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Enjoying Your Work Richard Brislin |
Interpersonal connections
help cultivate workplace
successFor the last three weeks I have discussed various tactics sophisticated executives use to acquire and to maintain power. Why should people learn these tactics, both those that are ethical as well as those that are not and should be avoided? A knowledge of power helps people achieve their goals. Most important goals involve scarce resources, such as well-paying jobs, promotions and the acceptance of one's innovative proposals. To compete for these resources, people should know about how power operates in the workplace.
Many tactics of powerholders are ethical, make good common sense and should be learned by all workers. These include clear communication of one's ideas, the development of positive relations with others in the workplace, the willingness to help others with proposals and the knowledge that one should be careful about returning favors. Assume that a person has an innovative proposal for new directions that an organization could pursue. If the person presents the proposal clearly and has the support from others based on good interpersonal relations, the proposal is likely to receive careful consideration.
With this background, let's consider a short example. Dan Bennett was the influential president of a technology firm in Hawaii. Given his extensive volunteer efforts, he was well known all over Oahu. Jane Freeman recently graduated from a college in Illinois. She had played on a high-school volleyball team with Dan's daughter.
Upon returning to Hawaii, Jane called Dan and asked him for an appointment. She wanted to discus job possibilities and asked Dan for a letter of recommendation. Dan agreed, wrote the letter, and Jane soon landed a job. Dan heard about Jane's job because his daughter mentioned it one night at dinner. About eighteen months later, Jane called Dan again, this time asking that he sponsor her for membership in a local organization of business professionals. Dan was uncomfortable with this request.
Jane has made several mistakes in her search for a career in her community. She has not kept up communication with Dan. She did not seek out ways of returning the favor Dan gave her when he wrote the letter of recommendation. After an eighteen-month period of silence, sometimes called a "disappearing act," Dan is understandably upset when Jane requests a second favor. He may think to himself, "If she is careless with me about keeping up communication and maintaining professional relations, she may behave in these ways toward other influential people in the community."
When people work toward important goals in the workplace and in their communities, they almost always need to involve others. People who have developed positive interpersonal relations have an advantage in the pursuit of their goals. These relationships should be carefully nurtured.
Benjamin Franklin wrote that people who do not socialize with others when they go to a tavern may find themselves alone when they need help to find their horses. A similar sentiment applies to today's boardrooms. People who have not developed positive relations with coworkers may experience silence when they offer their proposals at meetings of company executives.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
The purpose of this column is to increase understanding of human behavior as it has an impact on the workplace. Given the amount of time people spend at work, job satisfaction should ideally be high and it should contribute to general life happiness. Enjoyment can increase as people learn more about workplace psychology, communication, and group influences.
Richard Brislin is a professor in the College of Business Administration, University of Hawaii. He can be reached through the College Relations Office: cro@cba.hawaii.edu
