Building Better Work Relationships: A Practical Guide
by Sorin Dumitrascu
"Great discoveries and achievements invariably involve the cooperation of many minds." - Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone.
In an organization, it's very easy for one to become isolated in a world mostly composed of the people one works with directly. As demands for efficiency and effectiveness grow in today's competitive marketplace, you'll find that the formation of interfunctional relationships and teams can help you meet this demand.
Working effectively with customers can be as impersonal and awkward or as intimate and graceful as dancing with a partner. To dance well, you need to know how your partner moves and you need to know the dance steps. Knowing one but not the other won't get you around the dance floor together. Whether your company deals with individual walk-ins or with vast conglomerates, it profits from customers' extended and repeat business.
Demographics might help you locate and define your market, but ultimately, you have to deal with customers one by one, on an individual basis. And that means getting to know them and building relationships with them.
When was the last time you made it through an entire day without interacting with someone from a different cultural background than yours?
Whether it was at the corner market or in a multinational business; in a small, regional office or a global corporate headquarters; at a local lunch function or on a business trip on the other side of the world; chances are increasingly good that you will be interacting with business personnel who come from a different cultural background than you.
One of the biggest diversity challenges in today's business world is learning how to effectively work with a member of the opposite gender.
Why can't a man be more like a woman? And why can't a woman be more like a man? In the private and social spheres of life, the differences can be fun and celebrated. At work, though, you need to get along with the other gender and communicate equally well with women and men.
In an organization, it's very easy for one to become isolated in a world mostly composed of the people one works with directly. As demands for efficiency and effectiveness grow in today's competitive marketplace, you'll find that the formation of interfunctional relationships and teams can help you meet this demand.
Working effectively with customers can be as impersonal and awkward or as intimate and graceful as dancing with a partner. To dance well, you need to know how your partner moves and you need to know the dance steps. Knowing one but not the other won't get you around the dance floor together. Whether your company deals with individual walk-ins or with vast conglomerates, it profits from customers' extended and repeat business.
Demographics might help you locate and define your market, but ultimately, you have to deal with customers one by one, on an individual basis. And that means getting to know them and building relationships with them.
When was the last time you made it through an entire day without interacting with someone from a different cultural background than yours?
Whether it was at the corner market or in a multinational business; in a small, regional office or a global corporate headquarters; at a local lunch function or on a business trip on the other side of the world; chances are increasingly good that you will be interacting with business personnel who come from a different cultural background than you.
One of the biggest diversity challenges in today's business world is learning how to effectively work with a member of the opposite gender.
Why can't a man be more like a woman? And why can't a woman be more like a man? In the private and social spheres of life, the differences can be fun and celebrated. At work, though, you need to get along with the other gender and communicate equally well with women and men.
