions were more like statements and very indirect.
- I think she felt very self-conscious because she asked for an Arabic speaker since she was clearly shy about speaking English.
- I felt bad about not being able to better help her by providing her an Arabic speaker and not wanting to make her feel self conscious, but also frustrated because I couldn't tell if she wanted me to confirm her statements or if she was asking me questions.
- Some companies are lucky enough to have a virtual team that they can utilize for assistance with simultaneous translation. In the past I have taken the contact information of the person (after confirming which language they prefer to communicate in), waited until another team member who spoke that language started their shift, and had them call back or email the person.
- Repeat back to the customer what you think they are asking in short sentences. Ask them to confirm if what you are saying is correct. By keeping the sentences short, you can easier identify which part of the message you are misunderstanding.
- By not being open minded, you set yourself up to potentially miss out on great opportunities. As an example, my manager recently asked me to support another department in designing a alternative concept brief for a project that I had originally supported but had resulted in a mediocre outcome. I was so closed to the idea of supporting again that I initially resisted and made excuses for not being able to support. He eventually convinced me to try again, but to start from scratch. It ended up being a great concept idea that everyone contributed to and is now going to an agency for further development.
- My manager recently wanted to selected a research collaborator that we had used before so he was comfortable with. I disagreed because I thought we should give the opportunity to others to ensure diversity of whom our funding supports and also diversity project outcomes. I felt very frustrated, because it felt like my own personal values (inclusivity being a top value of mine) was being challenged. I had to take a step back and stop arguing the point from a personal perspective, but to see how I could best utilize both opinions for the best of the project and in respect of his previous experience with engaging too many stakeholders. In the end we agreed to explore 3 options, which was feasible to both our timelines and budget.
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- BUI is very conducive to conflict. If the department is not meeting its targets, employees will start to point fingers at one another for whose fault it is, which seems to be reinforced by the company also calling out mistakes.
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- Not having individual targets and not proactively managing employees throughout the year to ensure they are empowered and receiving the support to achieve their goals is setting the employees up for a negative feedback loop. Flipping it the other way, where small, incremental successes are rewarded, even by a 'good job' would create a positive cycle of performance at BUI.
- In my organization at the beginning of every year, we suggest our individual targets to our line manager based on the targets that have been set for the department by the company. Our targets are based on actual outcomes (50%) and the other 50% is based on our behaviors (which is set by the company's values). Then we each have to set a plan with our manager for how we intend to achieve our targets and the manager coaches us on what would be the best way to improve the plan. We have monthly catch-ups with our managers throughout the year to see if we're on target and we again are coached so that we can meet if not exceed our targets. All of these steps involved in clear goal setting and coaching set employees up for success .
- Yes, as previously mentioned, the goal setting process is very proactive and employees contribute to the process themselves, since their know their roles the best. The continuous feedback loop I described impacts my work positively because I can raise the red flag if I am not on target to meet a target. For example, last year I was supposed to appoint a supplier for a project by a certain deadline. A month early, I expressed to my manager that I was not going to meet the target and he stepped in to use his influence within the organization to speed things up. Because of that, I was able to achieve my end of year target which was the output of what the supplier was delivering. The targets set up the employees to succeed, as opposed to them being a tool for punishment.
- Regardless of how large a company is with progressive, global mindsets, the one to one, individual level service being offered in every branch still needs to be tailored to the local market with the needs of the local customer being put first. I worked at a Middle Eastern (Dubai) based branch of a French headquartered multi-national, and while we used the modules developed by headquarters, we adapted each and every one of them to our locally based clients (e.g. cultural sensitivities and accounted for regional biases)
- Shade's sales infrastructure was designed such that the online (global) shop did not compete with the local brick and mortar shop. Rather, the two seamlessly interfaced based on what was most convenient for the customer. Having a customer-centric approach to designing the system (and sales target!) ensured that Lily went through with her sale, instead of cancelling it when she learned that her online purchase wouldn't arrive before her travel date.
