Team Working

If you and your boss just are not getting along, it may be that you two are just not compatible. In fact the same sort of terms we often use in connection with dating can also apply to the manager/employee relationship.

There is a very fine line to walk at work these days. You want to stand out from the crowd and make sure that your managers know how valuable you are. At the same time, no one likes someone who is a "brown-noser."

Sometimes it seems like working with the people you spend eight hours every day with is killing you. Maybe your boss is making you angry or a co-worker is annoying you to the point of violence. In which case, you need some help.

Promoted into a new role, Mary has come up against a subordinate who wants to make her look as bad as possible. The trouble is, she is also a favourite of Mary's boss. What can she do? Charles Helliwell has some suggestions.

Carla has just started a senior government job to find herself with a deputy who was passed over for the same job. He is hurt, angry and causing trouble. Is there anything she can do salvage the situation? Max McKeown thinks there is.

When I ask teams what they would like from their supervisors, the same simple things keep coming up. You might think they're obvious - but if they are, teams wouldn't continually be mentioning them!

Do you manage a team or a group? The distinction is an important one, because there's no point in trying to develop a team ethos amongst a group of people who do no real need to work cooperatively together.

Would it surprise you that a dead-end job with no benefits is still an ideal environment for workplace backstabbing? You don't say!

Mary has recently moved into a management position where she is plagued by a colleague who bad-mouthed the previous person in her position and now she is saying the same things about her. Charles Helliwell has some advice.

Shayla is a young manager with a big problem. Key members of her team have turned against her and her authority – and effectiveness – is rapidly being undermined. Charles Helliwell has some ideas to get things back on track.

There are some employees out there who are downright geniuses in a strange kind of way – and whose extraordinary abilities are mirrored only by complete inability to work and play with others. Here's a quick field study of four of these types.

Jane's working life is plagued by a poisonous co-worker who has made her life a misery. But rather than let it beat her, Charles Helliwell has a plan to help Jane immunize herself against this pest and get rid of her.

Egotism can lead to selfishness. What's more, altruism and generosity - and striking a balance between feeling good and telling everyone how good you are - will often get you much further.

What's your story? Study just about any inspiring leader and you will find someone who can tell a story that drives home a point – all the way down to a person's core.

Ella has worked hard to advance her career. But with maternity leave looming, she is worried that her office rival is keen to expand his empire to include both her job and her team.

One unfortunate side effect of our busy working lives that it is easy to lose sight of workplace relationships. As a result, we forget that our personal and professional success depends as much on the quality of these relationships as it does on how effectively we perform our tasks.

Sally has been promoted and now finds herself having problems managing someone who was a friend long before the promotion. Charles Helliwell has some advice to help her through this tricky dilemma.

Teams perform better when they are all thinking the same thing, new research has suggested, even if it is only to be in complete agreement that you are a dreadful manager.

No workplace is perfect. And while we can usually perform well around people who have a wide range of idiosyncrasies, some behaviors just get under our skin.

I'd like to be the first to cordially invite you all to sod off, with my most sincere wishes! No, I didn't mean to be rude; you'll have to excuse me, I was simply taking the advice of researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in England.

The days of the mad scramble down to the pub after finishing work on a Friday may be all but over, as three-quarters of Britons say they rarely socialise with their colleagues.

It's easy to forget that our relationship with our boss is mutually dependent – and that it requires careful management. That means you need to building a cooperative working relationship and understand your boss's needs and working style if you're going to make it work.

Adam is supposed be an intermediary between people his office and product specialists located globally. Yet his colleagues - and even his boss – are increasingly bypassing him. Rob Yeung has some advice.

The way your organization handles conflict can either be an experience of aliveness, vitality and camaraderie, or one of toxicity, resentment and disrespect. But if we really want to reduce conflict, we need to encourage employees to be more self-aware.

No one expects their workplace to be smiles and harmony all the time, but with just half of British firms training managers in how to handle conflict, it's little wonder that disputes cost the UK economy £33 billion a year.

A recent study suggests that the world-renowned British stiff upper lip extends into the workplace, with nearly six out of 10 UK workers saying they would not approach HR to discuss their co-workers more annoying habits.

You might think that standards of manners and behaviour at work are on the decline, but according to a new survey, good manners are critical if you want to move up the career ladder.

On this week's Working Week podcast, Wayne is joined by writer and management journalist, Phil Whiteley, co-author of a new book, How to Manage in a Flat World. They discuss how managers can communicate and motivate in today's flattened companies and how this might develop in the future.

