Disagreeable Colleagues

DAN MCGINN: Welcome to Dear HBR: from Harvard Business Review. I’m Dan McGinn.

ALISON BEARD: And I’m Alison Beard. Work can be frustrating, but it doesn’t have to be. We don’t need to let the conflicts get us down.

DAN MCGINN: That’s where Dear HBR: comes in. We take your questions, look at the research, talk to the experts, and help you move forward. Today we’re talking about disagreeable colleagues with Jennifer Goldman-Wetzler. She’s an executive coach, and the author of Optimal Outcomes: Free Yourself from Conflict at Work, at Home, and in Life. Jen, thanks for coming on the show.

JENNIFER GOLDMAN-WETZLER: Thanks so much for having me, Dan.

DAN MCGINN: Doesn’t every workplace have at least one disagreeable colleague.

JENNIFER GOLDMAN-WETZLER: Absolutely. Maybe there’s a bell curve. But it’s all in the eye of the beholder, so I don’t know many people who consider themselves to be disagreeable people, but we often think other people are.

DAN MCGINN: Is there often a correlation between performance and disagreeableness? Somebody who is a really high performer, but they’re just really hard to work with?

JENNIFER GOLDMAN-WETZLER: Yes, I see that often. And people can be very good at their job technically, or externally, so I’ve seen many, many leaders who are great at managing client relationships, and very poor at managing their relationships internally inside of their organizations. And so, that can really cause problems for other people inside of those organizations who struggle to have to figure out how to deal with that person.

ALISON BEARD: Have you ever dealt with a disagreeable colleague yourself?

JENNIFER GOLDMAN-WETZLER: I don’t know that I have along the lines of the questions that we have chosen here.

ALISON BEARD: Wow, you’re lucky. So, maybe it’s you? [laughter]

DAN MCGINN: Always a possibility.

JENNIFER GOLDMAN-WETZLER: It is, it sure is.

DAN MCGINN: Take it away.

ALISON BEARD: Dear HBR: One of my direct reports is a challenge to manage. She’s a terrific performer, but many of my team members have raised concerns about her. Our semi-annual performance review is approaching, and I don’t know whether to promote her. I first met this woman when she worked for one of our clients. We hired her a little over a year ago, but not at the salary level she wanted. Throughout this early stage of our relationship, there was something about her that rubbed me the wrong way, but I wanted to avoid any sort of hiring bias, so I ignored it. For the record, we’re both white women of a similar age, and socioeconomic background. So far, she’s excelled in every aspect of her role that we measure in 360-degree reviews. She produces high-quality work, brings in new clients, and manages some of our most complex relationships. She’s now eligible for promotion according to our stated policy. But many of her teammates have complained about her harsh communication, demanding management style, and lack of self-awareness. She tends to dominate conversations and can be oblivious to power dynamics. For example, she often assumes that her junior staff are on the same page as her, when they actually feel confused, frustrated, or hurt by her feedback. With superiors, she can be so direct that it feels disrespectful. She seems unable to understand priorities that compete with hers. When decisions don’t go her way, she escalates issues to management quickly and loudly, demanding a lot of time and attention. So, here are my questions. First, do I promote her? She’s exceeding her goals and has let me know that if she doesn’t get a more senior role this fall, she’ll be looking for another job. But what message would it send to the rest of the team if I move her up despite their concerns? Second, how do I address this real need for her to build emotional intelligence? This is such a delicate and personal topic. I’m not sure I have the skills to support her, but I do think this conversation would help her long-term, even if she doesn’t stay at our company.

JENNIFER GOLDMAN-WETZLER: Well, first of all, the fact that she has managed some of the company’s most complex client relationships suggests to me that it’s possible that she does have these skills, but that she’s not applying them internally. Which, if you think about it, shouldn’t necessarily be so surprising given that the letter writer says that the company is not measuring people on internal management, right?

ALISON BEARD: Yeah, I thought that was really striking too. She’s gone through 360 reviews. However, they clearly don’t measure emotional intelligence with colleagues. Which seems odd. It goes against any sort of 360 review I’ve ever heard of.

JENNIFER GOLDMAN-WETZLER: Yes.

DAN MCGINN: Yeah, so she has the skills, but she doesn’t have the incentive to apply them collaboratively with her colleagues.

ALISON BEARD: Exactly.

