Working from Home and your Coworkers

Just because you work from home doesn’t mean you don’t have to think about the relationships you develop with coworkers. I have a wonderful network of coworkers who fall into the “vendor and supplier” category according to QuickBooks because I pay them. They are so much more than that. They are people on whom I depend for support, feedback, humor, brainstorming—all the things that are vital to a business and easy to come by if there’s a conference room down the hall where you can rally the expertise of many.

That kind of interaction is vitally important to small and home-based businesses. Without it, we become myopic and insulated in our vision and may miss great opportunities. The internet and all its social networking tools allows us to expand our panels of experts to include people we haven’t even met. I can float an idea on Twitter or post a poll or discussion topic on LinkedIn and comments from Austin to Australia pop up within moments. I love social media!

Here’s the important lesson I learned today. (And, as you know, I am here to make all the mistakes so you don’t have to.) Just as in some office environments, where there are those who live to criticize and manipulate, those same negative opportunities exist with much broader audiences via the worldwide web. I just fired off a negative tweet regarding a blogger who is very well known—Seth Godin. His blog post seemed really jumbled and off target (he was talking about workplace culture, a favorite subject of mine.) He has such a huge audience and I couldn’t believe he was disseminating poor information. But who cares? Did he need my correcting? No. Did anyone ask me what I thought or call me into the virtual conference room for a discussion on the importance of corporate culture? No. My snotty comment was an aside, just the kind of thing you hear in passing by the corporate water cooler or coffee pot. Little bits of criticism designed to do no good, just to communicate an individual opinion. Sometimes, it’s dressed as humor or sarcasm…because don’t you know, it makes you feel even better if you get to vent AND you get a laugh!

It happens without thought. Little negative, prickly comments that don’t seem too damaging until you realize you’ve snagged or torn something important. I don’t think the adage “if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all” is true all the time. There are times everyone needs to hear honest feedback that isn’t comfortable. But it’s not feedback unless the other person is listening. Without the opportunity to bring about a change or improvement, the commentary is just criticism. And the little petty asides become a cloud of communication that is dark and negative. So the idea of “not saying anything at all” has merit when you realize that your running commentary is doing nothing but fueling the dark and angry mass that seems to overshadow us these days.

So, as you communicate with your coworkers on this planet—whether you know them by name, by avatar or personally—be aware of what motivates your speech…and let it be for goodness’ sake.

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