You probably don’t work in isolation.
You work with colleagues. You probably work as part of a team of 3 to 15 people. You have a boss. You might have subordinates. You spend a lot of time communicating with each of them in person, on Slack, and other channels.
There are dozens of tiny tweaks you can make every day to build stronger connections between that team. You don’t need to be the boss to do any of them. Nor do you any more resources than you already have.
Consider the following:
In your interactions with colleagues do you:
- Including references to the past to create a sense of shared history?
- Highlight contributions of individual members to the group?
- Tell newcomers about the history and unique culture of the group?
- Organize off-site activities/meet-ups?
- Participate to gain more connections, deliver expertise, or become more likable?
- Ensure the team has specific, hard, goals?
- Subtly push for higher levels of self-disclosure? Do you encourage members to share what each are doing, thinking, feeling, and fearing on a regular basis?
- Introducing rituals and traditions from pre-existing activities?
None of the above cost a penny to implement. None of the above require the direct permission of your boss. Yet all of them will help you build a far better working environment than the one you have today.
It doesn’t take much to change what you’re doing and build a stronger team around yourself. It’s this very thing that will propel you higher up the career ladder.