JENNIFER GOLDMAN-WETZLER: It’s possible. I would hold out that it could be that she has the skills, and it could be that she may not have the skills. There are nuances in the skills that it takes to build strong client relationships, and then the skills that it takes to build strong relationships laterally inside of your organization, the skills it takes to build relationships upward, and also downward. They’re all in the same family, but they’re slightly different. It does seem like one driving factor here is that she may be someone who knows that she’s not being measured against a certain set of criteria, and therefore has kind of chucked those. That is a very real possibility.

ALISON BEARD: And so, in the absence of revamping the entire performance management system of this company, what should our letter writer do?

JENNIFER GOLDMAN-WETZLER: I would reframe the issue from one about emotional intelligence to one about something that the letter writer names, three things. Which are: communication, management ability, or capacity, and self-awareness. So, that’s one thing long-term. Shorter-term to her question of should I promote her, I would say most helpful here is to engage in a potentially difficult, but honest conversation. I don’t think it is the letter writer’s job to provide this person with all of the resources that she may need if, in fact, it is a skills gap issue. But this manager can absolutely point her towards these resources and deliver feedback.

DAN MCGINN: Yeah, I like the idea of a conversation in which our listener says, look, formally you’ve met the criteria for promotion, but there’s this one significant hang-up, which is you’re not collaborating effectively with colleagues, and we do think that’s important. So, we want to wait six months, and we want you to very much focus on that aspect of your performance. I think that would sort of bridge the gap between not sending a bad signal by promoting a bad collaborator, but it would also tell her exactly what she needs, it would give her a short timeframe in which to accomplish it, it’s not really super punitive.

ALISON BEARD: So, I don’t mind those ideas, but I’m going to tweak it just a little bit based on some articles I worked with, Richard Boyatzis of Case Western Reserve University, his whole idea is coaching with compassion. And the premise is that you cannot affect change in someone by imposing it on them. You need to talk to them about the vision that they have for the future. So, in this case, our letter writer needs to talk with this woman about where she sees herself in the future, how far she wants to go in this company, and then help the person see that these attributes, communication, management, self-awareness, are the things that will help her get there. It’s more of a: you need to grow in this way to achieve all these goals that you have for yourself.

JENNIFER GOLDMAN-WETZLER: Yes. I think that’s a great use of that research and a great idea. And I mean, one thing that the letter writer doesn’t name, but that I see as really important to this, integral to this whole conversation, is about culture in organizations. The reason why my answer to the question, do I promote her, is no, is because when we promote people who are clearly breaking all unspoken informal bounds, or boundaries, that maybe we don’t have in a formal performance review, but that kind of everyone knows, quote, unquote, inside of the organization, it can be so detrimental to the culture to promote that person. Because now we have other people watching that whole thing take place. So, I, as an organizational psychologist, don’t want people to ever take away the message in any organization that it’s okay to be a jerk and then get promoted just because you’re getting your boxes checked off on your technical job.

DAN MCGINN: But there are companies and cultures and even industries that are kind of known for being extremely tolerant of high-performing people who are bad colleagues. Financial services is one. Law sometimes has that stereotype as well.

JENNIFER GOLDMAN-WETZLER: Yes, and how happy are people in those organizations? The ones you’re thinking about? I think in this day and age what I’m seeing is that that behavior, even in those industries, is starting to roll back a bit.

ALISON BEARD: It seems like we all agree that she should be put on some sort of learning plan before she’s given this promotion. But what if she says you know what, I don’t need this, I’ll be in high demand anywhere, I told you I’d be looking for another job, and I will?

JENNIFER GOLDMAN-WETZLER: I think that’s okay.

ALISON BEARD: But how does our letter writer explain to her own bosses that she’s lost this star performer?

JENNIFER GOLDMAN-WETZLER: Tell the truth. The way to deal with that is to tell the truth, and to say: Look, we had a choice between keeping someone on the team who is performing against the metrics that we’ve set formally, but not informally. And therefore, causing culture dynamics that are not ones that we want, but also when I brought it up was so defensive that she threatened to quit without being willing to hear feedback, without being willing to say she would take the opportunity to learn. I think that’s also the piece if you care about the person. What I as an organizational psychologist want for that person is for her to learn and grow. And what I hope that the boss, who’s the letter writer, wants for that person is to help her learn and grow.

DAN MCGINN: That’s the piece that actually most impressed me about the letter writer here. She’s got a direct report who she says rubs her the wrong way, and always has, clearly, the direct report is not behaving very well. Yet, our listener is really approaching this from a position of kindness, and coaching, and what can I do to help this person, looking to develop her. Not every boss would have that attitude I don’t think.