- Melinda must have felt betrayed. We see ourselves as defacto brand ambassadors for our favorite brands because we identify a part of ourselves with the brands. and when they let us down, we feel more than just disappointment, we feel a lack of trust since our loyalty has been betrayed.
- It depends on if this question is asking what can be done by Melinda or by the store. If it's Melinda and I was her, I would use social media channels to direct message the company and explain what happened and my disappointment. Using regular customer service numbers and generic help@xyz emails are usually monitored by people who are outsourced by the company. If I was the company, I would look at standardzing my customer service standards (values, behaviorus, approaches) and then implement systematic training across ALL stores to ensure uniformity.
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- Effective
- Ineffective
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- Train employees on soft skills and how to collaborate and effectively be part of a team (Norms for teams).
- I remember a time when I regularly had workplace conflict with a colleague. We had different job roles but were expected to collaborate on the delivery of educational events. My narrative of him was that he felt so threatened by me that he used all of his effort competing (not sharing valuable information, microaggressions, etc) so I started cutting him out of the work flow and figuring out how to do his expected job on the project by myself. I became the one competing, and it only harmed me and my projects because I didn't have his valuable input and I ended up being over-worked.
- I can't think of a single organization, regardless of sector or industry, that doesn't need to stay competitive. This competition is against other organizations, not among the organization's own employees. To encourage employees to work together to achieve common goals, KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) can be introduced to reward employees who work with others - and not against - to achieve the goals of the company.
- I would suggest to Melinda to use her proven track record of being able to connect with others internally. That is, to spend time reaching out to her colleagues and sharing with them how she's feeling and ask for their help. It sounds like success in this branch is based on collaboration. Accepting that you might need to up-skill to effectively achieve your job is hard to do, but once you recognize the weakness and are open to asking for help, you'll be surprised by how much others are willing to share - especially if they have a chance to talk about the keys to their own success.
- Our senior leaders take time out of their schedules to support those in other departments on projects and they praise employees lower down in the org structure who work cross functionally to support one another. We regularly have update meetings within our team and with the larger team that we sit for the purpose of open communication flow, wherein we talk about internal and external collaborations. In sessions identifying opportunities for partnerships identified.
- We can take time to think about the skill sand resources that potential partners have. I recently wrote a concept brief for a purpose-driven publication targeting the undeserved target audience of 13-16 year olds. In the wider team brainstorm meeting for the project, we systematically thought through all of the types of partners and what they could bring to the table, and what we could offer them. We identified a corporate partner who had a strong youth focused program and decided to approach them to see if they could support. Another department owned the relationship with that partner, so we reached out to them and asked them if they wanted to get involved in the publication. All of this was only possible because we all had enough time in our schedules to be able to support one another. If we were way over worked, it would be unlikely that anyone would be willing to support in this way.
- First, it's important to ask Reem how she is feeling and empathize with her so she doesn't get defensive. Then you can ask Reem to describe to you the encounter but from the perspective of the customer. Then talk her through the scenario where she diffuses the customer's frustration by tapping into and using her own authentic empathy.
- Our team is very helpful. What makes it unique is that it's the norm for us to ask each other for assistance and/or even before a situation arises, to ask colleagues how to approach an upcoming situation.
- Having a helpful coworker can make all the difference in helping each other to coregulate when difficult situations arise, and to feel supported, especially in customer facing roles. I have a coworker who always senses when I'm struggling with something and offers to assist me. I try to take time every day to ask how my colleagues are feeling/doing and if there's anything they can think of that I can do to support them.
- One of my co-workers had to submit an updated excel spreadsheet to finance but he didn't know how. His boss (different from my boss) didn't explain the full task to him, nor did he have any finance experience. I offered to assist him, and cleared the time in my schedule to go through and help him get it done. but I focused specifically on the process so that next time he could do it by himself.
- In my department at work, colleagues with different job titles (and functions) have shared targets (in addition to individual targets). Because the hard targets as well as the company's cultures requires us to contribute our different skillets to projects to achieve our tasks, we end up with expertise contributing to our projects that we otherwise wouldn't if we only were rewarded for achieving individual targets. These additional skill sets encourages our outputs to be more innovative than had we been working solo.
