Latest news with #HowtoGetAlongWithAnyone
Mint
a day ago
- Business
- Mint
5 new books to find your mojo at the workplace
Next Story Team Lounge A roundup of recent releases to help you navigate a range of triggers in the office—from interpersonal conflicts to coaching others for better outcomes The office could give rise to interpersonal conflicts or be a safe space for mentoring and coaching for better outcomes. Gift this article The Nurturing Quotient The Nurturing Quotient Business coaches Nirupama Subramanian and Rajesh Ramachandran distill their decades-long experience of working in the corporate world, and with business leaders, in this accessible guide, The Nurturing Quotient, to nurturing others and oneself for long-term success in the workplace. Structured around a key framework called HOPE (Humility, Openness, Patience, Empathy), they demonstrate how it can be used to cultivate MILE (Mentor, Inspire, Listen, Empathize) behaviours for a healthier and happier work environment. If you are grappling with burnout or managing the expectations of intergenerational employees, this book will give you some actionable insights to forge your way ahead. (Penguin Random House, ₹ 499) Business coaches Nirupama Subramanian and Rajesh Ramachandran distill their decades-long experience of working in the corporate world, and with business leaders, in this accessible guide, The Nurturing Quotient, to nurturing others and oneself for long-term success in the workplace. Structured around a key framework called HOPE (Humility, Openness, Patience, Empathy), they demonstrate how it can be used to cultivate MILE (Mentor, Inspire, Listen, Empathize) behaviours for a healthier and happier work environment. If you are grappling with burnout or managing the expectations of intergenerational employees, this book will give you some actionable insights to forge your way ahead. (Penguin Random House, ₹ 499) The Nurturing Quotient by Rajesh Ramakrishnan and Nirupama Subramanian. How to Get Along With Anyone Studies say that the average American worker wastes 156 hours every year embroiled in conflicts at the workplace, while managers spend a quarter of their time every week to mediate and resolve difficult situations at work. It wouldn't be far from the truth to extrapolate these data to the Indian context. If you've been at the receiving end of frosty behaviour from colleagues or find yourself agonising over microaggressions, the answers to your problems may lie in How to Get Along With Anyone by John Eliot and Jim Guinn. The authors not only explain various types of conflicts, but also give you tools to predict potential disputes and preempt them. Best of all, these strategies can help you diffuse knotty situations at home too. (Simon & Schuster, ₹ 799) How to Get Along With Anyone by John Eliot and Jim Guinn. If you don't have the time, or inclination, to read a full-fledged book, this one's for you. Written by one of India's leading coaches and management experts, Debashish Chatterjee, it brings together insights gleaned from a lifetime of teaching, training, and coaching corporate executives. Each entry presents a quirky hot take on one theme—the power of listening over speaking, for instance, or advice on how to get unstuck. It's a mishmash of wellness meets mindfulness meets self-help—good timepass if you are bored on a flight. A few line drawings have been thrown in the mix to liven up things. (Penguin Random House, ₹ 499) One Minute Wisdom by Debashis Chatterjee. Coming from the pen of a professional baseball player, Inner Excellence by Jim Murphy is pitched as a manual for achieving peak performance. But it doesn't only apply to sportspeople. Looking back on his professional career—his successes, failures and training regime—Murphy presents the secret sauce to his resilience. More than physical fitness, it was his mastery over his mental blocks, anxiety and limiting beliefs that helped him stay relevant in the game. Many of his tricks and tips will come in handy for those navigating the highs and lows of corporate life. Techniques, tools and exercises will help you stay on course as you build your mental muscle. (Hachette, ₹ 699) Inner Excellence by Jim Murphy Timeless Skills: The Playbook to Climb the Corporate Ladder What holds back middle managers from ascending the rungs of career growth? Nishant Saxena, the author of Timeless Skills, a senior executive with years of experience, ran a workshop at a listed company to find possible answers to this question. Over his long career, he had coached and mentored many managers, given advice about improving their skillset or behaviours. Yet, a majority of them couldn't take the feedback on board and improve their performance. So what makes some people rapidly climb the corporate ladder, while others lag behind? Using his lived experience and inputs from his workshop, Nishant Saxena provides a manual that may make you rethink and evaluate the career decisions you have made so far. (Penguin Random House, ₹ 399) Timeless Skills: The Playbook to Climb the Corporate Ladder by Nishant Saxena. Also read: 'Materialists' review: Love and other banalities Topics You May Be Interested In Catch all the Business News, Market News, Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint. Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates.
