"Interpersonal Beef" is all around, and it's wreaking havoc on your company growth
Ever been in a job where you were annoyed - or even angry - at someone because they kept asking for work to be done that was clearly THEIR job?
Or were you annoyed that they didn’t have a cleaner process to help get the work you collaborate on done more efficiently?
Have you ever been close to quitting because the chaos of your everyday job is just too much to handle?
I’ve been there - in all three examples, and way more. After experiencing this so much, especially with companies that had rapid growth, I started to see a trend.
The friction, anger, resistance to helping, and grievances that bubble up in day-to-day work all came from something that is both common and pretty easy to fix.
I call this “Interpersonal Beef” and it looks like this:
Simply a lack of:
Clearly defined roles & responsibilities
Clearly defined processes
Communication around roles, responsibilities, and processes
Training and education on roles, responsibilities, and processes, and upskilling employees when moving positions (especially into a managerial or leadership position)
Leads to “interpersonal beef” which comes across as tension, friction, anger, frustration, resistance, and grievances between employees and teams.
So, if you think about your experiences - is it easy and effective to work in an environment that has a lot of “interpersonal beef?”
Not really. It often feels like dysfunctional family dynamics where we have to dance around the root cause of these exhausting and taxing feelings. Sure, work can get done, but is it getting done well? Efficiently? Clearly? Is it scalable? Additionally, do we even understand the root cause? Is everyone experiencing this? Do we even care?
I worked somewhere that had some horrendous “interpersonal beef.” It manifested as sassiness between teams/employees, talking crap behind each others’ backs, actively resisting helping others because they either didn’t want to, or they didn’t like the person, or they felt it was their job, and unchecked power struggles. Our jobs got done (well, done-ish), but boy was it stressful, and clunky, and just a complete waste of energy.
And the clunkiness was such an easy fix! It was just getting someone to see the misalignment across the organization and clearing up some operational issues. Yet, 😑 every 😑 single 😑 day 😑 we had to endure the burden of this environment because no one would address the “interpersonal beef” and operational issues.
To be fair, some leaders do not know HOW to address it. People get promoted, all the time, because they’re good at their job. And then we don’t UPSKILL them and teach them how to be effective managers and leaders. It’s easy for us to demonize leaders and managers, but in reality, it may just be an innocent outcome of not knowing what to do.
So, you have to ask yourself, does our organization have this? How can we figure out if we do/don’t? Most importantly, do we want to do anything about it?
The problem is, if “interpersonal beef” goes unchecked, it can wreak havoc on your company’s potential and growth. Imagine trying to run a marathon with a bunch of heavy baggage strapped to your body - that is “interpersonal beef” in a rapid growth environment.
If you setup the proper foundation, structures, and strategy, you can successfully support your organization as it expands. This will save you time, money, resources, and - most importantly - your sanity.
If you’re already rapidly growing, no problem! Operational clarity, organizational alignment, and growth strategy creation can happen - and is valuable - at any time!