How to behave in a women's team
Feminists never cease to be outraged by how prejudiced men are towards the weaker sex, especially when it comes to careers. However, life shows the opposite. It is women who tend to be biased towards other women, and it is in women's groups that many ladies feel very uncomfortable. How to survive in a women's team and not become an outcast? Let's figure it out.
Don't show off
Women do not like competition, and anything can become a reason for envy. Of course, there is no need to hide in shapeless bags if you have a beautiful figure, but there is no need to boast about expensive trips and designer bags if your colleagues live modestly. Why do you need other people's envy? The same applies to clothing style. If your office has a specific dress code, try to adhere to it as much as possible.
Praise your colleagues
If there is a reason, of course. Did your colleague buy a new dress and does it fit her well? Don't ignore it, she will be happy with the compliment. Another colleague delivered a project quickly? Praise her for her efficiency. As they say, a kind word is nice to a cat, and even more so to female colleagues. Do this sincerely, and you will be known as an open and kind person in the team.
Don't gossip
About colleagues, and especially about bosses, it’s either good or nothing. Even if you really trust your office friends. Any friend of today may tomorrow be offended by you for something and go and report to your boss how you threw mud at him (her). Don't initiate gossip yourself and don't allow others to involve you in discussing other people's “underwear.” Ideally, stop such conversations. It is possible that over time, your colleagues will understand that gossiping is not good, and will stop entertaining themselves this way.
Don't talk about your personal life
Don’t rush to pour out your soul in a group. Any interesting information about you may make people want to gossip behind your back. If you hear colleagues gossiping about someone in your team, rest assured that they are gossiping about you too. Don't give them any extra reason.
Don't try to please everyone
It still won't work. Someone is bound to not like your manners, your appearance or your voice. Don’t try to immediately fit into the team and become “one of our own”; don’t impose yourself. Keep your distance, communicate with everyone politely and evenly. If your relationship with someone is absolutely not working out, leave these people alone and communicate only about work. Don’t even try to find out the reason for the hostility towards you. It’s almost impossible to do this in a women’s group, but you can be branded as a troublemaker and a gossip.
Try to adopt some of the traditions
Observe your colleagues, take note of what traditions are in place in the office. If they do not contradict your principles, do not ignore them. It is not necessary to follow all the traditions, but you should not completely distance yourself from the team. If you are invited to have lunch together, do not refuse the offer. You don't have to immediately become the center of attention. It is absolutely normal if at first you listen more than talk.
Don't break the rules
Who among us has not at least once been late for work and asked the boss to go to the doctor? But there is no need to turn this into a common thing. If you are often late, spend a lot of time chatting about non-work matters, or drink coffee instead of doing your work, your female colleagues may dislike you and complain to your superiors. And long legs and neckline will not save you.
Be peaceful
If there is a conflict in the team, do not rush to take someone’s side. You are not obligated to delve into other people's disagreements and figure out who is right and who is wrong. Don't let the parties to the conflict pull you over to their side, remain neutral. The conflict will be resolved sooner or later, and if you take someone’s side without really understanding it, you may find yourself in a very awkward situation.
The women's team is evil. I hate this creature. Damn hypocrite
Women's team. Just these two words send a shiver through my body. In general, my team is not bad (or rather, for me it’s already a former team, since on Monday I’m leaving for a new office, I’ve been waiting for its opening since July), but gossip and discussions are an integral part of it, you get used to it. But snitching to your superiors is already vile. Today we were left alone with the boss, we opened up, she was still a little tipsy, as they were escorting me and another girl to a new place and she inadvertently told me that my work colleague was complaining about me that I was late and leaving early. She didn’t say who exactly, but I guessed right away, because my second colleague and I are late together, since my husband drives us to work. Let me explain the situation: my working day is from 8:30 to 17:30. I work with clients from 9 to 17, and other times I have opening and closing hours. But it takes me 10 minutes to open and 15 minutes to close. Moreover, everyone is late, except for the informer; she generally arrives at eight, but she has no choice, since she depends on electric trains. In general, no one comes at 8:30. Also, with closing, it doesn’t take much time, and especially when I came on the first day, my second colleague told me, “You work with clients until five, and leave as soon as it closes.” And our snitch always smiled sweetly at me, called me a little bunny and offered to stop working with clients not at five, but at 16:45 or 16:50 (she works until 19:30 2/2, and I have a five-day week), I sometimes refused when I knew that my husband would only come for me at half-time, and if she was in a hurry to catch the bus, she agreed. And she went and complained to the boss that I was stopping work ahead of time. I told the boss that she herself personally came up to me and said, “Sunshine, close the door already, there are no people anyway.” To which the boss shrugged and said, “That’s what she tells you, but she presents it to me differently, you should have refused and worked until five.” “Kick-ass, why such a proposal then? to make me look so bad to those around me that I’m a freeloader and always leave before everyone else, or to appear so caring and good in my eyes. How I hate hypocrites. And the fact that I work all day, and she makes tea, this is not taken into account, the fact that her lunch is not an hour, but consistently 1:15 or 1:20, and then she comes so surprised, “Oh bunny, sorry, I chatted, I didn’t notice, that lunch is over” But he notices perfectly when it starts. And even more so, who would say, those who work 2/2 complete the hours, yes, they actually draw, these days they themselves are at home, but according to the documents they supposedly work, since they have almost 30 hours off work (on weekdays they work at 10 o’clock, and on weekends for 8 hours, and I consistently work five days a week for 8 hours), and I don’t work for 20 minutes. per day and already complaints. I am so happy that tomorrow I will see this creature for the last time, I hope there will be no such things in the new office. Thanks to those who finished reading my chaotic letter, it’s just very offensive, I was brought to tears.