- Sarah and Tom could team up to brainstorm ways to tap into new target audiences beyond their regular reach. Since they both know the industry very well, casting a wider net jointly would be easier than any one of them doing it by themselves. It would maybe take less time to build up new relationships outside of their usual target audience if they worked together.
- My company has some shared targets for departments a s well as individuals. So at the end of the year, I can only get a great evaluation if I have met my individual targets but also if I worked together with my team members to achieve the team's targets. Our team's targets are often soft, such as exhibition of the company's values. If we were to enhance positive social interdependence, we would need harder targets for team goals such as delivery of project deadlines by certain dates.
- Collaboration is more than just lip service. It's actually rolling up our sleeves and getting into the difficult territory of vulnerability in sharing and receive ideas for the good of the company and shared goals.
- At my current organization, the most obvious impact is on the target audience. At my organization, when internal departments don't share information, we end up approaching external entities separately, asking for different and sometimes conflicting requests. It's embarrassing, but also offers an opportunity for us to learn how to reach out to others internally before finalizing outreach campaigns.
- My favorite approach is to have regular update meetings across the organization, with the right stakeholders at the table. Those meetings would ensure that the correct updates are shared and the necessary, further collaborative discussions are subsequently taken offline so as to be respectful of everyone's time.
- The silo mentality can impact the level of trust a customer has on the company because it shows the customer that the company isn't communicating internally. Even worse, is when the departments' who are involved in the miscommunication speak ill about the other departments and /or the corporate culture of the company to the customer as a way of saving face. I have seen that happen so many times and it is detrimental to the long term customer relationship.
- We vote for the planet and our fellow inhabitants of the planet every time we spend money. If we aren't aware of the web into which each of our impacts sits (up stream and downstream impacts of our purchases) then we cast uninformed voting ballots.
- I recently has to select a supplier who would create educational activities and train my staff on how to deliver the activities. When I was agreeing the invoicing dates with the supplier, I wanted to agree the dates for the timeline that made most sense to my project. However, I knew that the decision was interdependent on many other departments. It took an extra 2-3 weeks to engage them, but I went through procurement, finance, legal and contracts to cross check before making commitments to the project timeline. I learned so much about how their departments work and also how we could better support each other throughout the process. If I had waited to feel the ramifications of the interdependence until after the contact had been signed, the project would have experienced many delays.
- Daniel is letting his ego and his fear of not succeeding prevent him from actually achieving his highest potential. If you don't share ideas and ask for help from others then you have to do everything yourself. To execute a computer programming project you need many other skills and company functions other than just programming and there's no way Daniel is great at everything else. If he trusted his team mates to carry the parts of his work that he wasn't an expert at (for example marketing of the project) to the team mates who are experts in those areas then his projects would actually be much more successful!
- I have a husband and two young children at home. Husband and I both have full time jobs. On a daily basis we divide and conquer daily tasks to ensure that everyone does that they are best at and everything gets done.
- Groups of people who work together to achieve shared goals, who are not necessarily based in the same location and do not physically see each other on a regular basis in order to achieve their job.
- Prior to the pandemic, my company promoted virtual collaboration only when communicating with stakeholders who were outside of the country. We had a old world culture of promoting face to face communication. However, once the pandemic hit, we were forced, like most organizations around the world, to quickly adapt to working virtually. It took some time, but we have now fallen into a work flow that enables effective virtual collaboration. Even now that some staff members have returned to the office, most of us continue to use virtual meetings to get out collaborative work done.
- UIB is by far more likely to induce conflict. We have all seen companies that do this. In fact I left my very first job after 2 years and in my exit interview I told the HR manager that her company was not a meritocracy. That is people were not rewarded based on merit, but based on who they were friends with. She was surprised that I said it so bluntly but she agreed with me.
