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Interpersonal and Small Group Communication Commons™
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Full-Text Articles in Interpersonal and Small Group Communication
Communication Strategies To Restore Working Relations: Comparing Relationships That Improved With Ones That Remained Problematic, Jon A. Hess, Katelyn A. Sneed
Communication Strategies To Restore Working Relations: Comparing Relationships That Improved With Ones That Remained Problematic, Jon A. Hess, Katelyn A. Sneed
Communication Faculty Publications
When considering problematic workplace relationships, the question naturally arises of how people can deal most effectively with these challenges. What people most want with difficult relationships is a way to make the problems go away. That desire calls for research on strategies to transform problematic relationships into non-problematic relations. For this issue, there is both good news and bad news.
First, the bad news: There are few easy answers when dealing with problematic relations. Problematic relationships are difficult by definition. Relationships that involve challenges a person can easily resolve are not difficult relationships. The co-construction of these relationships often intertwines …
Turning Points In Relationships With Disliked Co-Workers, Jon A. Hess, Becky Lynn Omdahl, Janie M. Harden Fritz
Turning Points In Relationships With Disliked Co-Workers, Jon A. Hess, Becky Lynn Omdahl, Janie M. Harden Fritz
Communication Faculty Publications
Although most people begin their employment with the education and on-the-job training to handle the tasks their jobs entail, few long-term employees boast that they feel competent in dealing with all the difficult people they encounter in the workplace. Unpleasant coworkers range from annoying nuisances to major sources of job frustration and career roadblocks. Given that periodic preoccupation with unlovable coworkers is nearly a universal feature of organizational life, it is not surprising that such relationships are given due attention in the media and popular press (e.g., Bramson, 1989; Topchik, 2000). What is surprising is how little scholarly attention has …
Dealing With Co-Workers We Don't Like, Jon A. Hess
Dealing With Co-Workers We Don't Like, Jon A. Hess
Communication Faculty Publications
When we take a job with a company, we instantly develop a large network of new acquaintances. The relationships we have with co-workers are called “nonvoluntary relationships” because as long as we hold a job with that organization, we have no choice but to interact with the other people who work there.
As long as we like our co-workers, the nonvoluntary nature of these relationships is unremarkable, but for most of us it is inevitable that we won’t like a few of those people. This can cause a difficult situation. Relationships with co-workers we don’t like are stressful. The stronger …