Trusting your co-workers essentially means that you have confidence that your colleagues are competent and will act in a fair, reliable, and ethical manner. Toxic coworkers aside, the majority of people you interact with on a day to day basis are not out to cause trouble or play the gotcha game. They just want to come in, do their jobs successfully, and go home to their families at the end of the day. But it might not always seem like that. We all have co-workers that it seems like we are in a constant battle with, that are always negative, always pushing back. But step back. Look at the big picture. You’re ultimately responsible for how you react in any given situation, and it’s almost universally better to give your co-workers the benefit of the doubt. Don’t assume the worst – it’ll be better for you, better for your colleagues, and better for the organization. In fact, research published in the Journal of Managerial Psychology that people who trust their colleagues are more likely to have a higher level of job satisfaction.
This is a rather abstract concept, so let’s look at an example: You had trouble sleeping the night before and, as a result, didn’t get as much sleep as you would have liked, maybe got out of bed a little late and thus are late getting into work. So you get to the office, get your cup of coffee, and just as you’re sitting down to start working a co-worker comes in to ask you how a specific project is coming along. This particular co-worker has been skeptical of this project in the past. You instantly think “Why do they care? They’ve been against this project from the beginning. What business is it of theirs?” and you give a snipppy answer that gives minimal information, and your co-worker leaves your office feeling rather brushed aside and annoyed that you didn’t answer their question.
So what happened here. So a few things. First, you had a bad morning. It happens. But what you may not realize is that your bad morning has now adversely clouded your perception of events for your whole day. Research has come from from the Wharton School at Penn that shows that positive or negative thoughts or encounters in your personal life can positively or adversely influence how we later judge or trust someone in a business situation.
In other words, if you have a bad day, you’re more likely to negatively perceive the actions of your co-workers. Being self-aware of how our own experiences impact your experiences with others is half the battle. Instantly, you know that your co-worker may not be being uppity at all and you can reign in your snippy comments and instead use it as an opportunity to have a positive discussion.
But let’s just say that the person in our example hadn’t had a bad morning – if a co-worker who has pushed back on a project that you’re doing comes in and asks you about it out of the blue, you may have questions about their motives regardless. Here’s where giving the benefit of the doubt is incredibly important. Think about the reasons this person may have pushed back on the project in the first place: Maybe they had a bad day. Maybe their boss is putting pressure on them to get it done a different way. Maybe they are under stress because something in their personal life is not going as well as it could be. You just don’t know what could be influencing their behavior. And it rarely has to do with you personally, or the work you’re doing.
Most of the time, how a person reacts to you in your office really has nothing to do with you – it has to do with them.
I’m going to say that again because it is really important: How people react in a working environment rarely has to do with what you are doing. It has to do with what is going on in their lives. Once you take this perspective, you can look at these situations in context and give them the benefit of the doubt that they are not out to get you. Then, you have the opportunity to shift the tone of the conversation for the better. You are in control of how you react in any given situation.
The person in our scenario had two choices: They could have been snippy, piss off their co-worker and possibly start a domino change of events that leads to nothing but bad things, or they can choose to give the person the benefit of the doubt and shift the conversation from negative to positive. The easy thing to do is to wallow in negativity. Giving the benefit of the doubt and shifting the conversation is much more difficult, but the payout on the other side is well worth it. Be self-aware and look beyond the obvious and you’ll have a whole new perspective.
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Related Reading Materials:
Katz. M. (2008). How personal interactions and emotions impact the workplace. Women in Business, Mar/Apr 2008.
Ferres, N., Connell, J. & Travaglione, A. (2004). Co-worker trust as a social catalyst for constructive employee attitudes. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 19(6).
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