- Paraphrasing, empathizing, listening and asking a person to sit down can be helpful with diffusing a conflict. I once had an employee come to me with a lot of anger and frustration in complaining about another employee. We were in a public area so I told him immediately that he had my full attention and asked him to walk with me while we got to the bottom of it. The very act of physically moving his body while he told me the full details of the story gave him a physical outlet to burn off the steam.
- Dave needs to start by demonstrating to his team how to give credit to those to whom credit is due. My manager constantly praises myself and my team members in front of his boss. He shares our work with her (with us on cc) and gives us the credit. He sets the tone for us to do that for those who report in to us. It's small but it goes a long way in the trickle down effect at the organization.
- I personally speak up early when I see an issue arising and I encourage others who vent to me to do the same. The earlier that we approach our colleagues and speak to them our truth about how we feel, the easier it is. If we let things build up, they become bigger than the actual issue and often come out with much more anger and emotion than had we just addressed the problem early on. Of course, it takes two. So I always ensure that if someone comes to me with an issue or I sense they have frustration, I hold space and encourage them to speak up, even if I know it will make my job a bit more difficult temporarily. Practicing the behavior we want to see in others really helps to set the culture of a team towards working through conflict in a healthy manner.
- In the workplace, those with unconscious incompetence quickly develop negative relationships with their colleagues because those around them see their achievements as undeserving and based mainly on ego and privilege. They come to see the organization as lacking merit based recognition.
- I would say that I hover between conscious incompetence and conscious competence. For those aspects that I am incompetent in, I actively seek to learn more and to up-skill myself. I do this by asking my colleagues and peers to mentor me or I seek short courses that can assist me in moving to the quadrant of conscious competence. I have found that this puts me in a position of having a growth mindset because I am not always assuming I know how to do something in the best way.
- Understanding that a career isn't static is helpful in continuous movement towards unconscious competence. As mentioned, assuming that I always have new skills to be learned (and thus looking for new learning opportunities) helps me move from unconscious incompetence to conscious competence. Then repetition, practice, putting in the log hours helps me get to unconscious competence. As an example, I took on the extra task (not my skill set or job description at all) of doing the monthly budget report submissions to finance for my department. I first sat with those in finance to understand how I could do what they needed me to do. I then asked people from other departments for tips on how they are submitting monthly in a timely manner. And then month after month, I spend the hours working hard to do it. At first it took me hours and hours. Now I can do it by gathering the required information using only my mobile phone and quickly putting together the report the night before it's due, including analysis.
- I would suggest to Melisa and John to start their brainstorming sessions off by re-structuring them so it's not one versus the other, but rather all trying to come up with the best ideas for the company. The faster it turns into decision making, the faster they feel like they are competing. Perhaps they can fully develop one idea together as a group before moving on to the next idea. Melisa needs to also find a time, when John is not in competition mode, to share with him how she feels and offer a solution that does not involve him 'loosing' but rather continues to empower him but allows her to also be part of the discussion as an equal player.
- 1) Try to name the conflict. 2) Assess your role. 3) Brainstorm options. 4) Communicate your findings. 5) Engage in problem solving. 6) Monitor results.
- I like to figure out where the breakdown is happening in the business process, repair it and monitor if it's successful. I have a colleague who would regularly disagree with me in front of the team regarding one of my deliverables during out ream update meetings. I would always get defensive because it's in front of others and my territory. I realized the issue was that he felt that he wasn't being engaged in the process early enough and he was trying to say that but in the wrong forum. I told him how I was feeling (offline) and suggested we have short, weekly one on one catch-ups. It worked very well because there was a forum for us to challenge each other without an audience and our goal for those meetings is to find solutions.
- RTTU encourages team collaboration in the most professional and effective way. The key here for me is flexible working styles within a defined framework of clear expectations from employees. One of the best performing teams I have ever been a part of is one where we all knew how we were contributing to the overall goal of the company, but we were allowed to bring our own individuality to the process so long as we were keeping each other informed through regular virtual meetings, meeting deadlines and working as a team.
