These are the top 7 ways you can play well with others at work. They establish the basis for building effective interpersonal healthy work relationships. These are the actions you need to take to create a positive, empowering, motivational work environment for people.

1. Bring Recommended Solutions to Issues to the Meeting Table

Some workers spend an inordinate amount of time identifying problems. Honestly? That’s the simple part for healthy work relationships.

Thoughtful solutions are the problem that will earn respect and admiration from co-workers and bosses. Your willingness to defend your solution until a better or improved approach is decided on by the team is also a plus.

1. Do not Ever Play the Blame Game

You alienate colleagues, supervisors, and reporting staff. Yes, you might need to recognize who was engaged in an issue. You might even inquire the Dr. W. Edwards Deming recommended question: what about the work system caused the employee to fail?

But, saying that it is not my mistake and publicly recognizing and blaming others for failures will earn you enemies. Throwing other employees under the bus, either privately or publicly, will also create enemies. These enemies will, in turn, help you to fail. You do need allies at work. Remember this if you want to accomplish your goals and dreams.

3. Your Verbal & Nonverbal Communication Matters

If you talk down to another worker, use sarcasm, or sound nasty, the other employee hears you. We are all radar machines that constantly scope out our environment. When you talk to another employee with a lack of respect, the message comes through loudly and clearly.

In one agency a high-level manager once inquired this question, “I know you don’t think I should scream at my employees. But, sometimes, they make me so mad. When is it ever appropriate for me to scream at the employees?” The answer? Never, of course, if respect for people is a hallmark of your organization—which it should be and which it is in massively successful companies.

4. Never Blind Side a Colleagues, Boss, or Reporting Staff Individual

If the first time a colleague hears about a problem is in a staff meeting or from an email sent to his supervisor, you’ve blindsided the coworker. Always discuss issues, first, with the people directly involved who own the work system.

Also called ambushing your colleagues, you will never build effective work alliances unless your coworkers trust you. And, without alliances, you will never accomplish the most important goals for your job and career. You cannot do it alone so treat your coworkers as you expect them to treat you.

5. Fulfill Your Commitments of Healthy Work Relationships

In an organization, work is interconnected. If you fail to meet deadlines and commitments, you affect the work of other workers. Always keep commitments, and if you cannot, make definite all affected workers know what happened. Provide a new due date and make every possible effort to honor the new deadline.

It isn’t okay for an organization to just quietly allow deadlines to slip by. Your coworkers, even if they fail to confront you, will think less of you and disrespect your actions. And, no, don’t think even for a second that they didn’t notice that the deadline passed. You insult them if you even consider this possibility.

6. Share Credit for Achievements, Ideas, and Contributions

How often do you achieve a goal or complete a project with no help from others? If you are a manager, how many of the great ideas you promote were contributed by staff members?
Take the time, and expend the energy, to thank, reward, recognize and specify contributions of the people who help you succeed. It is a no-fail approach to building effective work relationships.

1. Assist Other Workers Find Their Greatness

Every worker in your organization has talents, skills, and experience to establish healthy work relationships. If you can assist fellow workers harness their best abilities, you benefit the organization immeasurably. The growth of individual employees benefits the whole.