ALISON BEARD: Yeah, that’s true.

DAN MCGINN: Alison, what’s our summary?

ALISON BEARD: We think that our letter writer is absolutely right to see red flags here. Communication, management, self-awareness, are all important skills for someone who wants to rise in any organization. And long-term, they really do need to be measured on this company’s 360 reviews. In the absence of those, we think that she needs to have a really candid conversation with this employee. It’s possible that she does have emotional intelligence, she interacts well with clients, but she’s not applying it well in the office. We’d like to see this letter writer point this employee towards resources that can help her develop her emotional intelligence, perhaps put her on a six-month performance plan that would get her that promotion she really covets. We don’t think that she should be promoted unless she shows that she’s willing to change in this way. And if she leaves, we think that’s okay, because it’s better for the long-term health of the organization.

DAN MCGINN: Dear HBR: I’m dealing with a difficult colleague and could really use a second opinion. I switched from working in the government to consulting this past year. So far, my company’s been great. The work is challenging, the compensation and benefits are good, my boss and most of my co-workers are terrific. There’s one exception, the project manager I’m currently working with. He has a very demeaning attitude and treats me with no respect. He becomes aggressive when I use certain words and berates me when I can’t answer questions to his satisfaction. I brought this issue up with my supervisor twice. When I do, things calm for a little while, but then the project manager goes back to his old self. Apparently, he has a history of abusive behavior that is well known throughout the company. He’s been reprimanded by HR before, but that’s been it. We’re finishing our project soon. Once it’s over I’m going to request that I not be assigned to work with this guy in the future, but I don’t know if that’s possible. We’re a small office, and he’s one of only three project managers, so I might have no choice. I’m prepared to leave the company if this isn’t resolved, so I would appreciate some advice.

JENNIFER GOLDMAN-WETZLER: First of all, anytime that we hear someone say that the person treats everyone this way, my first piece of advice is obviously do not take it personally. My second piece of advice is, try to reroute the behavior back to that person where it belongs.

ALISON BEARD: What do you mean by that?

JENNIFER GOLDMAN-WETZLER: So, for example, saying something like wow, your reaction is very concerning to me. I know I didn’t answer your question the way you were hoping, but your reaction seems harsher than I would expect, is everything okay? That is an example of rerouting that person’s angry outburst back to them. Putting the spotlight, the focus, back on that person, rather than taking it on as oh my god, I’m a horrible person, I did something wrong.

ALISON BEARD: My first instinct was also wanting to tell our letter writer that he needs to have a conversation directly with this project manager. He’s gone to the supervisor, but it doesn’t seem as if he’s ever frankly said to this co-worker, I don’t appreciate how you’re treating me, maybe something less aggressive than that, are you okay, as you suggested, Jen. But I do think that tell them first strategy, that’s what Deborah Grayson Riegel, one of our contributors calls it, is what you need to adopt in the workplace.

JENNIFER GOLDMAN-WETZLER: Yes, absolutely. And we see a thread now from the first letter writer to the second letter writer, both letter writers really not wanting to have that direct conversation. Almost doing anything else or suggesting that they might do anything else to avoid having that direct conversation. And it’s no wonder, right, these are not necessarily fun. But I really do encourage people, like you’re saying Alison, have the direct conversation. I also think when you’re having that direct conversation another way to approach is it to say let the person know the impact of their behavior on you, and that he’s not going to get what he wants from you if that’s how he’s going to react to you.

DAN MCGINN: The approaches you both suggest are really kind of rational, and certainly in the moment, but they’re asking if they’re okay, talking about how it makes you feel. Is there a different case here that essentially this guy is a garden variety bully, and the typical schoolyard wisdom if you’re being bullied the best way to try and deal with it is to stand up and be kind of, give an alpha response right back?

JENNIFER GOLDMAN-WETZLER: Absolutely, give it a try. Because anything you do that’s different from what you’ve done before is worth a shot. It’s worth experimenting. But I always advise people, do something that’s going to break the pattern of what you’ve been doing, but make sure what you’re doing is constructive. So, if you are just going to bully back, we’ve seen that all over the place these days, bullying people back typically continues to escalate a situation, not make it better.

