While our relationship with our direct manager is the most important one in the workspace, sometimes our greatest challenges are with our peers. We often look to them as friends, or perhaps competitors, and sometimes as threats. Our coworkers can play an oversized role in determining if we can be successful or happy.
Today, we will look at a few types of colleagues that cause challenges, and walk through some of the communications and relational issues with each:
Those who won’t accept you
Amy recently joined a department after taking five years off to be a stay-at-home mom. She is older than her colleagues, and the only one with children. Her younger peers never miss a chance to remind her of her outsider status, with little digs about not being up to date on technology, or they tease her that she only watches kids’ movies, or they huddle without Amy because, you know, she’s different. No matter the reason for the outsider status – age, gender, race, socio-economic class, ability – discrimination is taking place. We have to call it what it is. If you are the recipient of this, depending on the degree of discrimination, you have two paths:
Learn to live with it
You cannot change others; you can only change your reaction to them. If you find yourself on the outside of a work clique, recognize that you may feel like you are back in middle school. You are being paid to get a job done, not to find friends at the office. Do you like the “insiders”? Do they seem nice? Do you care if they like you are not? Can you recognize that for whatever reason, you are threatening to them. Perhaps you are more experienced than they are – this was the case for Amy. Perhaps they think the manager likes you better. Perhaps they enjoy the “drama” of the office and there is always an outsider. Perhaps they feel empowered by minimizing you. Whatever the reason for their exclusion, you get to decide on how you react to it. Let’s face it; they are, at a minimum, being unprofessional. Don’t sink to their level. Maintain professional responses, even when they are not. Recognize that you don’t need to be friends with them, only to get the job done.
Elevate this to your boss if you are really struggling. Ask for help in how to manage the situation, by saying things like “I recognize that my tech skills may not be up to those of my peers. Is there a course I can take?” or “I seem to irritate Rafael with my questions; can you help me navigate that?” Clear communication where we take ownership for our actions rather than blaming others is always the way forward. The pandemic has heightened the need for greater communications skills. If you are always relying on text, Slack, email, or zoom, recognize that there may be times when you need to pick up the phone, one to one, and TALK through something. If your office is one where people yell at each other, know that you do not need to engage. You can always say “I can see you are emotional about this. Perhaps we should wait to discuss this until you are in a better place.”
Elevate it within the organization to those who can do something about it
If the discrimination is more than just an irritation, if your colleagues are preventing you from doing your job or are harassing you, then it’s time to go to the Human Resources department. There are state and federal laws around “protected class” status that may be being violated at your place of employment. There are also issues around “hostile work environment”, and any organization should care greatly about this. The HR team needs to know what is taking place. Yes, taking this action may have considerable consequences, including, potentially, your departure from the organization if the harassment continues. I know there are certain industries in which complaining about the poor work standards/toxic bosses means being “blacklisted” for future work. If you decide to take legal action, other employers may see you as the problem. This is where your values work will guide you. What are you willing to put up with? How much are you willing to try and change a toxic workplace or industry? Can you stand a few years of toxicity to get ahead (and if you make that CHOICE, for it is a choice, please ensure you are strong enough to protect yourself; you can make a different choice any day). If you do stick it out and get promoted, how can you become an advocate for change, rather than perpetuating the dysfunction? How brave can you be to stand up to entrenched practices of discrimination and/or disrespect? Can you find a way to manage your career in spite of these common practices? You really only have three choices if you work for a toxic company or in a toxic industry: leave, decide to stay and learn to deal with it, or decide to stay and act as an agent of change. Your life circumstances and your values will help you decide. There is no shame in any of the choices.
Those who use you
Monica is a hard worker and shares an office with two other women, all roughly at the same level. Patti often struggles to get her work done on time, and in Monica’s mind, her standards are below par. Much of the time, Monica is either waiting on Patti for something or fixing something that Patti did. Because Patti really cannot do her job as well as Monica – and Patti knows that – projects often slide from Patti to Monica. Monica cares about the reputation of the department, and Patti’s low standards are an embarrassment to Monica. In essence, she does Patti’s job for her. If you’re in this situation, with a colleague who consistently underperforms and expects you to pick up the slack, then you have to know you are enabling this behavior and it won’t end until you stop enabling. Yes, that will create discomfort, allow errors to be more visible, and probably cause you to feel guilty that the department’s not performing excellently when you could make it so. In the case above, Patti was over her head, and really not qualified to do her job. The lesson for Monica was to recognize that by covering for Patti, she was enabling Patti’s behavior. Patti, like all of us, has to rise or fall on her own. If Monica stops doing Patti’s job for her, one of three things will happen:
1) Patti will fail at her job and eventually get fired;
2) Patti will step up and do better because she knows her job is on the line; or
3) Patti’s boss will see that Patti is struggling and deal with that problem … because the problem really does lie with Patti’s boss, not with Monica.
Monica isn’t Patti’s boss, and she needs to recognize that helping Patti succeed isn’t her job. She needs to allow Patti’s work to speak for itself. If that means it’s late, inaccurate, incomplete, so be it. Their manager needs to be able to see who on the team is not succeeding and HELP THEM. Monica was preventing the manager from seeing how Patti was struggling.
Those who distract you
Christine is popular at her office, and very social. She spends much of her day in conversation with her coworkers, and most of the time it isn’t about work. Her playbook consists of a few topics:
Gossip: who is doing what, isn’t doing what they should, said this or that, etc. Gossip can be the single biggest killer of a positive work environment. It’s toxic to the organization and to the people who engage in it. Our culture is one of constant criticism, where those who sit on the sidelines are able to comment on those in the arena. They aren’t doing the work themselves, making the hard choices, fighting the fight. They are just sitting in the stands, shouting out their thoughts, however uninformed. If your department consists of constant gossip, all that negativity will eventually pull everyone down. Again, we go back to our values. If kindness, respect, honesty, loyalty, or almost any other value is on your list, then gossiping goes against your values. You must say no to it. If it helps, my definition of gossip is saying something about someone else that you would never say to their face.
