Text version scenario

Employees need to work together to build great teams – lack of communication often cause mistrust.

This is an example of such situation where a new employee unintentionally upset his team members. The team used to sit in a specific area of the open office in order to facilitate co-operation. However, a new employee’s brought disturbing behavior - he made frequent phone calls in a loud voice and also constantly had snacks, such as crisp bread, which he ate with a crunching sound. This made his colleagues choose other workplaces away from him. The employee was not aware of this and the long-time team members said nothing. Instead, they moved away to other workplaces and consequently the team was scattered. This lack of communication caused a lot of tension, confusion and lack of trust.

Discussion question

• Have you experienced a colleague unintentionally upsetting your team?
• How did you approach it?
• What did you learn from it?

Things to consider

We can learn from these situations to help us truly live our values. We can consider the following actions:

• Spend time to discuss what kind of non-verbal behaviors that can cause distance and friction between people.
• Reflect on how reservations to be honest with one another can lead to exclusion.
• Discuss "rules" at ABW offices with your team.
• Create relationships of mutual respect that enable us to be inclusive with all employees.

For more information on how to act read our Code of Conduct chapter on Bullying and harassment.