Relationships from workplace to home.

Professional relationships are fast being catapulted into personal ones. Reasons are not difficult to find. The colleagues are the ones with whom people spend a substantial amount of time in the workplace and they comprises of those with whom a person shares those intimate moments even if that means sharing a personal opinion on an issue which otherwise is the exclusive domain of his near and dear ones.Colleagues are the ones to whom people have started to confide a whole range of issues, notwithstanding the competitive pressure and professional under-currents, perennially present in the working environment. Workplace related romance are seen in full bloom these days.People often tend to forget that a colleague with whom they have to share a relationship and stop somewhere so as to avoid crossing that line separating personal and professional attachment, goes much beyond that, culminating in a colleague taking center stage in their life.They enjoy festivities, special days like birthdays or any other day for commemoration together in their lives.Even after one partner departs from the organization where the relationship blossomed, they are in touch, through email, telephone or even occasional personal meetings, sharing their professional and personal issues with ease, unless they decide to convert that into a full fledged personal relationship and bonding .At times they tend to open up more in such relationships, rather than the one which is either blood related or with a close acquaintance.The flip side of such relationships can be disastrous as well.If one is unable to draw a line separating a professional relationship from a personal one, especially when the trusted partner is not worth to be included in the personal network, there can be instances when the so called friend can take undue advantage of the same while encountering professional challenges and hardships. In a dog eat dog environment, where survival of the fittest holds the key in a competitive workplace, quite often such relationships takes ugly turn, spelling disaster not only for the person involved, but also by vitiating the working environment.To add to all these, personal relationships at the workplace may create in personal bonhomie and lead to some sort of illicit rapport between the two, drawing unnecessary attention from onlookers.Seniors, peers or even junior colleagues may at times use such relationships to their own advantage, embarrassing the people engaged in the relationships, by leveraging professional milieu out of it.The bottom line is to understand the pros and cons of such relationships before taking the plunge by metamorphosing a professional contact into a personal one.

When myopia takes over from a professional approach

Teamwork is always a beneficial proposition for a modern day organization. The benefits accrued from group beats the disadvantages hands down and therefore, almost all the forward looking organizations encourages team work to the core.The de-merits if not being managed well can snowball into a crisis especially while managing teams of knowledge workers.
A small case-let is providing valuable insights into such happening-
Ram was a trainer of a leading company offering management training solutions to a diversified list of clients.The company boasted of trainers who were as different as that of chalk and cheese,however,notwithstanding their differences, they used to gel up in the overall interest of the organization.Being knowledge workers, possessing a high proportion of intellectual know-how the bunch of trainers often had ego clashes amongst themselves on petty issues.In fact these clashes resulted because of the presence of a myopic approach adopted either on the basis of seniority, project experience, training exposure one was having, apart from the scholastic profile.The departmental head being a balanced person often mitigated such issues by nipping them at the bud.It wasn't possible every time for him to know about the existing under-currents prevailing within the team of trainers.It was time for making question papers for the trainees, which happened to be the responsibility of the course coordinator, after which the same was to be approved by all the trainers involved in imparting training on the same subject, albeit to a different set of audience.The coordinator made the paper and as a routine protocol was taking it through the panel of other trainers, for their remarks, suggestions, feedback and approval, when one of them behaved indifferently.He took the paper, kept it for two days, and after the second day, when the coordinator went for seeking his feedback, he politely said the paper wasn't up to the mark, so a new one is to be made.He also added that he needed five pages to write down his comments, to which the coordinator accepted.The coordinator tried to explain him that even though a new paper is being made, there are bound to be differences as every trainer's perception is different, their target customer's vary and the like.He wasn't ready to accept that in spite of assuring the coordinator to make the comments therein, escalated the matter to the higher-ups without the knowledge of the coordinator.The departmental head as usual understood the rationale of the move by that trainer and suggested him to take the initiative of making the paper and then circulate to the team of trainers through the coordinator.He made the paper and as expected there were plethora of comments coming from all quarters so as to develop the paper apropos the requirement of the target audience.
It was myopic approach taking over the professionalism conduct essential while working in a team.

Professional relationships into personal relationships at the workplace

Professional relationships at the workplace have often metamorphosed into a private one.The modern day working environment is full of pressure, stiff deadlines, challenging targets and competition which results into mental and physical stress. To add to that an unhealthy work-life balance is one of the key reason for an individual to feel strained and drained culminating in the bondage being broken with the near and dear ones.The long hours one has to spend at the workplace also contributes to this aspect and the employees are always in the look out for that shoulder to lean upon, that hand to hold or that caring eyes to understand the problems one is facing at the workplace. Healthy competition at times changing into unhealthy competition notwithstanding, employees are trying to forge relationships with people from the workplace at the personal level. This is leading to the creation of new relationships, not only at the professional level but also at the personal level. It is tantamount on the part of the management to understand these relationships and encourage the same which would not only reduce employee unrest, but would also contribute substantially towards the employee motivation and productivity.The grey areas however, has to be addressed as too much of intimacy at the workplace especially between the employees of the opposite gender may lead to illicit personal relationship.The management should sniff out the bondage and its impact on the personal lives of the respective employees before encouraging or distinguishing the creation of such relationships.