Whining: Christine feels she is overworked, underpaid, has too many projects, has a mean boss, hates the culture of the organization, feels like others were promoted because they are the favorites, or a myriad of other complaints as to why work isn’t perfect. I will admit, in my coaching practice and as a leader; I have zero tolerance for whining. There will always be problems, in life, at work, in relationships. Whining does nothing to solve those problems; it just perpetuates them. As a colleague, you can certainly help your peers solve problems … if indeed that is what they want to do. But if all they want to do is whine about things, your best bet is to close the door. I’ll share what I used to say: “Are you here for me to help you solve a problem? If so, what solutions are you thinking about, and I’ll help you decide the best. Or are you here just to whine about a problem, because if so, well then, I’m sorry, but I have work that needs to get done.” Yes, that can sound harsh, but your goal is twofold: to stop the whiner from wasting your time, and to help the whiner see that they are wasting their own time. Helping people grow sometimes requires helping them see where they are stuck.
Her Personal Life: Christine is always looking for a someone to talk to about her dating life, her kids, her activities, crushes, clothes, parties, make-up, celebrities, whatever … anything other than work. The pandemic has helped this case somewhat since Christine cannot just swing by your office and plonk down for an hour to talk about her personal life. For those who look for friendship in the office, this type of behavior can often get out of hand. Extended time spent talking about personal activities should be off the clock. You are both paid to get a job done, not to discuss someone’s personal life (the exception here is when, as a leader, your direct report is struggling to get their job done because of something in their personal life: a health issue, a financial crisis, a disruption to their family, etc.). The easiest way to get out of this situation is merely to say “I’m sorry; I’m on a deadline. Let’s talk about this outside the office.” If they cannot respect that, then your friendship may not be as solid as you think.
Those who compete with you
Brian works at a large hospital and has many peers. Evaluations come from internal feedback and a culture has developed of constantly badmouthing everyone else on the team … in the hopes of making yourself look better! In most organizations, the structure becomes narrower at the top, meaning that there are plenty of colleagues at the entry level stage, but opportunities become narrower as one moves up the ladder. This dynamic of organizations often pushes colleagues to become competitive with one another, to focus on how one party can shine brighter. In this type of culture, insecurity often takes one of two forms:
1) Those who are always promoting what they do, looking for affirmations; boasting, taking credit far beyond their contribution; or
2) Those who actively complain about their peers to the boss, tattling, talking negatively about someone else’s project or work, assuming that if they tear others down, they will look stronger
As someone who has promoted many people in my career, perhaps it’s helpful to share what one is looking for when a higher up position becomes available: competence, willingness to grow, leadership potential, professionalism, communication skills, trustworthiness, accountability, collaboration. Now, scrub that list against either of the two actions of the competitive peer, and you’ll see that promoting yourself, looking for constant attention, complaining about others, and inability to work in a collaborative team are all traits that will NOT get one promoted. That, of course, is assuming you have a manager who understands solid leadership skills.
My advice when dealing with this type of colleague is to focus on your own work. Be professional. Get stuff done on time and with your best effort. Let your work standards create your reputation. Be positive. Be collaborative. Give credit to others and forge the best possible relationship with your manager. That’s how you get ahead.
Those who sabotage you
Occasionally, you truly find yourself working with a toxic colleague, someone who truly wants to get you fired. They will badmouth you, gossip about you, share your failings, minimize your successes, take credit for your work, and sometimes outright sabotage your project so that you will look bad. While this is a rare case, it’s not impossible that at some point in your career you will meet this saboteur. The most important point is for you to remember that your quality of work, and how you get that work done, is what good managers look for in a team member. What someone else does is of no consequence to you, if you are managing your own reputation and ensuring your work is outstanding.
My experience has been that it isn’t even worth the time confronting the saboteur. They will deny it and then spin that conversation into something else altogether. Instead, spend your time strengthening your relationship with your manager and other peers. If need be, ask your manager something like “Steve seems to struggle with me working here. Do you have any advice on how I can make things better?” It is your manager’s problem to address the saboteur because that person is creating team dysfunction, and fixing that is the manager’s job. Now, often, you may have a manager who doesn’t know how to deal with this, or minimizes the problem. If that’s the case, here are your options:
Recognize the problem isn’t you; all you can control is your response to it.
Do not harangue your boss with this issue; stick to doing an outstanding job and look for support from other leaders.
Manage your reputation as best you can, not by whining about the troublesome colleague, but by letting your outstanding work speak for itself.
If the situation slides over into harassment, see our first scenario above about hostile work environment.
While most of my coaching clients say their biggest challenge is their direct supervisor, some are undone by their peers. No matter the challenge, I often tell my clients that a difficult situation at work will continue to appear until you learn to deal with it. Some think that going to another job will make the problem go away, but as long as we work alongside others, these issues of communication, collaboration, ego, and courage will be there. We must each learn to control our own responses to these challenges, and to use our values to direct our actions.
Finally, sometimes we expect too much from the workplace in terms of meaning, happiness, and friendship. The purpose of work, traditionally, has been to perform the tasks required and get paid appropriately. Community existed outside the workplace, so a job was a job. But in our fractured society today, more and more, people want a sense of purpose, as well as a community, through their place of employment. This may be putting too much pressure on one institution, and can leave us destined for disappointment. Part of our journey to create work/life balance is to ensure we can leave the workplace. If you feel this issue warrants more exploration, please let me know in the comments and I will address it in a future blog post.
Comments