Chapter 4 of the Connected Educator discusses building our online communities and discovering better connections. This is hugely important to being successful in your career. This chapter has two main focuses, congeniality and collegiality. Although these as very similar sounding words they have very important, individual meanings. Congeniality is defined as polite, warm relationships developed with one another. These friendships can be as simple as friendly conversations, or can be more meaningful like going to events together. These types of relationships are important for life in general, and generate happiness. Collegiality then, is specifically in the work environment where you are friendly with your coworkers and you get along with your bosses. This allows for a thriving workplace because everyone can work as one unit. The main focus of collegiality is that everyone is on the same playing field, and a smooth operation relies on everyone working as a team. Personally, I use both of these in my every day life. I even use them both in my current job as a server. First, I use collegiality because I know that me and my coworkers all must rely on each other to be successful. I have to trust my coworkers to be honest with their money, so that when we pool our tips there is no stealing. And there is no judgement or shaming if someone simply has a bad night. I also use congeniality because my coworkers are my friends outside of work. We are friendly and I do know things about their lives that go deeper than just work chat. This is just an example, of how both of these terms can be applied. In a professional career these are both even more important.
I completely understand where you are coming from when describing your work relationship and being able to see both collegiality and congeniality. I am also a server. In a restaurant, you need a team that can work together as a unit to get the job done. Part of collegiality is the fact that you can accept that some individual's are better at certain things then you are. I feel that this is relevant in a restaurant as well because you have more seasoned workers that may know more about certain aspects than newer staff might. Working in a restaurant and studying hospitality, I find it easy to relate collegiality and congeniality to my life! I believe that experience has a lot to do with these two types of friendships and how they develop. In the work place, I definitely think collegiality is more relevant because it banks on experience.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more when you remarked "The main focus of collegiality is that everyone is on the same playing field, and a smooth operation relies on everyone working as a team. Personally, I use both of these in my every day life". I also use these in my everyday life and I feel they are a necessity in every career field.. It is extremely important to be able to function and work as a team in the medical field, in which patient care is of top priority.
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