One afternoon a manager we’ll call Kassie sent an email to her teammate, Harrison, explaining why she hadn’t included him in a meeting with a group of company executives earlier that day. She and Harrison got along well, and she wanted to make sure he wasn’t offended. Two days later the email still hadn’t been returned. This small incident made Kassie question their relationship. Why the sudden rudeness — was Harrison actually upset? Were they really on “good” terms? How should she act the next time they crossed paths? Harrison, meanwhile, had “write Kassie back” on his to-do list but had just been too busy to get around to it. He had no idea that his slow response concerned Kassie.
The Little Things That Affect Our Work Relationships
Relationships with our coworkers are incredibly important, but we tend to think about them in the wrong way: We categorize them as either good or bad, and we think they will always stay the same. As a result, we don’t try to fix the ones that have soured, and we take those that seem healthy for granted. In reality, most relationships are a mixed bag, and they ebb and flow. And if you look closely, you’ll see that they’re made up of a series of “micromoves” — small actions that seem inconsequential in the moment but affect how we relate to one another. Each new micromove can shift the direction of a relationship. In this article, two professors explain how to use micromoves to build the work relationships you want, instead of just settling for the ones you have.