Slaughter Development’s founder recently shared his views on a nagging question: What do you do when your office mate is an organizational boat anchor?

Contributing to the Jessica Journey Blog, Robby Slaughter’s guest post, “What To Do With Unproductive Colleagues”, first acknowledges actions that shouldn’t be taken into consideration when tackling this problem at work. According to Slaughter, the following actions are far from viable solutions:

• Complain to your supervisor
• Complain to their supervisor
• Complain to Human Resources
• Confront them directly
• Gossip or start rumors
• Ignore them and focus on your own work

Admittedly, after reading the suggestions above it’s hard to imagine what options remain when dealing with unproductive colleagues. However, Slaughter continues on to present a different type of action that will not only help iron out the problem, but will actually increase your own productivity and performance at work. His advice is to concentrate on personal progression and success at work:

Instead of judging, slowly build a culture of celebrating progress. Change the dominant paradigm from one of skepticism and muffled frustration to one where daily victories are measured and cherished.Start with your own work. Organize your space so it’s abundantly clear that you are passionate about focusing on one task at a time and advancing each of your projects conscientiously. Build a zone around you that shows all of your active responsibilities . . . Fill your weekly calendar with appointments . . . Start a daily journal of your work activities and publish this to the company intranet. Share your personal culture of celebrating progress at social moments. End every water-cooler conversation with a positive, reinforcing phrase . . .

The result? According to Slaughter, your efforts will not only be recognized by others, but will be a source of inspiration to all your surrounding colleagues. As for the office anchor—”the fuzziness of their roles will be brought into sharp focus.” Meaningful change will surely appear on the horizon.

To learn more about ways of tackling challenges at work and creating a more positive, productive work environment, reach out to Slaughter Development today!

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