Forbes
19-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Workplace Conflict Is Costing Companies Billions. This May Be Why
Workplace conflict can be a hidden opportunity. getty As CEOs and other organizational leaders continually look to increase morale, productivity, and well-being across their teams, workplace conflict remains a silent, costly drain on company culture and the bottom line. According to the report Workplace Conflict and How Businesses Can Harness It to Thrive, U.S. employees spend an average of 2.8 hours per week navigating conflict, which adds up to $359 billion in lost productivity. That number is from 2008. The actual cost is likely far higher in today's polarized social climate. Even more alarming, roughly 60% of employees have never received basic conflict resolution training. Despite this, many companies still treat conflict as a soft issue or interpersonal nuisance, not the core performance and cultural threat that it is. Dr. John Eliot, psychologist, Texas A&M professor, and co-author of How to Get Along With Anyone, told me that "people either want to stick their head in the sand or pretend they don't have any conflict. The word itself makes people uncomfortable." Most traditional workplace training programs miss the mark. They focus on superficial behaviors such as communication tips, active listening, or surface-level scripts while ignoring the root cause: how people respond under pressure. Eliot and his co-author, Dr. Jim Guinn, identified five core conflict personality styles. "These styles aren't about your best self," Eliot told me. "They're the habits you fall into when you've been punched in the nose." You may show up collaboratively on a calm day, but under pressure, you default to a pattern—and so does everyone else on your team. Real solutions begin by addressing those patterns. Below are the five styles. At first glance, "avoider" may sound like a liability. It's not. Eliot compares this style to Rory McIlroy lining up a putt to win the Masters: focused, composed, blocking out distractions. Avoiders are methodical, big-picture thinkers who prefer to work independently and without fuss. They don't enjoy small talk, resist micromanagement, and find continuous and needless detail work draining. Leaders should know that avoiders thrive with autonomy and trust. But if you overload them with minutiae or force them into chatty collaboration, they'll mentally check out. These are your action-takers. They move fast, solve problems, and get things done. Competitors are direct, decisive, and thrive in high-stakes situations. "They don't care how it's done; just get it done," Eliot said. They're perfect when you need speed, risky when you need strategy." Leaders must be cognizant of these people, as they're impatient, impulsive decision-makers who tend to bulldoze others. Competitors often need help slowing down and seeing the long game. Analytical, measured, and data-driven, these individuals won't move until they understand the full picture. "The analyzer refuses to act until they know everything," Eliot said. 'They're the ones who will be most frustrated by vagueness or people skipping steps.' Analyzers can bring rigor but equally suffer from analysis paralysis, especially when pressured to act quickly. These are the glue of your team. Collaborators are relationally driven, empathic, and excellent at raising morale and culture. They want everyone to feel heard and included. "They'll talk to everyone at the water cooler but struggle to get to the bottom line," Eliot noted. The tradeoff is that they may resist hard decisions, struggle with time management, and feel uncomfortable when conversations become too personal or direct. Think of your most reliable, team-first player. Accommodators are selfless and steady. "They're like Sherpas," Eliot said. 'Happy to carry the load—but if you keep piling it on, they'll burn out or quietly resent it.' Their generosity often makes them targets for overwork. Leaders must check in proactively and ensure they're not being taken for granted. The goal isn't to fix people or fit them into boxes. It's to build awareness in yourself and your team and then lead accordingly. "Each style has a best and worst teammate," Eliot told me. 'It's not about profiling for a role—it's matchmaking for chemistry.' For example: Leaders can immediately start building stronger and higher-performing teams by: Today's workplace increasingly merges people's work with personal beliefs, political views, and cultural identities. Teams are now more prone to misunderstanding and conflict than ever before. The best-performing organizations don't avoid workplace conflict. They anticipate, understand, and build systems to work through it constructively. "Conflict allows you to improve a relationship—if you understand the people involved," Eliot said. CEOs don't need to construct perfect workplace harmony. But they can build cultures grounded in curiosity, respect, and strength-sharing. Eliot referenced a quote from Denzel Washington's character in Remember the Titans that sums up workplace conflict and team-building culture well: "You don't have to like each other—but you will respect each other."
