13 Workplace Relationship Tips for ’13

Ninety-nine percent of career success hinges on your ability to communicate well, foster mutually beneficial relationships at work, and earn the respect and loyalty of bosses, coworkers, clients, and customers. In other words, it's all about your interpersonal skills and behaviors.

Here are 13 behaviors to practice in 2013. If you can master these over the course of the next year, your career will take a giant leap.

1. Confront thoughtfully.

2. Don't assume. Assumptions are one of the many culprits in workplace misunderstandings.

3. Pay attention to culture. Pay attention to what is acceptable in your environment.

4. Stop fixing others. It’s often easier to see others’ flaws and missteps than our own.

5. Avoid difficult people. There will always be difficult coworkers, but you don't have to constantly engage with them and get stressed out by them.

6. Become a better communicator.  You need to learn how to be observant, learn from others, and modify your approach to increase understanding and communication.

7. Don’t interrupt. Here's an easy way to improve all your interactions.

8. Be an interested observer. Learn by watching others’ reactions.

9. Explain the "what’s in it for me". Whether you’re selling a product or making a pitch.

10. Broaden your horizons.  We self-talk and lull ourselves into a state where we really believe our labels are the truth. Open your mind and stop making the world only about you.

11. Identify your triggers.  Reflect on why this "trigger" keeps popping up and what role you're playing in perpetuating the pattern.

12. Don't data dump. Do you unload your problems, ideas, or experiences on someone else in a one-way conversation.

13. Commit to change. In the coming year, vow to identify the communication patterns that cause the most problems in your career and workplace relationships. Then make a conscious effort to correct them.