My question to you “Does lack of communication hold you back from success?” In this blog, I will focus upon how lack of effective communication at your workplace can keep you from being successful. As I said in my previous blog, we spend almost one-third of our lives at our jobs. Because of this, everything we face at our workplaces directly affects our personal life and our health. Stress is the major issue among the problems faced by us.

Effective communication is a pillar of success in every aspect of our lives. Establishing a connect with the universe is the most effective means of living a healthy and stable life; our universe includes everyone that belongs in our surroundings. Communication is the foundational stone for any business to set up, hence it is the most essential element for success. Lack of communication between the employer and the employee, or among the employees themselves can lead to discord, misunderstandings and hence a huge amount of stress.

Let’s see the three major reasons behind Absence of Effective Communication:

Do You Find It Difficult to Express Your Mind?

Difficulty of expression is faced by numerous individuals. At the corporate level, it can give rise to many problems, i.e. misunderstanding, loss of opportunities and eventual lack of interest.

If you have an exciting idea at work, what will you do it? The best way to execute it is through talking to your manager or your team. However, if you cannot express yourself properly, you might be misunderstood by the people. Lack of expression can be a result of an imbalanced throat chakra, the energy center that governs the thyroid gland in your body and is responsible all functions of voice and expression. As I explained in one of my previous blogs, regularly meditating on the thought “I communicate and express myself well with everyone I meet”, is an effective method to correct the Throat Chakra imbalance in your body.

Do You Experience Fear in Communicating with Your Colleagues?

Fear holds you back from expressing yourself. It may arise due to anxiety and lack of confidence. However, there exist several other reasons behind fear. If you’re dealing with a senior at work, you might prefer not sharing new ideas with them in anticipation of rejection. However, we fail to realize that our seniors are a source of knowledge and inspiration. There’s always something new to learn. Instead of being fearful, begin indulging in regular dialogues with your seniors and seek the conversations as new opportunities to learn. Fear also dwells where there’s lack of knowledge. You, as a manager, can initiate dialogue so that your team knows you better and can trust you enough to share their work-related problems with you.

Effective feedback through regular one-on-one meetings is the key to reduce anxiety in a team. If problems are discussed in a better manner, solutions can be found more quickly. Absence of communication also gives rise to confusion with respect to job roles. If an employee is not well aware of his responsibilities, he/she lacks accountability. Lack of accountability, as I said in my last blog, is another reason for stress in the workplace. Effective communication motivates an employee to give his/her 100% in his job.

Can You Work in a Team?

Team building is extremely important for your growth and success. Society is a great teacher, and you can learn a lot from your colleagues at work. Working in a team is a test of your personality, it fosters creativity and it provides you great opportunities to work on your organizational skills. However, a team is successful only with effective communication as its foundation. A team built on regular communication is symbolic of unity and strength, and teamwork teaches you to build fruitful connections in your life.

Are You an E-mail Personality?

Do you often talk to your colleagues and managers at work? Or you only know them through mails? If you’re only comfortable talking to your colleagues over professional mails, you might be an e-mail personality. An e-mail personality refers to someone who is a complete introvert at work. This can be a major reason behind the issues people face at work. Emails do not convey emotions. It is necessary for you to know your colleagues well, their likes and preferences, their style of work, so that effective communication can be established, and you can achieve growth at work.

Do you Experience Lack of Interest in What You Do?

If your answer to the question above is yes, I would like you to further think upon the reasons behind your loss of interest. Are you stressed, or bored? Effective communication can only be set up by building interest, and interest in turn, can be developed through initiating communication, one-on-one dialogues and building teamwork.

Begin by building dialogue with your colleagues as the first step to foster positive environment at your workplace. Opening up to others is a way to be receptive towards what universe has to offer! Stay tuned for my upcoming blogs where I shall talk more about causes of stress in work environment and numerous ways to achieve professional growth and success.

Focus on building healthy relations at work! Stay Tuned! Stay Healthy and Stress-free!