On this week's Working Week podcast, Wayne is joined by writer and management journalist, Phil Whiteley, co-author of a new book, How to Manage in a Flat World. They discuss how managers can communicate and motivate in today's flattened companies and how this might develop in the future.

A recent poll revealing that a sense of humor in the workplace is an absolute must was spot-on. But not only do employees need a good sense of humor, but it's also important that managers or supervisors have one, too.

In Adam's new company, social networking is almost as important as the job itself. But he hates golf and would rather head home after work than go out with colleagues. So can he ever be seen as a team player?

Managers should stop kidding themselves that their pearls of wisdom that make a difference. Because most of us rely on one another, not the boss, to solve problems in the workplace.

An anonymous poster on Jobswill.com has a few tips for you if you happen to think that person sitting just outside your office, might be the co-worker from Hell.

If you haven't received it yourself yet, don't be surprised if an email lands in your inbox purporting to warn you that working with idiots can cause fatal stress-related problems.

A study from New Zealand has found that working with your mates at the office or even making mates at the office is a less than stellar idea.

If you need a reminder of just how much damage a single bad manger can do this post over on Fthisjob.com provides some pretty powerful evidence.

Yahoo's Hot Jobs web site frequently has career advice, not just for finding a new job, but, cheekily enough, for putting up with the one you have. Generally speaking, the advice therein is spot on, but I just couldn't abide by some of what was written in this gem.

Office politics once meant turf wars, back-stabbing and pursuing personal advantage. But now the majority of managers see it as being about building alliances and consensus.

Trust is not easy to develop in the best of circumstances. When working with teams whose members may never have met each other, these problems only increase. So how can we build trust in such an environment?

Look around any organisation and chances are you'll find at least one person whose negative behaviour affects the rest of the group. Now new research has found that it only takes one toxic individual to upset the whole apple cart.

If you found a rose or mysterious scented letter on your desk this morning, you are not alone – a tenth of workers say they have their eye on someone at work.

We'd all prefer to be liked, but managers who spend too much time trying to be popular and friendly with members of their teams can be a recipe for disaster, new research has warned.

Changes in the way that organisations are structured mean that office politics have grown from being a peripheral worry ten years ago to the single biggest cause of stress in the workplace today.

If you think you can succeed at work without getting political, you need to wake up. Politicking happens whether you like it or not, so you might as well learn the right buttons to push to influence others more effectively.

Chronic complainers can be a drain on workplace morale and productivity. It's perfectly reasonable to have a complaint, but how you choose to handle it determines whether you're a workplace professional, or a professional complainer.

In work, as in life, people are going to let us down and break our trust. But if we're going to move forward, we have to find a way to forgive, however counter-intuitive this might seem.

What's the latest wonder-tool in the never-ending hunt for increased motivation and productivity? According to a story in today's Daily Telegraph, the answer is singing.

Unlike their thin-skinned CEOs, middle managers are the toughest-minded group in the workforce and most able to handle criticism, a new U.S. study has suggested.

As projects involve more people, from more functions, in more locations, the job of getting top performance, meeting deadlines and simply communicating is becoming increasingly difficult.

Des Dearlove talks to London Business School Professor Lynda Gratton about the need for greater flexibility and co-operation in organisations and how more cooperative organisations can encourage innovation.

Good interpersonal skills are fundamental to true empowerment. Companies will only create conditions for people to take responsibility and ownership of their work if they teach good management practices and ensure people are taught how to work well with each other.

When you find yourself in hot water, what kind of effect do you have on the environment? Do you become bitter and turn your surroundings bitter as well? Or are you soothing, with a corresponding ripple effect on those around you?

Perhaps business leaders might be more successful if they took a leaf out of the Big Brother book and started spreading information by gossip.

Whenever people work together, conflict is an inevitable result. Disagreements occur in even the best working relationships. But how conflict is addressed can either add to or take away from a company's bottom line.

In some beautifully crafted way, there are numerous parallels between brain science and a certain organic or social view of organisational shape and function.

What brings success? Is it better leaders? Better products? Better salespeople? What about better performance management systems? Possibly, but the one thing that brings sustained high performance is how well people communicate with each other.

By far the number one crankiness-inducing thing in our lives is bad meetings. But with a little planning, you'll get the most out of them and give participants a reason to live - or at least show up with better attitudes.

Most organisations view knowledge acquired 'on the job' as belonging to the them rather than the individual – and certainly something that should be shared. But many employees don't see it that way.

Home team advantage is a well-known phenomenon in the sporting arena. But given that the workplace is also a social system made up of interdependent parts, it can be equally as important.

Red tape and long hours can grind down the best of employees, but it is the people we work with who who irritate us the most.