How to Keep Your Personal Life Private At Work

Spending 40 hours or more a week with a group of people demands a certain degree of social bonding. That's how teams work. But you can control how deep those bonds grow to meet your comfort level and still fit in.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

1. Control the amount of personal information you voluntarily offer. Inserting personal information into discussions is correctly perceived as an invitation for comment, advice and follow up questions. Trying to cut off those natural interactions later can damage your work relationships.

2. Don't shut out others who share lots of personal details, but don't feel obligated go deeper than you want. Listening and sympathetic comments are fine, but going beyond that sends a message you want to be more involved with the person's life.

3. Think carefully before establishing individual social relationships with co-workers. This can lead to lifelong friendships, but it can also create challenges, such as when one of you gets a promotion and ends up supervising the other.

4. Don't be rigid. The goal is to maintain a comfortable level of personal privacy while building good working relationships. Consider each situation individually.

Tips & Warnings

• Socializing outside the workplace is great if done as a group.