Monday Tip: How was your weekend?
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is reaaaaally simple this monday: Ask at least three people how their weekend was.
Follow up and ask a few more questions, like “What did you do?”, “How was it” or whatever comes naturally. Spend a couple of minutes and take an active interest in their weekend.
This simple action shows that you care about your co-workers beyond just the work they do and helps you create lasting, positive relationships at work.
The Chief Happiness Officer’s monday tips are simple, easy, fun things you can do to make yourself and others happy at work and get the work-week off to a great start. Something everyone can do in five minutes, tops. When you try it, write a comment here to tell me how it went.
Innovation Zen Said,
September 4, 2006 @ 5:02 pm
If you want to be interesting you should start by being interested in others.
The one you mentioned is a simple yet effective way to do it.
Cheers,
Daniel
Chris G Said,
September 6, 2006 @ 1:45 am
Manager : How was your weekend?
Employee : Not bad. Yours?
Manager : Pretty good. So have you had a chance to look at item 1?
This irritates me beyond belief. So while I believe this is good advice, please don’t use it as a “Monday morning checklist item”. It does more harm than good if it’s preceived as insincere. I believe the follow-up questions and genuine interest are key. My experience is most managers care more about “item 1″ than they do about the employee’s weekend.
Tez Said,
September 6, 2006 @ 3:00 am
Great tip, the only shame is that most people who do this have really no interest in really knowing how your weekend was and so we have been conditioned to generally give the same responses. The trick is to show genuine interest to know a little more about someone every time you interact with them. Be curious.
Alexander Said,
September 10, 2006 @ 10:16 am
Innovation Zen: I’d forgotten that quote. It totally applies here.
Chris G: Thanks for that, that is an important point. If you’re faking interest by rote, it’s better not to do it.
This only works when it comes from a real, genuine interest in other people.
Tez: Exactly! And the thing is that when you ask people about something they care about, what they end up telling you is often very interesting, because they have a passion for it. Be curious, indeed!
Scott M Said,
October 7, 2009 @ 3:43 pm
You know, this only works if you are actually interested in what they did over the weekend. What if they went antiquing all weekend? I’ve never understood the fascination with most antiques. It’s just dusty old furniture with somebody else’s memories. Or maybe they went to a monster truck rally; another thing I don’t like. Or perhaps they watched all 20 college and professional sports games on that weekend, while I routinely toss out the sport section of my paper without reading it on a daily basis.
Personally, as Chris G said, I AM only interested in item 1 . People don’t work together because they are all interested in each other’s personal lives. They work together because they have a job to do. It’s nice if people can be civil and not hostile. But benign indifference at work is OK too.
Scott M Said,
October 7, 2009 @ 3:44 pm
Oops, Just a additional post here because I forgot to click on the “Notify me” checkbox.