Here is why you really need to like the people you work with!

By HumanRaceHorses | December 14, 2009

If it’s Tuesday, it must be another guest post

So, it is Tuesday. I am probably lunching in an out of the way bistro with my wife right now, watching the people stroll by, without a care in the world. I might also be going through the cold sweats as I begin to feel to initial onset of complete internet withdrawal. Where the hell is the nearest internet cafe????

No matter what I might be doing, I know you will getting a special treat from this post. When I asked people to write something for me, I gave them a very general loose theme: ”Community”. So, Franny Oxford wrote a great piece on community which you can read in just a moment.

If you don’t know Franny, you should. She is a consummate HR pro, specializing in small business HR. She is funny, smart, and one of my personal favorites in the entire HR online community. She is also a great mommy, a great collaborator, and my friend. Enjoy this piece from a very reluctant but awesome blogger. You can see her other writings at her blog, Do the Work.

Community at Work

As we begin to see a few glimmers of this recession ending, company leaders are in a panic about how to make sure that employees don’t walk at the first opportunity. Thanks to our economy, we know we can’t throw money at the problem. So we’re all trying to create a sticky culture where people feel like they’re a part of something amazing, a community of sorts at work.

Here’s a tip - If you try to actively build a cohesive community, you will almost always fail. Sorry.

There are already communities all around you, you just may be blind to them. It’s kind of like Family Vacation when Clark Griswold missed all that family together time in the car because he was so busy fantasizing about “F-ing family fun” at Wallyworld. (and of course Christi Brinkley.) You most likely have a picture in your head of what community looks like, and I guarantee That’s Not It. You may think community is supposed to look how it did in college, or in your hometown, or at your last job. This isn’t any of those things. This is real, live human beings sorting out alliances and intrigues based on stuff you could never dream up – inside jokes, favors to return, and getting around all the rules in your employee handbook, subverting the very things you hold dear. If you try to drive your culture to match the picture in your mind’s eye, you can easily screw up what’s already working all around you.

Your office is not “The Office”!

Any attempts to build a community outside of what’s already happening moves you from Clark Griswold to Michael Scott from The Office. Don’t be that guy. Please. Michael insists on holding goofy, non-work-related bonding opportunities that only bond people in their hatred and disrespect for him, and by extension, the company that allows a guy like that to succeed. Even Toby, the HR Manager on The Office, knows to leave well enough alone. Driven by his loneliness and his egocentricity, Michael forces his employees into stunningly awkward “team building” exercises that they only agree to participate in because their boss is making them do it.

Pay attention to your people!

If you’re reading this, chances are very good that you have more power than the people around you. Don’t be blind to the fact that the employees in your care will go along with lots of things you ask them to do just because you have more power than they do, and they need to curry favor with you. If you aren’t already part of a healthy work community where people can just be themselves, and to some degree enjoy themselves, at work, trying to fix it and creating a bunch of “community building opportunities” now is going to look like what it is: fear based, fake, and insincere. People my participate in your events but they’ll just annoy and alienate them.

So what works? Start with just this – Like the people you work with. Enjoy them. Show them you enjoy them. Individually. Make a point of getting to know individual coworkers and allow them to get to know you. The secret to participating in a small town, big family, or workplace happily and developing community is just to seek out commonalities, make an effort, share yourself, and demonstrate respect and enjoyment of the people around you every day.

And that’s it. No Wally World, no X-treme Teambuilding 2010 Fest, just a commitment to enjoying your coworkers for who they are. That will go further in building a great community than anything else you could do. It’s not glamorous and I can’t build a big consulting practice around it, but finding a way to enjoy the people you find yourself surrounded by is the true social glue of any community.

So go forth and do it!

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