Originally broadcast on BFM 89.9 – The Business Station: 🎙️ Listen to the Full Conversation: Sheila Singam discusses Forging Meaningful Relationships At Work on BFM 89.9’s Raise Your Game podcast with Freda Liu. (Run time: 26:19 mins). Published on 26 August 2019. This article is adapted from this podcast to answer the question, “How to navigate workplace boundaries, gender dynamics and office SOPs”. You can listen to the complete audio recording. If you are currently navigating conservative office norms, cross-gender communication skip directly to 8:53. Alternately, if you are managing policy friction in the office, skip to 19:02.
From the Editorial Team:
Building strong professional relationships often feels like walking a tightrope. On one side lies cold detachment; on the other lies the risk of personal misinterpretation or policy conflict. When cultural expectations, conservative office norms, and rigid organisational rules enter the mix, even well-intentioned warmth can create unexpected friction.
Many professionals ask: How do we foster authentic, friendly connections without crossing unseen lines?
In this second instalment of Ask Sheila, we tackle two sensitive enquiries from employees struggling to balance personal warmth with professional propriety.
Key Takeaways
- Respect Cultural Sensitivities: Observe local norms, personal comfort levels, and gender boundaries—never force physical contact or invasive questions in conservative settings.
- Understand Policy Intent: Company SOPs and relationship rules exist to protect overall productivity, team morale, and operational fairness, not to police private lives.
- Establish Hard Work Boundaries: Maintain open, friendly relationships outside office hours, but enforce company standards firmly and equally when on the job.
- Eliminate Favouritism: Enforce SOP compliance consistently across all team members—granting special passes to close friends destroys leader credibility.
Question 1: “How Do I Stay Friendly in a Conservative Office Without Rumours Starting?”
Case Study Question:
“My company has many conservative people. I’m a friendly sort, but I’m afraid to get to know people outside my department because I do not want it to be misconstrued in any way, especially if they are of the opposite sex. How can I be friendly without being misunderstood?”
Cultural Sensitivity Without Self-Censorship
Warmth builds trust, but context dictates how people perceive that warmth. In conservative corporate environments, workplace gender dynamics require heightened awareness. A friendly smile or casual remark that feels completely innocent to you might carry different cultural weight to someone else.
However, protecting yourself against office gossip does not mean retreating into a shell. You do not need to turn into a cold corporate robot to maintain respect. Instead, you must master the art of visible, clear, and intentional communication.
The Playbook: Navigating Workplace Boundaries Across Gender Lines
To protect your professional reputation while maintaining an open, warm demeanour, implement these practical rules:
Step 1: Apply the Third-Party Visibility Rule
Keep one-on-one interactions with colleagues of the opposite sex in open, visible areas. Grab coffee in the main pantry rather than behind closed office doors. Transparency instantly neutralises office gossip.
Step 2: Anchor Casual Chats to Shared Context
When initiating small talk across departments, start with neutral, shared topics. Discuss industry updates, upcoming company events, or general workplace projects. Avoid probing into deeply personal weekend plans or private relationships early on.
Step 3: Praise Output, Not Appearance
Offer compliments freely, but direct them strictly at professional achievements. Complimenting a colleague’s well-structured presentation or sharp analysis builds rapport without triggering awkwardness.
“Authentic warmth never requires you to compromise your integrity or ignore local cultural norms. When you establish clean boundaries early on, you create psychological safety—not just for yourself, but for everyone in the room.” — Sheila Singam
Question 2: “What Happens When Company Policies Strain Personal Relationships?”
Case Study Question:
“Sometimes the relationship will get spoilt when it comes to company policies and SOP. How do you make a consultant abide by company policies and SOP, as all people will care for their benefits first?”
Understanding Policy Intent and Establishing Hard Workplace Boundaries
When people feel that company policies or Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) infringe on their personal relationships or individual benefits, friction naturally follows. However, organisations do not create these rules to police your private life; they create them to protect overall productivity, fairness, and team performance.
Take corporate policies regarding workplace romances or relationships between colleagues. While some employees view these rules as an infringement on personal rights, I understand why organisations implement them. I have coached individuals in organisations who got involved romantically, experienced a wonderfully wild affair, and then watched the relationship go completely sour.