Rules of good manners
A well-mannered employee is always friendly without showing his inner state. Nothing will happen to him after simple polite words of greeting and gratitude. You involuntarily gravitate towards such a person. Right?
However, being too friendly and agreeing to informal communication with employees without any reason is also not worth it; it can lead to a backlash. The fair half of humanity will appreciate the new colleague as a rival, and men will immediately lose interest and respect. The line of what is permitted here is thin.
A woman is a provocateur by nature. It is in her spirit to subject her rival to humiliating arguments and skirmishes. And if a person has no desire, in the very first days, to find himself in the midst of gossip, intrigue, investigations, then he should stubbornly avoid quarrels with representatives of your team. Cunning and the ability to listen can only help here.
Continuing the previous recommendation. You should not give away all your ins and outs, even down to daily family details. Such thoughtless trust in someone else can turn into absurd speculation and envy, which will give rise to even more problems. Generally known information will suffice.
Another piece of advice is not to rush to “run ahead of the locomotive.” It’s great if work is fun, all tasks will be completed with ease. But not everyone is the same. Someone may not succeed the first time, or there may be some violations. If there is an intolerant attitude towards the work of other employees, and a desire to teach what work would be most correct, the team will most likely rebel and accept this challenge.
Every team has a couple of ingrained rituals that bring all employees together and unite them. There is no need to neglect them and avoid general holidays or corporate snacks. But a fierce zeal to fight unfair punishments for the slightest offenses will also not decorate a new employee.
As mentioned earlier, the team consists of completely different people, based on this, and the problems may be different. But you can find an approach to every problem if you know the standard categories of people that exist in absolutely every field.
- For example, there are often people who are always gloomy and irritated. Any careless word can cause an explosion of his emotions. The best tactic in this case would be a somewhat indifferent, neutral attitude.
- Another category of people to avoid are “gossips.” They spread various false information not only because they have nothing better to do. The main reason is usually envy. Neither a new stylish accessory nor flirting with a man can escape the attention of such employees. Therefore, in no case should you allow conversations behind your back and everything secret to become apparent.
- There are people who, under no circumstances, change their work environment or work methods. It is almost impossible to change their conservative point of view. Is it worth spending so much effort to convince such people of the correctness of your words; maybe it’s easier to speak to them using generally accepted dogmas?
- But such people, on the contrary, love to poke their noses everywhere and give advice. In general, they are safe, but their extreme annoyingness can lead to scandal. To avoid such a situation, you need to resort to cunning and seek help from the annoying employee yourself, listen patiently, show his importance in this matter, thanks to which meetings with the “annoying” person will be reduced to a minimum.
- Often in a team you can see a category of people who do everything for show. They love to be the center of attention, they love to be listened to carefully and praised. It costs nothing to please such a person.
Not all categories were considered here, only the main ones. It also happens that a person changes job after job, but the situation does not change. In this case, you need to reconsider your attitude towards the team and find out the causes of the problems that have arisen.
Team building exercise
This article explores ways to use these skills to effectively resolve any disagreement.
And also the reasons for discord in the team. Try exercises to unite employees, which I will discuss below. In any conflict, be it professional or personal, you want to immediately respond blow to blow. But there are effective ways to unite the team and make friends. You can play the team game “Don’t rush to defense.” How to play it:
the coordinator (host) comes up with offensive jokes. And the person being called names must make a series of statements showing that they can respond harmlessly to insults and see a different perspective.
Instead of defending against attacks on the presenter's argument, the player should use the conflict as an opportunity to look at things from a different perspective. You don't have to agree with hurtful words or incorrect statements. If he does everything correctly, he receives a prize, and this exercise also relieves tension and unites the organization’s team more effectively.
How to improve relationships at work in a team
In a work team, as in any other, conflicts cannot be avoided. However, if you know how to find a common language with any person, it will be much easier for you to avoid conflicts or, at least, significantly mitigate them.
To do this, think about and divide all your colleagues into types:
Perfectionist
Such people cannot be content with just a job well done - they need an ideal. Any deviation from an impeccable model causes indignation in a perfectionist.
He makes excessive demands on all colleagues, including himself. Remember that it is very difficult to find a common language with such a person, especially if he is a boss. His work requirements are almost impossible to fulfill, which means that every time you hear reproaches that something could be done better.
To improve your relationship with a perfectionist at work, don’t get hung up on this person’s comments. Often, dissatisfaction with others is caused by dissatisfaction with oneself, because he places such high demands not only on others, but also on himself. If your manager is dissatisfied with your work, try to rationally and calmly explain to him that it is not always possible to bring things to perfection.
"I shouldn't do this"
Such employees can be found in any team. These are the people who, under any pretext, refuse to complete even the easiest task. Their stock phrase is often “It’s not my job.” It is difficult to communicate with such employees, and even more so to establish relationships at work, because they always believe that they are doing someone else’s work, doing someone a favor, and the like.
It is possible to encourage such employees to do their work, because almost all of them strive to build a good career. In this case, doing work that is supposedly not part of their duties should help them climb the career ladder.
Gossip
Also a fairly common type in any team. These people like to spread rumors in a group in anticipation of a response or simply to attract attention. To improve relationships at work with such a person, remember that gossipers, to some extent, strive for power over their colleagues, because by possessing information and spreading gossip, they can easily lead to conflict in the workplace and spoil the work atmosphere.
If rumors are being spread about you and you know about it. The best option would be to tell your co-workers the true facts. Thus, interest in the gossip will disappear, because colleagues have learned the truthful information from you, which means they no longer need to invent something and be at a loss.
