Confronted with the challenge of team camaraderie versus people wanting to stand around and chat forever, Mary McDonald talked about the simple step she took to handle the problem.
"As I encouraged folks to share our ‘outside’ lives with each other as appropriate, I didn’t want to squash this sharing, but did realize that I would prefer to manage it a bit if I could without hampering camaraderie."
Her solution? "… I started bringing in pastries at 8:30 on Monday morning, announcing that anyone in the dept who wanted to could visit with everyone else from 8:30 until the pastries were gone, or 9 am, whichever came first." This is a great, simple, practical idea.
The reason I bring this up is to focus on the simplicity and practicality that was involved in the solution. When we read a lot of management stuff, it's inevitably connected to some type of mystical, philosophical change that will do something to transform forever the lives of those around you.
In reality, most of the real solutions to the workplace are related to practical issues. Many times people talk about the need to relate to the numerous problems that people have, and empathize and feel their pain. I don't disagree with that; we've talked about that here before.
While that can be all part of the picture, the real thing that needs to be taken care of is getting to a practical solution to their problem - that makes sense to them and to the company. Practical, simple solutions are really the name of the game in management; not the endless underlying philosophies that everyone wants to throw around.
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