Other Communication Commons^™

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 …