When that bitterness enters the office, work productivity and performance plummet, and everyone around them suffers. In extreme cases, bosses must step in to separate the individuals and move them to different teams. Similarly, if a husband goes on a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) or faces demotion, colleagues inevitably look askance at the spouse. These interpersonal dynamics disrupt the entire department.
How to Enforce SOPs Without Spoiling Relationships
When you manage or collaborate with close friends across different levels of an hierarchy, both parties must understand where the professional boundary lies:
Step 1: Establish That Work Is Work
Throughout my career, I have built warm, close relationships with colleagues and subordinates. However, the moment we stepped into the office, everyone knew who held the operational authority.
Step 2: Apply Standards Equally
If a close friend fails to conform to company SOPs, you must come down on them just as firmly as you would on anyone else. Shielding friends or granting special exemptions breeds resentment across the wider team and destroys your credibility as a leader.
Step 3: Draw a Hard Line Between Work and Social Time
Enforce strict context switching. During office hours and within official communication channels, maintain crisp, professional standards. Once off the clock, transition back to warm, casual interactions. If your colleague continues to hold professional boundary enforcement against you socially, they are demonstrating a lack of respect for your professional safety.
“At work, my team knows who the boss is. Work is work. If you do not conform to our SOPs, I will come down on you as hard as I will with anybody else—whether you are my close friend or not. Outside the office, we remain friends. But on the job, compliance protects everyone.” — Sheila Singam
Workplace Gender Dynamics and Policy Boundaries: Final Takeaway
Navigating workplace boundaries successfully comes down to absolute clarity and consistency. Whether you are adapting to conservative office etiquette or enforcing rigid company SOPs, transparent communication eliminates ambiguity and protects everyone involved.
When you align your daily interactions with professional integrity and cultural respect, you build a lasting reputation for fairness. True authority isn’t about being rigid; it’s about holding high operational standards with grace, empathy, and respect.
If your organization is looking to equip managers with the practical skills needed to navigate workplace dynamics, enforce compliance, and build high-performing, cohesive teams, explore our HRD Corp-claimable Leadership Training Programmes in Malaysia.
Note from the Editorial Team: Coming up next month in our Ask Sheila series: We address social stigma and workplace cliques—exploring “Should I Avoid the ‘Fun’ Crowd at Work?: Overcoming Office Stigma, Bad Influence Warnings & Social Isolation”.
Frequently Asked Questions
How to navigate workplace boundaries in a conservative office?
Navigating workplace boundaries in a conservative corporate culture requires clear, visible, and intentional communication. Maintain transparency by holding one-on-one meetings in open, public areas like pantries or glass-walled conference rooms. Focus informal conversations on shared professional contexts, project milestones, and industry news rather than probing into personal lives. When complimenting colleagues, praise professional outputs and technical achievements rather than personal appearance to ensure interactions remain purely professional.
How do workplace gender dynamics impact professional relationships?
Workplace gender dynamics influence how warmth, friendly banter, and informal networking are perceived across different cultural environments. In conservative settings, unmanaged informal interactions can inadvertently spark office gossip or trigger misunderstandings. Establishing the Third-Party Visibility Rule and maintaining consistent, transparent communication allows professionals to build genuine, warm working relationships without compromising propriety or psychological safety.
How should employees handle conflicts between company SOPs and workplace friendships?
Handling conflicts between standard operating procedures (SOPs) and workplace friendships requires a firm boundary between job roles and personal feelings. Have an open, honest conversation to explain that enforcing compliance checks protects both the business and your professional standing. Rather than dismissing a colleague’s urgency, offer to assist them within legitimate guidelines—such as reviewing paperwork early or guiding them through procedures—while maintaining firm operational standards.
How do hard boundaries protect both professional integrity and personal friendships?
Hard boundaries prevent personal relationships from exposing individuals to professional liability or accusations of favouritism. Enforcing objective compliance standards consistently during working hours safeguards the organisation and maintains equity across teams. Separating job accountability from off-the-clock warmth allows colleagues to maintain genuine personal friendships without putting their professional standing or company compliance at risk.
