Working with difficult colleagues

At some point everyone will encounter a colleague that they don’t get on with.  That is perfectly normal, and in this respect the workplace is no different from any other group activity.   Not liking a colleague and choosing not to socialize with them outside of work doesn’t really matter provided you are able to work together.  But what happens when a colleague is so difficult that you can’t work together?  I don’t come equipped with solutions that will work in all scenarios, but I do have are some general principles that may help you decide your best approach.

Firstly, it should be said that many of us have blind spots about ourselves.  I once heard an anecdote from someone who was a frequent guest on political TV panels in the UK (I can’t recall who it was).  They said: if you look across the panel and you can’t work out who the extreme voice is, it is probably you.  Similarly, if everyone else gets on with the individual you are struggling with, then maybe the problem is you.  Before, we dig down into approaches towards difficult colleagues it is worth reflecting on whether you are a good team member.  Can colleagues rely on you to do the work assigned within the timeframe requested?  Do you work well within a team?  Are you friendly?  It’s important to remember that honest and frank feedback from colleagues regarding potential short-comings in your work is one of the best paths to improvement.  When such feedback is given, it is usually not a sign that the colleague is being difficult, but rather they are doing you a favor.  That said there are good and bad ways of giving feedback and it’s important that they are being consistent across staff.

I have often thought it would be difficult to be a different person at work than you are in your life outside work.  Obviously work can call for different skills and perhaps an increased focus at specific times.  Some people may segregate work and non-work to such a degree that they are very private and guarded. But ultimately, I believe that most people have the same personalities at work as they do outside.  In fact, people probably show a lot more of their personalities at work than they do outside, particularly when things are challenging.  Why is this important?  When we look around us, in any environment, there will be people we naturally gravitate towards and others we won’t.  That is normal and will certainly be the case at work.  We all need to tolerate and co-exist alongside people that we may not choose to be friends. 

The idea of the blog is to answer how to deal with difficult colleagues.  The first point is that we need to make sure that we aren’t the cause of that difficulty by ensuring that we are doing the work we promised or was asked of us.  If it is the colleague that is genuinely being difficult, to what degree is this impacting your work and does it cross any boundaries that it shouldn’t?

If we want to be theoretical we can use a simple four quadrant system and chart  “impact on your work” against “inappropriateness”.  I am limiting inappropriateness to serious examples where either someone is being too friendly (unwanted attention or sexual advances) or the opposite (discrimination, aggression or hostility).  If the colleague is not being inappropriate and it isn’t impacting your work, I would suggest you ignore the behavior.  If a colleague is showing a high degree of inappropriateness, regardless of whether your work is impacted or not, you need to report this.  It is the organization’s responsibility to address these situations.  If the colleague is impacting your work but not being inappropriate, then this is the area that you can tackle directly or indirectly with the colleague.

This is very simplified and there are certainly grey areas.  The quadrant that I am most interested in is where you are impacted, but the behavior is not seriously inappropriate.  Some examples include rude and dismissive behavior, particularly in front of others.  Some colleagues become so competitive that they focus on their own goals to the detriment of the organization.  Sometimes performance expectations are intentionally punitive and designed to ensure failure.  It can also include malicious gossip spread behind colleagues’ backs, particularly if it has nothing to do with work.  In all circumstances, if it reaches a threshold that impacts your work negatively then there are two moves you can make: confront the colleague about their behavior and appeal to a set of values (the company’s or your own) that the behavior breaches.

My approach to life and work is to try and establish a friendly relationship with everyone and work towards building trust.  As my career gets longer, I have refined and reflected on my own values and will use these to try to correct a relationship that is going sideways.   This can be as simple as jointly agreeing what is in our employer’s interest and placing that above our own interests.  But also includes treating everyone at work with respect.  If someone steps outside of these values, I will use them to encourage a better outcome in the future.

The worst relationship I had with a colleague was early in my career.  The colleague decided to leave the company we were working for to go traveling and I was asked to take on a substantial part of their work.  For some reason the necessary transfer of responsibilities proved difficult for this individual.  My keenness to get going and to ensure a smooth transfer was mis-interpreted as an attempt to sideline the individual.  In the end the relationship completely broke down, which impacted my ability to take on the work efficiently and made the wider team feel uncomfortable.  I frequently look back at the situation and try to play out what I would do differently if the situation repeated itself.  I tried reconciliation at the beginning, but this was rebuffed.  I tried to include my colleague in all relevant meetings, but concede that there may have been some where they weren’t invited.  I think this may be one of the cases where an appeal to values would have been ineffective, as its hard for someone who has decided to leave to put the company’s interests above their own.  In the end I knew the awkward situation was time-limited and I could wait them out, but I still wish that I could have addressed it fully in the moment.

One of my biggest regrets was when I didn’t hold myself to my own values.  I believe strongly that all critical feedback should be given with respect, which usually involves a private meeting space and not in front of other members of staff.  When I discovered that a colleague was trying to enter into a verbal side agreement with a client to enable some revenue to be recognized early, I lost sight of my values and gave some angry and very direct feedback on the open plan.   A calmer response behind closed doors would have set a better example to the team and resolved the issue more positively.  By breaching my own values, I gave away some of the high-ground and distracted attention from the serious issue at hand.

I think I will wrap things up here.  There is no single, all-encompassing solution for dealing with difficult colleagues.  Provided you are not the one being difficult, then a rational appraisal of how much a colleague is impacting your work will usually guide you in the direction of the best solution.  This is subjective and may change over time.  Confronting a colleague and appealing to values can help to build a better relationship.  It’s also the case that difficult colleagues have a habit of pruning themselves from organizations.  Companies spend significant sums on designing and communicating values to ensure the workplace is inclusive and welcoming to all staff.  If the same companies then pay lip service to those values and turn a blind eye to transgressions, then you might want to reconsider whether you want to work there long term. 

Next week’s blog is on how to deal with stress.