Managing inter-personal relations in organizations

In every organization, whether in India, or elsewhere, there are several groups of people engaged in various tasks, that when taken as a whole, contribute to the overall organizational goal and serve to also contribute to the self-actualization needs of all employees.

Inevitably, there are several types of relationships that employees need to maintain among themselves. There are several organizations now promoting a whole range of training programs on what is now called "soft skills", like communication skills, transactional analysis, team-building, presentation skills, leadership skills and the like, each of which has a tremendous influence on the quality of inter-personal skills in the organization.

Be that as it may, several organizations simply cannot afford the cost of such training -- in terms of time, or energy or money. In many other small organizations, the stage of development of such organizations does not throw up the need for such training.

Still, modern organizations can and should do some basic homework in many areas of inter-personal skills. For example, it has been conclusively proved that wherever the individual employee is clearly told as to what he/she should do,why and when, at least fifty percent of the problem is solved, and employees voluntarily co-operate among themselves to get the tasks done.

Similarly, wherever the employees are multi-skilled through a whole range of on-the-job training programs, there is a great deal of inter-dependability among employees, and this induces co-operation among employees. A strong section/department leader who is always optimistic, has the welfare of his subordinates in whatever he or she does, is transparent and open in his communication among his subordinates would command and not demand, respect from his subordinates. This will in turn have a chain reaction in terms of high quality of inter-personal relations at the workplace.

Every modern organization has to necessarily spend some amount on training its managers on leadership skill, through both class-room training and on-the-job counseling. The latter should take the form of mentoring through powerful leaders who have grown with the organization and occupy positions such as Vice=President or above, and do have authority to take decisions. If this mentoring is done, managers at lower levels will get to learn the nuances of leadership far better and become more competent as leaders.

When they can influence the behaviour of their followers in a positive direction, there will be better inter-personal relations at the workplace.

Another area of concern pertain to the inter-personal relations between the operations who actually do jobs on the shop floor and the supervisors. If the latter have egos and do not care to maintain good relations with the former, disastrous results follow, and the organization does suffer in both the short and the long run.

Managing inter-personal relations in modern organizations is not, as commonly believed, the responsibility of the HR department. Every line or staff manager or supervisor has to maintain inter-personal relations with his subordinates. Where there is a will, there is a way. When small improvements are made, very good results will follow.

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