Daniel Robin & Associates

Making Workplaces Work Better

Exploring the Inner Frontier, Part 2

Skills to Set and Maintain Healthy Workplace Boundaries

Setting healthy boundaries at work can be your saving grace; it can also be a daily testimonial to your courage and skill. Whether you’re the boss who has not enough staff and way too much to do, or you’re a member of that staff, establishing and maintaining healthy boundaries is an invisible and challenging art form – and a vital skill set for your sustained success.

How can this article series help? See if any of these scenarios sound familiar:

• Job Description from Hell. If other people continuously expect more than you can ever deliver, then there’s some work you need to do: begin to reset expectations based on reality.
• High Ambition, Low Satisfaction. Do you often have a hard time leaving the office when you say you will? And yet, you want to have it all? If you constantly work, work, work, and tell yourself you’re on the fast-track … indeed, you may be on the "fast-track" … to burning yourself out. Hint: push back a little. It’s darn near impossible to build a solid career and reputation for excellence when you can barely breathe.
• Speak Up for Balance. If you want to balance your work and your leisure, you generally know your limits and try to stand up for them, but alas, you keep getting squeezed out, this article series will give you some new tools to get your limits honored and your interests met.

Setting healthy boundaries – simply stating your truth, from your experience, without fear of retaliation or of hurting the other person’s feelings – is not supposed to be hard. If this topic brings up some concerns or makes you a bit nervous, good! That’s the edge that will have you asserting what you know and want.

The Place to Start

Ideally, workplace boundary setting takes place in a context of an open discussion about responsibilities, goals and priorities; there’s mutual understanding about what needs to be done, and the timeframes are carefully negotiated. (And then, of course, "change happens," but what counts is having a workable agreement on the front end).

However, even if such contracting didn’t happen up front, it probably isn’t too late to go for better agreements. How you express your limits, your strengths and your abilities is key to setting a boundary that gets respected.

Here are three core skill areas to help get you there:

1. Know your limits, know what you want.

By now, most of us set goals (a prioritized list of what you want), but do you know your limits? One client said, "I know them when I go beyond them. If I am unaware of what I cannot do, I’m likely to drown in that which I cannot see." Knowing your limits is a source of inner strength and helps you focus your energies on what you can do.

To protect yourself from going "overboard," be organized and on top of your commitments, including knowing yourself and your strengths to give accurate estimates of timeframes (I generally take my best guess then double it). If you regularly put your priorities in writing, it will help you handle unplanned requests or the inevitable reprioritization in a professional, matter-of-fact way. What would written weekly and daily priorities look like for you?

2. Tactfully and openly communicate goals and limits.

Sell your abilities by demonstrating what you can get done without selling yourself short by taking on too much. Put out there 100% of what you want and what you are willing to do to get it. When you talk about your limitations, focus on your positive intention, ask for help in doing your best work, and problem solve, don’t complain about the problem.

Pay attention to how the other person is receiving your communication. Be open to feedback; better still, ask for feedback.

3. Be available to discuss differences and get to agreements.

Listen and verify your understanding of the other person’s needs, interests and concerns. This is a time for using your best communication and win-win negotiation skills. Tune in to their concerns or limits, and look for simple ways to "work it out."

Next section’s focus is on healthy boundaries in adversarial or conflict situations, like dealing with people when they get stressed out or when the stakes are particularly high. Click below for Part 3,

What's a Healthy Boundary Between You and that Maniac?

For now, how did the boundary you set from Part 1 work out? What’s one new boundary you’ll establish this week?

Discuss this topic online using ABetterWorkplace FORUM (free registration)