Transcript: Forging Meaningful Relationships At Work
Forging Meaningful Relationships At Work
Programme: Raise Your Game (BFM 89.9)
Station: BFM 89.9
Host: Freda Liu
Guests: Sheila Singam (Human Equation)
Freda: Our place of work is a place where many of us forge lifelong friendships. Most of these relationships are with people we like or, at the very least, with like-minded people who share the same values and interests. Often there’s an overlap between both groups of people because people tend to like others who are like them. And yet there’s a whole group of people at work that we never get to know, with whom we have hardly exchanged a dozen words. The reason is probably because we prefer to stick within the boundaries of the familiar and just hang out with the people we know and interact with on a regular basis in the office. And so we miss out on the opportunity to get to know a whole other segment of people at work. So why is this important? What value is there in stepping out of our comfort zone to interact with people outside our milieu? It’s the last Monday of the month, yes, and we have Sheila Singam back with us to discuss how and why we should work to build more healthy, productive relationships with a variety of people both at work and in our personal lives. As usual, we’ll be doing this through real-life case studies. Welcome back, Sheila.
Sheila: Thank you, Freda.
Freda: Good to see you again. It’s been awhile. Okay, we’ll go through our case studies, and as usual I’m sure they are stories we’ve heard, right?
So this case study number one: I was promoted to a managerial position at the beginning of the year. I was recently told by my boss that I am too introverted and I should socialise more with my subordinates. I’m not sure if I agree with him that I am introverted. I know how to have fun with my friends outside work. I’m now concerned that I’ve fallen short of his expectations. But I also know that he is infringing on my personal rights by telling me that I should hangout with my subordinates. I ask myself, “Why should I?” Do you think my boss is right?
Sheila: Yes, in a way I feel he’s right. If you are in a managerial position, you’ve got to manage a team of people. People are individuals, and they’ve got so many different patterns of thinking, operating value systems, communication styles, opinions and maps of the world and so on. So how do you get to know people? How to get to know people if you don’t interact with them?
If you’re going to be an introvert, that’s fine. I think introverts are great, and I think as I grow older and becoming more introverted myself, you know? So there’s something to be said for being having downtime and being on your own and things like that, but the reality of it is no man’s island. We can’t survive on our own. Especially in a working environment, we need to really know our people. As a manager, you can’t just lead and manage out of your position of authority. Because if you were just to rely on that, then you are expecting people to just toe the line. But as a manager, you want to be more than a manager; you want to be a leader, and leaders influence. Leaders influence by the contact and connectivity they have with their people. People have got to know you in order to want to be influenced by you. They’ve got to know your personality; they’ve got to feel connected with you and be in rapport with you. The only way you’re going to be able to do that is to go out. Now, I just did a focus group session with a company, and what was told was that people actually liked the job—they were reasonably happy with remuneration—but what they felt was disconnected from their managers. Right?
They felt disconnected, and they said that managers sometimes walk past them on the floor without eye contact, not even a greeting. Sometimes they step into the lift, and managers don’t bother to say good morning, and it hurts them. It hurts people when they’re not acknowledged; they take it as a sign of “you don’t see me”. So the senior management team listened to this, and they said, “Okay, so now it’s up to us that we need to do something to connect with the people”. So they started doing all kinds of activities to connect with the people, and morale increased substantially.
One of the things they said amongst the senior management team itself was that there was a disconnect—they didn’t have camaraderie with each other, didn’t have rapport with each other. So people noticed that and would play one against the other. So they noticed it and said, “We need to do more social things together.” Yeah, we have board meetings, senior management meetings, and getaways which are related to work, but we need to do more of things like Friday evening going to have drinks. In this country, if you’re a Muslim, you don’t have to drink—you can just go and sit down and have a non-alcoholic beverage, a mocktail, teh tarik. And maybe once every few months somebody hosts a dinner at their home. There’s nothing like eating together, chilling together to really build bonds.
