Developing Effective Work Relations and Time Management

Building good relationships with your peers lays an excellent foundation for getting results, especially when you lack the authority to impose your agenda on others. In this lesson, you'll learn how to establish this foundation by:

• making a good first impression
• showing your interest
• building rapport.

The Science of Better Learning

In the business world, like any situation in which results matter, it's important that you make a good first impression. When you lack direct authority, it's crucial.

In this topic, you'll learn three ways to make a good impression that will help you achieve results when you don't have authority. These aspects include:

• showing your friendliness
• being positive, and
• avoiding negativity.

Everyone likes attention. It's a basic human need. It stands to reason that giving people your attention by showing your interest is one of the best ways to build relationships and get results.

In this topic, you'll learn how to show your interest in your peers by:

• asking personal questions,
• showing you're listening, and
• using people's names.

People have a fundamental need to feel appreciated, in the workplace as well as in their personal lives. When you show appreciation for your peers, you not only create a good work environment, you make it much more likely that your co-workers will respond to you the same way.

In this topic, you'll learn to build rapport and establish this foundation by:

• showing respect
• expressing appreciation
• considering others' criticisms.

A worker without credibility is like a fishing line without a hook. If you're looking to get results without authority, you have to show your peers you're worthy of their trust. In this lesson, you'll learn to do that by:

• winning confidence
• demonstrating integrity
• dealing well with conflict.

Getting the results you want, or pushing your agenda, in the business world is much easier if you've already won the confidence of your peers. In this topic, you've learned how to win this confidence by:

• being truthful
• fulfilling promises
• doing good work.

Someone said that the quality of an individual is reflected in the standards she sets for herself. If you hope to get results when you don't have authority, it's a good idea to demonstrate your integrity with the high standards you've set. In this topic, you've learned how to demonstrate this integrity by:

• demonstrating consistency of character
• respecting confidentialities
• offering good information.

Having credibility is fundamental to getting results when you don't have authority, and dealing effectively with conflict is one good way to become credible. In this topic, you'll learn how to handle conflict by:

• showing you're listening,
• demonstrating patience, and
• redirecting the conflict.

If you want to know how to get results when you don't have authority, it's imperative that you fine-tune your sense of reciprocity. Some of the benefits of using a reciprocal relationship are:

• helping ensure a good working relationship exists with your peers,
• helping ensure a fair trade, and
• enhancing your image as a trustworthy co-worker.

No one should expect to get something for nothing. The world just doesn't work that way. Since the dawn of civilization, people have traded one thing to get another. Whether it's fundamental organizational change you're after, or a piece of bark, it helps to know the many forms that reciprocity takes.

This is especially true when you lack direct authority. In this topic, you'll learn about three key types of reciprocity:

• mutual gain,
• payment for compliance, and
• flexible compensation.

In this topic, you'll learn about the objects that are most effectively traded in reciprocal relationships:

• task-related objects
• career-track objects
• higher-achievement objects

Planning for a successful reciprocal relationship may be the best way to accomplish your goals. In this topic, you'll learn how to do this by:

• determining your needs,
• considering your relationship,
• determining the other person's needs, and
• assessing your resources.

Planning for a successful reciprocal relationship may be the best way to accomplish your goals. In this topic, you'll learn how to do this by:

• determining your needs,
• considering your relationship,
• determining the other person's needs, and
• assessing your resources.

An effective use of time also involves managing your environment, managing your use of technology, and managing the time-wasting activities of people around you.

This course teaches you the habits you need to develop to be in control of your time, and stop reacting inefficiently to demands that are made on you.

You will learn how to organize your environment, and how to employ technology so that it is your servant, and not your master. You will also be alert to "time stealers," and develop strategies to sidestep the dangers they represent.

You need to identify the factors that can make your attempt to achieve the most from your working day more difficult, and exert a positive influence over them.

Whatever happened to the paperless office? The appearance of the computer was supposed to remove the need for paper in the office, but most people receive more paper documents than ever before. If you are to avoid drowning in a sea of paper, you need a straightforward and efficient technique for managing it.

Whatever happened to the paperless office? The appearance of the computer was supposed to remove the need for paper in the office, but most people receive more paper documents than ever before. If you are to avoid drowning in a sea of paper, you need a straightforward and efficient technique for managing it.

To manage your paperwork effectively, you need to ask yourself a series of questions, and, depending on the answer: file, pass on, throw away, or read the item.

Leroy and Michelle are not a bit impressed by Omar's office. It has some natural advantages, but Omar has not organized his environment in a way that will help him maximize his precious working hours.