- Achievable means that it's possible to actually meet the goal that you're setting. As an example, I once set a Key Performance Indicator for myself at the beginning of the year to earn a professional certification within the quarter, along with 3 other major targets. It just was not achievable given the timeline. I ended up rescheduling the target for 6 months down the line and was able to achieve the goal easily.
- The goal setting process was likely not done in collaboration with all departments. To ensure that all other departments were equally contributing to the required inputs instead of placing the burden on marketing. I had a similar situation a few years back when the sales department carried the brunt of the workload for the company. When the CEO noticed, he actually asked all other employees to team up with the sales team to support them in nontraditional ways to make their life easier. We all ended up adding extra shifts, which in turned lessened the shifts required by the sales team. It worked well and the whole company saw it as a fair solution.
- Recently, I was really struggling to understand what a customer was asking me. She seemed like she was in a hurry and was looking around to see if anyone else understood her.
- She clearly felt frustrated but also hopeful that someone (anyone!) could assist.
- I felt a bit useless since I couldn't understand what she was saying, but I understood that by fetching someone who could assist, I would be doing the right thing.
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- Misunderstanding is quite frequent since both parties often assume they understand what is being asked or being said. Especially in customer facing roles, this can escalate quickly since the customer does not want to feel like they're being taken advantage of. Saving face is very important and making sure the customer maintains a sense of pride is so important to maintain the integrity of the interaction.
- Please wait 1 minute.
- I will check. Please wait.
- Black and green are avilable.
- Do you want to pay now?
- Do you like this or this?
- The idea of collaboration is that if we work on something together, we achieve a better result than if we worked on it alone. Therefore if we don't allow the strengths of others to be utilized, and if we don't allow others to voice their options when they are different from ours, then we might as well have just worked alone. We would therefore be wasting the organization's resources by attempting to collaborate in the first place. It's important to put our ego aside and arrive at the opportunity to collaborate with humility and maturity - always default to assuming that you can learn from others.
- Lawsuits, disengaged, unhappy work force, negativity, stress, reduced productivity,
- I intentionally chose 3 colleagues who are very different to one another in terms of their physical appearance, education and work experience. I assigned the colleague who is most used to public speaking in his spare time to business development. He loves social media and is fascinated by influencing others, which is well-suited to the business development. He is a person of determination. I choose another colleague who is excellent at leadership to human resources. He is very empathetic and I think HR needs to be lead by someone who can understand the needs of the work force. I choose my last colleague for finance because he is very detailed-oriented. Funnily enough, the education, work experience and physical appearance had nothing to do with my assignments. It was all about the person's intuitive strengths.
- I am lucky enough to work in a very respectful work environment. It comes from the top down. Leadership truly cares about the people and their well being. I once had a C-level colleague message me with an offer to drive me home because she heard I visited the first aid room from another colleague (because I was feeling dizzy). By feeling respected as a person, that cascades to feeling that my work is respected. The same leader takes the time to call out the good deeds, good jobs on projects and collaborative efforts that we do for one another in public forums. I would consider these best practices.
- The team that I am part of is very cohesive, to the point that used to avoid saying how we truly feel in order to avoid conflict. While we trust each other very much, this led to us all wanting to please one another and thus we were not engaging in the level of health conflict required for us to move forward up the pyramid to achieve results. In the past few months, we have started openly disagreeing with one another, which has lead to constructive conversations and what I would say is a more committed team.
- I had a colleague once who was not accountable for his actions. He would accept meeting requests where he was needed as a vital decision maker in the objectives of the meeting and then he wouldn't show up. He was disagreeable, but just for the sake of it. There's nothing wrong - in fact it's healthy - to have colleagues disagree with you, but he used to do it just to get a rise out of the team members.
- I have always found that all human beings enjoy a good meal and naturally bond with those whom they share it with. Taking the time to share food with colleagues is a great way to strengthen your emotional and personal connection to them outside the context of work. It gives everyone a chance to get to know each other better, which almost always helps us when we get back to the work environment because we are able to understand them better, and thus communicate and work more cohesively.