So I think for this person who brought up his problem, you need to interact with people. Maybe you don’t like large groups; that’s fine. Maybe you can start by having one-to-one lunches or teas with people. Then you can increase it to two so that you have the group dynamics with two, then slowly increase it to three. You don’t have to organise everything; you can get someone to organise, and you can just go there. As you get to know them slowly, you become more comfortable with them. I think it’s an observation that your boss has given you to actually enhance your leadership and management capabilities. It should not be taken as a criticism, and he’s not really knocking your personality as an introvert. Anyway, we shouldn’t be labelled or put into compartments by whatever tests we do. We have these online tests: Are you an introvert or extrovert? Are you motivated towards or away from? All that’s good, but it’s just for you to know where you stand. It’s not telling that is where you will remain. I am one who believes that everyone can change. Everyone can change to adapt to the milieu that they find themselves. In order to have better rapport, better relationships, better influence. In NLP, we have a saying. The person with the most flexibility will always exert the most influence. Flexibility means being able to adapt yourself. It’s not like being lalang (grass) to sway with the wind anyway it goes and not having backbone. It’s about seeing what needs to be done and how you can adapt. Because if you’re a manager, you need to build that team, pull them together into a cohesive team. And the only way you can do that is if you hang out with them, chill with them, get together.
Freda: Right. Think adaptability—think of the cockroach, right?
Sheila: Gosh! Yeah. Well, really, I don’t know whether I want to be in that same category, but yeah, I’d rather think of the coconut tree, Freda.
Freda: Ah, they sort of sway…
Sheila: The tree bends almost 90 degrees…
Freda: And produces good fruit.
Sheila: Yeah, right.
Freda: But you see, ‘introverted’ is not a bad word, okay? So when I look at this, I look at the team that I’m working with—their 20s, 30s, and 40s—and our conversations are very different, similar and yet different. And then I’ve got my almost 17-year-old son—another one-way conversation! But the thing is just to understand how people think, and you meet with different people. Like, I guess in this case, it could be just teh tarik with the staff. And your job is to listen, I guess, and your higher purpose is to make the team efficient. So in a way, sometimes it’s get over yourself, right? In a way, get over yourself. You’re here for a bigger purpose, and it’s just to understand what the team needs.
Sheila: So it’s not about you talking and revealing all about your life. Just listen to them talk, get to know them, their interests, where they want to go. They feel listened to, they feel valued. So even if you’re sort of a quiet sort, and you don’t want to go out with them and do wild things like stand on tables and dance, it’s okay. You can do understated stuff and still get to know your people, right?
Freda: Okay. So if you’ve got any questions, you can also WhatsApp us at 018-789 8899. We’ll continue with more case studies after this. Sheila Singam from Human Equation, BFM 89.9.
Spot Break: Be Free-minded, BFM 89.9. The business station.
Freda: BFM 89.9, the business station. Good morning, Freda Liu here. I’m speaking to Sheila Singam from Human Equation, talking about how we could build more healthy and productive relationships with a variety of people at work—basically lifelong friendships and meaningful relationships. So we’re going through case studies. We went through one earlier on. If you have a question as well, you can WhatsApp us at 018-789 8899, and I’m sure Sheila will be able to address it.
Second case study here: My company has many conservative people. I’m a friendly sort, but I’m afraid to get to know people outside my department because I do not want it to be misconstrued in any way, especially if they are of the opposite sex. How can I be friendly without being misunderstood?
Sheila: Okay. Being friendly doesn’t mean that you’re coming on to someone, really. People can be conservative, but perhaps if you want to circumvent that, it is to approach and be friendly with people, but make sure you’re in the presence of others—others of the same sex. So there are people there who, in case anyone misconstrues anything, will be able to testify that you weren’t. So if your company is very conservative, I know everyone has the right to dress how they want and behave how they want, but as was said earlier in the show, you need to adapt as well to people. It’s when you can adapt to people’s value system that you go a long way in building rapport, because rapport fundamentally is about shared values. You don’t have to adopt those values and embrace them for the rest of your life; it’s just that for that purpose, you respect other people’s values.
So if someone is terrified of being approached by you because you’re of the opposite sex, then don’t invade their personal space like that. But you can start by being friendly at meetings:
Freda: “Hello, good morning!” A smile.