My question to you is “Are you stressed in your job? Is it due to Accountability?” Stress is most common in the workplace today. With the increasing advancements in technology and economies developing at a fast pace,  the world seems to run against time. From a time in the early 1900s when corporate sector jobs were considered atypical, to the present day where a major share of the employed finds itself working in a corporate setup, workplace issues have always been a point of concern. Stress, fatigue, anger issues, time management and energy management problems are a few in the long list of issues faced by the employees in the day today.  Lack of Accountability may be the issue which is creating stress in you.

What is Meant by Accountability at the Workplace?

 Accountability refers to taking initiative and having a sense of ownership for the work you do. It directly affects your work efficiency and approaches towards every little contribution you make at your workplace.

Do you feel in charge of the job you’re supposed to do? If not, this might create a problem.

A lot can go wrong in case there’s an imbalance in your perception of your accountability towards your job. The major issue resulting from the same is stress. An adult in the corporate sector spends approximately 8 to 9 hours a day in office. This number can go much higher, depending upon the nature of their job. This directly means, that, on an average one-third of their lives is being spent in the office.

This is reason enough for us to be immensely affected, physically as well as mentally, by our life at our jobs. If there’s a disbalance with respect to ‘taking charge’ at the workplaces, personality issues are likely to emerge in personal lives.

Stress and frustration, unfortunately, tend to be a part of your daily life, whether you are a manager or an associate or both. The causes, in general always come down to the factor of accountability. Let us see, how.

Major Causes of Accountability issues

As a Team Manager:

You end up feeling stressed, if:

• You are not able to make your team accountable for their work because there are staff members who are not pulling their weight and are relying on others to pick up their task
• You feel that the efficiency of your team is half as some of your staff is shouldering others work
• Your team shows signs of disharmony; members with varying opinions are affecting the work quality
• Your team is not open to feedback

As a Team Member

You end up feeling stressed, if:

• You are shouldering someone’s else work because he/she is not pulling their weight
• You’re scared of being held accountable for your job as your team’s slackness thrives
• You do not really recognize the importance of your work in your firm
• You’ve failed once and fear handling new projects

Accountability plays a major role in the above issues.

How to tackle these issues?

1. Creating Trust through Constructive Feedback: Constructive Feedback is a skill which can be used to create trust in the team. Constructive feedback is where you not only provide feedback on areas of improvement but also appreciate examples where the staff has displayed their strength. This type of feedback is taken positively by the employees and creates trust in their manager or team lead. Research studies have shown that most of Gen Z and Millennials consider a growth on the basis of feedback as important as financial growth opportunities. Meetings, further, are building blocks of unity, trust and developing a sense of accountability in the team. Being open to feedback by initiating one-on-one meetings with the manager towards building a better relationship at the workplace is a step towards recognizing your importance.
2. Know Your Worth: As employees, you or your team members have to believe that they are in the team for a reason. You are there to play a professional role. To play this role you and your team members need to speak their mind and provide their professional concerns in the team meetings. This will create the importance of self and will enhance productivity and confidence.
3. Internal Over External Accountability:
   • What is Internal accountability? Internal accountability is when a person entirely accepts responsibility for their job, believing it to be their task, and gets motivated to take charge. Internal accountability directly elevates you and your team's mindset from being a Victim to a Creator. This further reduces stress levels and fills the workplace life with positivity.
   • What is External accountability? External accountability, however, refers to forced accountability, when you feel you are working for someone else. This is a major cause behind constantly feeling stressed. Stress, in turn, reduces work efficiency.
4. You’re Much More Than a Mistake: One mistake can never decide your worth. Do not be afraid of mistakes - they are just learnings if you do not repeat them. The better way out is to take note of the mistake, own up to it, learn from it and step up. Taking charge of your work through accepting your mistakes is a stepping stone towards success.

If you feel accountable to yourself, are open to constructive feedback, you know your worth and you are not afraid of owning your mistakes, then you will be less stressed and you will not waste your time and energy in blame-game. People will recognize your work and your contribution to the team, instead of your manager taking charge as you yourself review your performance from time to time.

In this series of blogs, I will be sharing more about wellness in the corporate sector where I will provide some useful insights and tips to help you enrich your time at your workplace. The Stress Masters Programme created by me can further guide you through the ways to de-stress yourself at work and achieve immense success.

Till then, Stay Healthy and Stress-free!