Stumbling Over the Same Blocks at Work and at Home: How Our Personal Relationship Patterns Follow Us to The Office

How healthy is your relationship with your career? Do you swear you'll quit your job because it's so frustrating, only to agree to stick it out when your boss promises everything will be different if you'll just fix this one last disaster? Do you love certain things about your job, but do other aspects make it unpleasant a lot of the time? Do you hope for a job that you will love deeply and consistently, that will help you feel satisfied, useful, and productive?

A career path is like long term personal relationships in many ways, and our relationship style comes out in the relationship with our careers in various ways.

1. "I Can't Stand it Here Another Minute...and I've Said That for Years"

What This Relationship Looks Like:

• You know the relationship isn't working but you're afraid to leave.
• You let out frustration by complaining, which means you lose energy that would help you find something better...and you depress yourself and others around you.

Personal Relationship Aspect:

The above description of your relationship with work probably sounds very familiar. You know you should leave, but you feel needed often enough to stay hooked in.

How To Get Out:

• Instead of complaining, take small -- but definite -- steps to find out what you would enjoy doing.
• Ask yourself why you're afraid to leave such an unhappy relationship. Be very honest about this. Think about how you'd feel if you left. Ask yourself what you might get out of knowing that a major source of your problems is "outside" you (as opposed to seeing it as an internal conflict.)

2. "But They Need Me"

What This Relationship Looks Like:

• You get such a powerful ego boost from being needed that you're willing to put up with almost anything.
• You don't believe your needs are as important as your boss', co-workers', and/or customers' needs.

Personal Relationship Aspect:

Just insert "partner's needs" above where it says "boss', co-workers', and/or customers' needs." It probably says a lot about your love life.

How To Get Out:

It's critical to understand why you get such a charge from being needed. You'll have to confront your ego's need for this kind of gratification if you want to have a healthier relationship with your career. If you obey your ego's need to be needed, you may eventually leave your job, but you'll always be capable of being held hostage by someone that says they can't do without you.

3. "I'm In Control"

This was my relationship with work before my transition to a healthier worklife (and homelife.)

What This Relationship Looks Like:

• You prefer to manage all the details of your job, which means you work very long hours and/or are very stressed.
• You get a lot of your self-esteem from employees and/or peers coming to you for answers. This makes you feel in control of your world at work.
• You have a very hard time leaving work at work. You may be avoiding intimacy or stress at home. It's easier to follow the structure of work than the lack of it at home.

Personal Relationship Aspect:

• Women: You have a hard time looking up to your husband as head of the family.
• Men: You may want to control ALL aspects of work and home life. Note: Most religions specify separate, but critically important, roles for each gender. You may not aspire to these, however.
• You want to be in control of your comfort zone at home, and your partner's involvement in the areas where you need to be in control feels intrusive. You're not sure how to collaborate.

How To Get Out:

• Identify when you hold onto projects that could be delegated. Pay attention to how you feel when you are the expert helping others. You have to spot where your ego gets rewarded to change this relationship for the better.
• Having a meaningful life outside of work is your #1 job. Then you'll be able to leave work earlier, delegate more...all the things you know you should be doing.
• Cultivate a relationship with something that transcends you. In 12-Step programs, for example, a Higher Power is a humbling concept to the addict/alcoholic/co-dependent who feels that they control everything in their lives. Devotion to, and gratitude for, an awe-inspiring God or Higher Power is the antidote to the illusion that we can (or should be) in control of most aspects of our lives.

What is your relationship like with your career? Is it similar to your relationships in your personal or family life? That would make sense. Lifelong behavior patterns are usually consistent. Don't forget that you may demonstrate one type of behavior AND it's opposite...like the cliche that two opposites are 'the flip side of the same coin.'

Conclusion:

We don't have a totally different set of relationship problems between our home and work lives. Actually, this is a good thing. Once we get a deeper understanding of how we get in our own way in one area, we are more than halfway to resolving these difficulties wherever they appear in our lives.

Overcome a Poor Working Relationship

How can you negotiate important matters -- like compensation, benefits or promotions -- with a manager, team-mate or direct report if you don't trust that person, don't feel respected, or the person feels you don't listen? Here are some tips.

Define Your Goals Appropriately

When you focus on improving the working relationship, you are not trying to become friends with the other person, or to be liked. You are trying to make sure that, in spite of any personal feelings, the two of you are able to constructively deal with your disagreements and differences. Your aim is to create a relationship in which you can talk honestly with each other and work together to find good solutions to hard issues.

Put Aside Substance to Focus on the Relationship

The only way to resolve a relationship or communication issue is to directly discuss it. Many people hope to cure problems in their working relationships by coming up with the right substantive solution, thinking that if they get the right answer, they will get along better with the other person. In fact, it is quite difficult to discuss substantive issues when you and the other person do not trust, respect, listen to or understand each other. You are far more likely to reach a frustrating stalemate than a mutually acceptable resolution.

A better approach is to realise that when you have significant relationship problems you should focus on improving the way you and the other negotiator communicate with or treat each other. Then return to the substantive issue. For example, one of my clients made a commitment to himself to not talk about his desire for a promotion for three weeks. During that period, he met four times with his manager, and in each meeting he limited the conversation to the issues that were damaging their working relationship. After that period, he felt ready to raise other important issues.

Resolve Issues Efficiently and Effectively

Once you open the door, it is usually fairly easy to get most people to talk about the problems they see in the working relationship. Usually, they are as unhappy with the current situation as you are and are looking for some fair process to resolve the issue. Often, the simple act of talking about the problem, sharing perceptions of what is going on and why matters have degenerated to this point opens up new lines of communication. In my experience, this type of conversation builds mutual understanding, which then provides you with room to find ways to improve the situation (perhaps by promising to communicate better going forward, by exchanging apologies or by providing an explanation for misinterpreted actions).

These conversations are never easy, but they can be quite effective. One of my clients had great success by saying, "You always say I don't get it. Well, this time I am listening. Tell me what it is that you think I don't get." The other person was happy to provide a list of complaints. Then my client said, "Fine. I want to work with you to address those matters. I also want you to know that there are some important issues that I feel you don't get. I'd like to share those with you now, and then we can discuss both sets of issues."

After you have done the best you can to address the relationship issues, you can return to the reasons you are having these discussions in the first place -- the raise, promotion, change in job responsibility or transfer you have been seeking. Only now you will find a person with whom it is much easier to deal. Where before there may have only been stony silence, tension and stress, there should be more open dialogue and problem solving. Effective and good working relationships are essential to productive negotiations. If they do not exist, you have to take time to develop them. It will never be easy, but it is always valuable.