Sheila: A good morning, a pleasant smile, but be very businesslike about it. No lingering looks or casting a once-over at someone when you’re in the lift, because that makes people feel very uncomfortable, especially if you’re a male looking at a female. And if they’re very conservative, then don’t go and say, “Wow, you look beautiful today”. You could, of course, say something like, “You’re very colour-coordinated today, that’s excellent”—something that is on the professional side of things. But I don’t think that conservatism should be a criterion for whether you make friends or not.
I have a very good friend, her name is Rayhaanah, and she has been on the show before years ago. Rayhaanah is veiled. She wears a jubah and she is veiled, and she is an amazingly friendly woman. She talks to people of the opposite sex. I mean, she’s foreign, but she has no qualms about talking to people. And of course, after the initial reaction of “she speaks”, people are very friendly with her because she’s a very intelligent woman. I guess it’s not just what you say; it’s also how you say it that makes people comfortable. So, yeah, by all means…
Freda: And we can always start the conversation with, “Oh, terrible haze”.
Sheila: Yeah!
Freda: There are conversation starters and things like that,
Sheila: That’s right.
Freda: Just something that is affecting us all.
Sheila: Very generic topics that you can start talking about.
Freda: Weather, sports.
Sheila: Yeah, weather, sports. The haze is wonderful! I mean, in a way, it’s been a bane to us, but it’s been a boon in terms of…
Freda: …conversation starters…
Sheila: …because nobody can miss it. Everybody has an opinion on it.
Freda: Now, okay, here’s another case study: “I’ve just started work at an advertising agency after graduating, and I was told by a senior person that I should be careful who I associate with at work and not to get too friendly with certain people who might influence me with their negative behaviours. They look like a lot of fun, though. Should I listen to this senior and miss the opportunity to get to know interesting people at work?”
Sheila: Certainly not. I think you should make your own opinions about people. Behind every behaviour, everybody is an individual who really wants to get on and you know do well and has ambitions and has feelings, as does things that cause them to project certain behaviours. If they are fun, go hang out with them, but it doesn’t mean you have to adopt all the bad behaviours. Now if you go party with them, everyone’s having a good time, having a couple of drinks and then if people want to go overboard and drink and be obnoxious, you don’t have to do that. If people want to take what you call them, social designer drugs, you don’t have to do that.
Always go back and remember your value system and your upbringing. But having said that, perhaps this person is just being concerned about you, right? Maybe they’ve seen other young people who came in who were impressionable and didn’t have a strong value system, who got carried away with that whole social scene of the fun people.
So I think you need to be thankful to this person. Thank this person, and say you thank them very much for their concern that they’re looking out for you. But at the same time, you have a very strong value system, and you have the belief that you want to mix around with everybody and get to know everybody in your work circle, because then everybody has something to contribute. Doesn’t mean that people with bad habits don’t have anything good to contribute.
A bad habit is actually something that’s neurologically connected—the habit and you are neurologically connected—so you just need certain techniques to get rid of that. But alcohol addiction, drug addiction, and all that, those are all neurologically connected habits, and people develop them. But it doesn’t mean that someone’s habits and behaviour make them a bad person, right? I have friends who have spouses, and other friends, family members who have bad behaviours, but they do acknowledge that inside they’re good people. So you need to be very clear on where your values lie, where your boundaries lie, what you want to do and not do.
You’re going to learn a lot from the fun people, but you’re also going to learn a lot from the conservative boss. All of us are the sum of our experiences, our values that we have acquired, our beliefs that we have acquired from everybody over a period of time in life. We look at it and we say, “Ah, this belief is not productive, throw it out. This belief is very empowering, keep it or acquire it”. So we learn to model the people who have good beliefs and values and chuck out all the stuff that’s not relevant to us anymore. So, young man, go and mix around with people and learn. Fun people are usually very creative; they have less inhibition. So you also can learn to chill. But a conservative person has some substance as well.
Freda: And I guess also in this case, as much as possible, if you’re going to be working with people, try to get along with as many people as possible, because it’s part and parcel of work. Now, whether you decide to party with them after work or whatever, that’s something else, right? And to make the right decisions… I know there is the fear of groupthink or herd mentality, right? So you have to be able to understand what you stand for.
