How to communicate with colleagues: Council of the top manager Ekaterina Sannikova
Sasha Savina
ABOUT TIPS ABOUT HOW TO BUILD A CAREER AND SUCCESSin the professional field, easy to get lost. In the new section, we propose to focus on the advice of famous people and explain why they should listen. In the new issue, we turned to the recommendations of Ekaterina Sannikova, General Director of the Technology Center of Deutsche Bank in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and argue how to put her advice into action.
We need to learn something to keep a distance, for example, not to devote out of habit to all the troubles of former colleagues - now subordinates, because if the employees see that the manager has problems, then they begin to worry: "What then will happen to us?" This demotivates, which is wrong, but a partial distance does not prevent them from staying inside the team, walking together for lunch, etc. Lunch, especially in IT, is a very important component of working together, many ideas come to mind in a less formal setting than in white walls of the meeting room.
EKATERINA SANNIKOV IN INTERVIEW FORBES
Ekaterina Sannikova worked at Deutsche Bank for ten years: when she joined the company, the bank’s technological center, which she now heads, was just beginning to develop. Catherine has gone from an ordinary employee to a top manager and says that thanks to this, she understands not only how career path is built at Deutsche Bank, but also what excites her subordinates. Based on her experience, she advises how to build relationships with colleagues and how to share work and personal - especially when you become a leader of colleagues with whom you worked in the same team.
According to statistics, close relationships at work, we start less and less. One of the possible reasons for this is clear: if before they were trying to find one job for the rest of their lives (and this means they expected that they would communicate with their colleagues for many years), now it’s customary to change jobs. However, data from numerous studies say that making friends at work is helpful.
Experts believe that, building relationships with colleagues, it is very important to draw the line between the worker and the personal - and not to strive to cross it too quickly. At the beginning of relations with colleagues, it is safer to speak on neutral topics and look for common interests - and only later, when communication becomes closer and more open, to talk about personal one. With social networks you should also be careful: if you are worried that your colleagues, having gained access to your page, will think something is wrong about you, consider whether you should add them to your friends at all - or at least change your privacy settings.
Do not forget that you are responsible to the company and the team, so when communicating with a colleague, it is important to understand when you communicate as colleagues, and when as friends, and try to ensure that friendship does not interfere with work - no matter how obvious it sounds. If you have quarreled with a friend-colleague with whom you should interact on work issues, it is better to try to resolve the conflict in a peaceful way and discuss what happened between you so that the quarrel does not interfere with the work. Unfortunately, it’s not always possible to separate the work and the personal in such situations - so it is better to try to resolve an acute situation.
If a colleague with whom you are friends and were equal on an equal footing, the most difficult thing in such a situation is to cope with the feeling of injustice and other negative emotions. Remember that the success of a colleague does not cancel your success at all - and does not mean that you will not be promoted in the future: this is primarily a reason to think about what qualities and skills you need for further progress.
If you have been promoted and you are now the head of colleagues with whom you have previously worked on the same team, this imposes additional restrictions. It is possible to maintain a good informal relationship with subordinates, and in this case - just be prepared for the fact that the relationship will change. It’s not a fact that you can, as before, go to parties together (subordinates may be uncomfortable in your company, and you may also want to keep your distance) - but drink a glass or another wine together or discuss a book that you recently read. nothing interferes.
Think about how you would like to be treated if you did not promote you, but someone else - and communicate with your subordinates in the same way. Listen to the opinions of colleagues and show that you respect them - and that you still care about their problems. Experts advise managers in such situations to have a clear idea of how the company should develop, and try to stick to it - even if your subordinate friends disagree with you or you have to make difficult decisions. In addition, you need to understand that to preserve friendship after promotion does not always work - you have to be prepared for the fact that you have to sacrifice something.
Illustration: Dasha Chertanova