It would be so nice if everything went as planned at work.  And we know that is not going to happen!  That’s because we are human and that means we have emotions.  We react to each other and get triggered in the moment. Then we say something we don’t mean to say or say it in a way that we don’t intend.  It may be an example of “open mouth wide and insert foot”!  The question is can we use our emotional intelligence to rectify the damage?

Our voice may carry a harsh tone or our words may sound of blame, we might not stop to fully regard the other person and communicate that by continuing to type away at our keyboard and not engaging in direct eye contact.  As a result we create unintended impact.  We have created a bit of a mess to clean up.

These interactions chip away at the fabric of our trust and can damamge cooperative relationships for the short term and the long haul.  The result can be resentment, avoidance, decreased willingness to work as a team etc.

I recently had the honor of working with coaching clients who were working on repairing their strained relationship.  The power of apologizing served them to move way beyond the unintended impact.  The relationship has now far surpassed its original ability to function effectively to serve their aligned mission.

• Are there work relationships where you may have had an unintended impact?

• Is there a past mess that you might need to go back to clean up?  Is there tension or avoidance?

• What relationships, if they were stronger, would better serve the mission of your organization?

It can be somewhat uncomfortable to initiate the clean-up but well worth the effort.