Sheila: You have to be strong, lah!
Freda: Right. Now, this is another one: “I’ve suffered from a skin affliction for many years and it’s caused me to keep to myself a lot. Recently, though, my skin problem has become much better. People don’t stare at me anymore. I’m going out with my friends more and have gained more confidence. I’d like to get to know more people and have more friends, but I do not really know how to approach people at work. Any tips to help me?”
Sheila: Well, if you are carrying the effects of the skin problem of the past… Probably in the past as a young person or a child when you approached people, they looked at you and maybe recoiled, so that has set the tone for you in terms of how you approach people. But now you are cleared, your skin problem is gone, you have more confidence. You want to get to know more people… Then get to know more people!
Start—I always say start one-on-one. If you’re a shy person and you cannot handle going to a party with a crowd of people, then get to know people one by one. Relationships that are sound are relationships that are built over a period of time, one-to-one. I’ve got friends, and when I have parties, all my friends are there. Now they have got to know each other and they’ve become friends, but those relationships were built not at parties. Those relationships were built when I needed them, they were there, and when they needed me, I was there. It was built by calling people on the phone.
You’re stuck in a traffic jam—don’t sit and cuss, just sit down, get on hands-free, and call a friend that you haven’t spoken to. It’s always delightful to receive a call from a friend simply. Not to party, not to go out, not for anything but to chitchat and say, “Hey, I’m touching base with you”. So start doing that first of all. Do it with people that maybe you might not have been in touch with. Reconnect with people who over the years have meant something to you, whom you have lost contact with. That will build your confidence, because they’ll be so happy to hear from you, right? And they’ll be so happy to see that you’re healed and that you’ve got this new life and new confidence, and they’ll just be there for you.
And then start with your friends. And then you just have to be honest with people. Say, “Hey, I haven’t really gone out much. I don’t connect with people; I pretty much kept to myself because of this. But now I’ve decided that I need to go out there, get to know people, see the world”. Connect with them personally, one-on-one. Invite people at work. Say, “Hey, what are you doing today? Would you like to come for lunch?” And then at lunch, have a conversation. Say, “Hey, I’ve been vegetarian for 20 years, but I’m starting to eat meat now because my skin is healed. So I kind of lost the taste of meat. What’s nice on the menu? Can you come help me choose at lunch?” Or take someone for tea or an after-dinner drink. Start with one person and then move on to the next person. So you slowly start building this sort of… I like to call them a constellation of friends, because friends to me are like the stars in my life.
Freda: Ah, I like that! I like that. Okay, so we’ve got a question from a listener. I’m not too sure whether it’s enough material for you to work on. It says, “Sometimes the relationship will get spoiled when it comes to company policies and SOP. How do you make a consultant abide by company policies and SOP as all people will care for their benefits first?” Do you get that?
Sheila: I kind of see what you’re saying. I don’t know how a company policy or SOP might come in the way of friendship. Some companies have a policy where they do not encourage two people of the opposite sex from having a relationship and getting married. It might seem like an infringement of your personal rights, but I do understand where it’s coming from, because I’ve coached people in an organisation who got involved romantically with each other and had a really wonderfully wild affair, and then it went south and went sour, and then they really hated each other, couldn’t stand to see each other. And there was so much bitterness that the boss had to separate them, put them in different teams.
Freda: Right.
Sheila: When that happens, what gets affected? Work productivity, performance, everyone around you gets affected. And then also, if one person… I’ve seen this happen: if one person, like a husband, gets demoted or goes on a performance improvement programme, the wife gets affected. People look askance at the wife and say, “Hey, your husband is not performing”. All these kinds of things. So I understand why companies have things like that. Now, if a company has a policy where a boss cannot socialise with a subordinate—go out for drinks and all that—then I don’t know what’s happening there, because that’s one way people forge relationships.
But having said that, when this happens, when you have people at different levels in the hierarchy going out and becoming really friendly, both should actually know the boundaries at work. I’ve built close relationships with subordinates when I worked before, but at work they know who’s boss. Work is work. You don’t conform, I’ll come down on you as hard as I will with everybody else, whether you’re my close friend or not. But outside, when we leave the office, you’re still my friend. If you want to merajok (sulk) and all that, then that’s your problem. But I make it very clear to people. So, yeah, you’re right, Freda. I mean, I would need more information, but I hope that this has answered you in a certain way.
