Bosses, Coworkers, and Building Great Work Relationships
Various Contributors
Harvard Business Review Press (May 2024)

“People won’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”  Theodore Roosevelt

This is one of the volumes in the HBR Work Smart Series, offering insights from cutting-edge thinkers who share their thoughts about how to accelerate your personal growth and professional development.

According to the Series editors, “Managers, peers, work friends, mentors, frenemies, annoying people, romantic interests, your boss’s boss, and so on. We probably spend more hours with o0ur coworkers than we do with anyone else. So even if they’re not all perfect, it’s worth building connections with them that will provide you with support, help you network and learn, and keep your career moving forward.”

This series features the topics that matter most to those now preparing for or are early in their business career, topics “including being yourself at work, collaborating with (sometimes difficult) colleagues and bosses, managing your mental health, and weighing major job decisions. Each title includes chapter recaps as well as links to video, The HBR Work Smart Series books are your practical guides to stepping into your professional life and moving forward with confidence.”

I presume to add that most of the material in these books will also be of substantial value to supervisors who have direct reports entrusted to their care.

The 20 articles were originally published in HBR and if all were purchased separately as reprints, the total cost would be at least $240. Amazon now sells a paperbound volume for only $22. That’s not a bargain; that’s a steal.

Eliana Goldstein provides a superb Introduction to Bosses, Coworkers, and Building Great Work Relationships. Here is a brief excerpt:

“Here’s  what I tell my clients. Strong work relationships are the secret sauce for reducing stress, expediting your growth, even managing your career. You may have noticed that the people who tend to grow quickly, get the romotions, and get the raises aren’t always the ones who are the best at their jobs. But you know what they are probably [begin italics] really [end italics] good at? Building work relationships. It’s surprisingly simple, and there are just two key ingredients: Building strong connections with the right people [and] Being purposeful in your conversations and asking the right questions.

‘Just two ingredients, but they entail [begin italics] a lot [end italics]. Fortunately, they’re exactly what this book will be diving into in detail.”

These are among the articles of greatest interest and value to me.

o “Three Ways to Say No to Your Boss: Tips from three HBR team members,” Paige Cohen (Pages 21-27)

o “Three Types of Difficult Coworkers and How to Work with Them: You don’t have to put up with bad behavior,” Any Gallo (47-57)

o “You Can’t Sit Out Office Politics: But you can use them to your advantage,” Niven Postma (81-92)

o “When It Comes to Promotions, It’s About Who Knows You: …not who you know,” Anand Tamboli (123-130)

o “What’s the Right Way to Find a Mentor: Tips to start, nurture, and maintain the relationship,” Janet T. Phan (145-152)

Once you set or revise your goals, you will be well-prepared to achieve them by effectively applying the relevant knowledge and wisdom that are provided in this book. However, you will also need help from associates and probably some luck such as “being in the right place at the right time.” You also need to know when an opportunity is “knocking on your door,” and be prepared to take full advantage of it. (Sometimers it whispers rather than knocks.) You can also benefit from having role models.  There is a great deal of value to learn from others’ successes and, especially from their [begin italics] failures [end italics]. However, to repeat, your success (however defined) ultimately depends on you.

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Here are two other suggestions while you are reading Bosses, Coworkers, and Building Great Work Relationships: First, highlight key passages.  Also, perhaps in a lined notebook kept near-at- hand, record your comments, questions, action steps (preferably with deadlines), page references, and lessons you have learned as well as your responses to key points posed within the narrative. Also record your responses to specific or major issues or questions addressed, especially at the conclusion of chapters.

These two simple tactics — highlighting and documenting — will facilitate, indeed expedite frequent reviews of key material later.