Most people experience some level of frustration when dealing with others at work; and looking at the root cause of this frustration; we can determine that it is directly attributed to the effectiveness of communication and presence of mutual respect. With the added complexity of generation gaps; working relationships have the capacity to get exceptionally strained. Strain leads to extra pressure on systems, projects and people and therefore can have an overall negative impact on the bottom line.
Setting the stage for a positive working environment starts with a discussion about organizational culture. What is the culture now? And what is the future vision and values of the culture? It is important that this open dialogue is held at all levels of an organization; as this dialogue will aid in the process of shifting the organizational culture. However, the process must be transparent and have defined goals behind it in order for it to be successful. For example, it is not enough to say “we want a collaborative organization”. Taking this a step or two further and putting parameters and/or a definition will help with eventually setting expectations for employees and ensure that everyone coming to the table is on the same wavelength.
Below are a few tools and resources that you can use to support your cultural change:
Psychometric Testing – although psychometric testing tends to put people in a defined category, if presented in the right frame, it can also help people overall with communication by giving them a framework or reference of ‘where they are coming from’. For example, some people need to talk through a problem and throw out a bunch of ideas whereas others are more comfortable to go away and process things before coming back to the discussion. With a type-indicator test a working group is better able to handle each other’s style and adapt in each situation.
Mentoring Partnerships – there is a lot to be said about experience and wealth of knowledge as well as learning from others. Setting up programs that support knowledge transfer between colleagues is a great way to capture both the wisdom from experienced people as well as new ways of doing things from new hires.
Cross Resource Work Groups – this is ‘old-hat’ for many companies but I would challenge them to go one step further and create online Wikis to support these groups with discussion and discovery as well as to pass on lessons learned to help other groups as they go through their group process (forming, norming, storming, performing, adjourning).
Stepping back and adding a framework to work within will ensure that people have productive conversations and will mitigate strain on relationships within the company.