Once you know what your objective is, you plan in a way that will make the best possible use of your time as you pursue your objective in the meeting. What you want to discuss has to be on the agenda, and you need to prepare what you have to say with care, anticipating the reactions of other people.

You also need to take the right actions in relation to other participants: delegating tasks, and communicating the right information or instructions in advance will save a lot of time.

You lead a busy and complex working life, and technology has a central role. The computer and the telephone are the central tools you use to organize your life.

It is important to know how to use the potential of this technology for improving your time management. When you make good use of the potential of technology to organize your working life, you enjoy major benefits.

E-mails were supposed to save us time, but it hasn't worked out like that. The reality is that, for many people, reacting to incoming e-mails consumes an enormous, and unjustifiably large, amount of the working day. According to recent studies, the average office worker receives and sends in excess of 100 messages daily.

If you scored over 37 you have a major e-mail addiction that is severely hampering your time efficiency. You need to address it at once.

A score between 25 and 36, and you are pretty well addicted to those e- mails. Even with a score in the 19 to 24 range, there is significant evidence of some addiction to e-mails.

If you scored between 12 and 18, you can give yourself a pat on the back. E-mails do not dominate your time in an unhealthy way.

E-mails were supposed to save us time, but it hasn't worked out like that. The reality is that, for many people, reacting to incoming e-mails consumes an enormous, and unjustifiably large, amount of the working day. According to recent studies, the average office worker receives and sends in excess of 100 messages daily.

Electronic ways of organizing, and retrieving information can save you a lot of time, if used correctly. There are three kinds of electronic organization systems that can have a positive impact on how well you manage the limited, and valuable, time at your disposal:

• phone-based systems,
• PC-based systems,
• networked systems.

Any time you allow a colleague to occupy your time inappropriately, or you delay or postpone important work in favor of something less demanding, you are allowing your time, in effect, to be stolen.

How you deal with the relationship between what you want to achieve, and the demands of others, depends on what kind of person you are--on your social character.

Do you find yourself spending time on tasks that--somehow--somebody has managed to land on your desk, even though they are not part of your job, and are really a waste of your time?

When you accept jobs from other people that you should not be doing, this is known as reverse delegation. You need to avoid it.

Already delegated task

If a colleague tries to return a task that you have given to him, then you should:

• emphasize that you want him to do it – you don't want to do it yourself
• remind him of the elements of the task, and provide brief instruction or demonstration, if necessary
• explain that you have confidence in his ability (...)

Do you find yourself spending time on tasks that--somehow--somebody has managed to land on your desk, even though they are not part of your job, and are really a waste of your time?

When you accept jobs from other people that you should not be doing, this is known as reverse delegation. You need to avoid it.

"Procrastination is the thief of time," goes the old saying. It's true. And just remember, when you delay actions or a decision that you should be taking, it's your time that's being stolen.

The philosopher, William James, observed that "Nothing is as fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of the uncompleted task." But it is not only fatiguing. It is, literally, a waste of time.

The first part of the strategy for beating procrastination is to be able to recognize and confront the ways you may find to excuse it. Now that you've seen how to use this part of the strategy, you need to find out how to break the procrastination habit.

The way to do this is by putting in place a consistent set of behaviors which, when you follow them, will help you end procrastination for good.

Every unscheduled visit or telephone call you receive is an interruption. Not all interruptions are unwelcome or unnecessary, but they stop you doing what you planned to do, and there are probably too many of them in your life.

There is research that indicates that the average number of interruptions in a business day is 50. How should you handle them?

You must keep an eye on the time, and be ready to employ a summary as a way to bring the five minute meeting to a prompt, but satisfactory, conclusion.

You do not need to be the victim of constant interruptions. You have the right, and in fact the duty, to allocate time appropriately, and then to ensure that you stick to the limits you have agreed upon.

Course wrap up and next steps

You think knowing stuff changes the game? You think sitting in a library, stacking up facts like you’re building a Jenga tower, is gonna make you a winner? Man, that’s cute. But life ain't a trivia night. Information alone? It’s worthless. It’s like having a Lamborghini in your garage but you never learned how to drive. You just sit in it, making engine noises. Vroom vroom. People walk by, they see the car, but they also see you ain't going nowhere. You got all this knowledge, all these textbooks, but when life throws a punch, you’re still looking up the definition of "duck." It’s what you *do* with that information that actually matters. Don't be the person with the shiny car and no keys.