Freda: All right, okay. I’ve put a comment there: “Can you elaborate?” So we’ll see.
Okay, one final case study here: “Six months ago, I moved to a new company as head of a department. There were a lot of issues with productivity and performance in the department, and I’ve had to take a strong stand to ensure that people toe the line. I’ve been told that one way to break down resistance is to build rapport by spending time after hours with the team. The thing is, they do not see me as part of the team, and I’m not sure if they will respond to my invitations. I’m also afraid that they may not respect the boundaries between work and play. How do I handle this?”
Sheila: Well, they don’t see you as part of the team because you’ve come down hard on them right at the outset, which I understand you have to do. But I feel sometimes when you come in new into a team which is fragmented by issues and problems, you need to start off by talking to everyone first, finding out what their issues are, what are their concerns, their complaints, their restrictions, and all that sort of thing, and get a complete picture of the situation. And then have individual conversations about performance and say, “These are my expectations, and this is what I’m expecting from you in the next three months, and I’ll be having these regular conversations with you”. But if you just come in and you see this team of people who are all over the place, not together, having issues, and then you just look at your KPIs and say, “Whatever it is, I’m going to handle this,” it’s not going to work, right? Because KPIs need people to be fulfilled. And you need to work on the people first. So I always say, go to the people first if you want to get the results, and then from there you’re able to weed out, as you say, the wheat from the chaff—the ones who really are enthusiastic, you spend all your energy on motivating them and telling them where they can go with this if they help you fulfil the KPIs. And those who are recalcitrant and resistant, then you come down hard on them, put performance improvement programmes and all that, right?
So having said that, it’s never too late to start. I think you can still start having those conversations and maybe be very honest and say, “Look, I came in here, this is what I was told, I need to fulfil the KPIs. Perhaps I was a little premature in just thrusting things down your throat, and I’d like to apologise, and then let’s get on to a fresh new start”. And then you sit down and do this fact-finding and then maybe find new and different ways. In the meantime, you can start… Like I said, there’s nothing like a good conversation over coffee or tea or mamak tea or lunch or something to help people to open up. That’s one of the things.
I think—sometimes Malaysian unity has been there because of all those open houses and our tendency to go makan-makan at the mamak together. Eating together is a great way of bonding, so start building the bonds with your team. But you need to tell them when you go out with them, like party and drink and all that, that work is work. “Out here, I’m not your boss, I am your colleague”. And that’s the thing we all should do when we go out for meetings and things—don’t say, “Oh, this is my subordinate,” or “This is my assistant manager”. Just say, “This is my colleague”.
Freda: I find it so demeaning—”subordinate”.
Sheila: Or “This is my sales executive”, “That is my administrator”. No need. “This is my colleague”. Till today, I have got young colleagues working for me. I never go in and say, “Oh well, you know, I’m the managing partner and founder of Human Equation”. Never. I’ll just say, “I’m Sheila Singam from Human Equation. This is my colleague. My colleague will get in touch with you,” not “my administrator” or “my executive”. No need. No need to use those titles. The less titles and hierarchy you have and throw out there… You need to have it for the sake of people knowing what your job is—fine, in your card and all that—but you don’t have to verbalise it and throw it out there.
Then people get comfortable; they begin to feel like they’re part of the team and then when you call them the team, “My team”, not “My people”. My people is like very aksi (show off).
Freda: The queen and her courtiers.
Sheila: No, they’re my team. They’re great bunch of people so get to know them and then go out, but tell them what has to be done.
Freda: So talking about forging meaningful relationships at work actually listening from Human Equation she’ll be back at the end of next month with more case studies and if you have any questions for us you can actually send it to enterprise@bfm.my with your questions or you can send it to Sheila herself directly which is…
Sheila: sheila@human-equation.com.
Freda: All right. This has been BFM 89.9.
Closing Spot: Thank you for listening to this podcast. To find more great interviews, go to bfm.my or find us on iTunes. BFM 89.9, the business station.