ALISON BEARD: Yeah, it’s interesting one [HBR’s] contributors, Mark Nevins, suggested the entirely opposite non-aggressive tact. Not even are you okay, which maybe is a little passive-aggressive, or hey, that’s doesn’t really work for me, he suggested shifting from a competitive stance to a completely collaborative one saying, you know, I just don’t feel like we’re working together as effectively as we could, what do you think, do you have any ideas of how we could work better together, asking lots of open-ended questions. Is that a stance that will just put our letter writer in an even weaker position than he already is? Dan’s nodding. [laughs]

DAN MCGINN: Yeah, I don’t see that one working very well.

JENNIFER GOLDMAN-WETZLER: Mark Nevins is a colleague and friend of mine. I’m not surprised to hear that that’s what he said.

Again, I would say it’s worth a shot, it’s just not where I would go first. It’s just like you’re dealing with a bully, trying to collaborate with a bully doesn’t typically get us very far. On the other hand, another tact that’s very obvious that we haven’t talked about yet is avoid, right? How can we not work with this guy?

ALISON BEARD: That’s what he’s trying to do, right?

DAN MCGINN: Yeah, he’s already trying that.

ALISON BEARD: But it’s a very small organization, and frankly it’s an organization that seems to have a lot of problems because he has a history of abusive behavior that’s never been correct in a small company, which is sort of hard to hide in. So, I’m skeptical that the avoid strategy is going to work, just like our letter writer is. And also, willing to consider this idea of him just leaving the company.

JENNIFER GOLDMAN-WETZLER: This is an example of what happens when you don’t nip in the bud the behavior that our first letter writer was talking about. This guy is bullying lots of people in this organization, you can imagine the effect that his behavior has on the culture of the organization, on peoples’ ability to get their work done in this place, and like you said, Alison, this doesn’t sound like an organization that’s handling things well. Who wants to work at a place like that? And, to top it off, what we know is that this letter writer is planning on leaving, and he sounds like he’s potentially a high performer. So, that’s what happens when we don’t take care of this kind of managerial behavior.

DAN MCGINN: If he tries all of the rational steps to try and fix it, is there anything at the end of the day that we would say not to leave? It seems like he’s going down a checklist of pretty responsible behaviors, and the last one is I’m just going to find a new job. Is that the right way to think about this?

JENNIFER GOLDMAN-WETZLER: Exactly. If the letter writer could more easily walk away and find a new job, than navigate helping a peer who is perceived to be a bully in the organization get the help he needs, I would rather see the letter writer walk away.

ALISON BEARD: So, Dan, what are we telling him?

DAN MCGINN: First we’re saying don’t take this personally, the problem lies with the co-worker, not with you. He’s behaving this way with everyone. The steps that our listener has taken already are the right ones. He’s talked with the supervisor. He’s tried not to be assigned to work with this person. The next step is to try to react in the moment and have a direct conversation with the co-worker when he’s behaving hostilely.

Why are you behaving so aggressively, is everything okay, tell me what’s wrong? No one likes having those direct conversations, but it seems like it’s the next best thing to try and do. This guy is sort of a classic bully, there might be a case to try to stand up to him. Trying to change the nature of the interaction is probably the best route here. In terms of leaving the organization, at the end of the day, if interacting with this guy on a daily basis is taking a toll on you personally, and if you can find better options out there, you should take it.

ALISON BEARD: Last letter. Dear HBR: I’m facing a frustrating dilemma with my supervisor. She’s a bully towards me and only me. She has about nine other direct reports, and she doesn’t treat any of them as badly as she treats me. She leaves me out of meetings, won’t admit they even happened when I ask, calls me out in emails, the list goes on. I think she dislikes me personally. Colleagues tell me this is because she’s never done what I do and feels threatened because I know more about my program than she does. People also say she’s trying to get me to quit. But I’ve been at our state agency for 15 years, I was here long before she was made my supervisor about three years ago. I’m at a loss as of what to do. I’ve kept records of her behavior, filed grievances per proper agency protocol, and contacted the interim director. I even spoke to my supervisor directly, but I keep getting shut down. They say my claims are unfounded. It’s absolutely ludicrous. No one has even tried to speak to her. I’m looking for other employment and have been recruited by many agencies that have wanted me for years. Unfortunately, none have been able to meet my current salary and benefits. I’m at a breaking point. I’m very smart, confident in my position, and run a program with the utmost integrity. My high client participation rates make her look good since her evaluation score is based partly on how I perform. So, why is she so unprofessional, discriminatory, and bullying towards me, but not any other worker? And what should I do about it?

JENNIFER GOLDMAN-WETZLER: So many things. First of all, I’ll point out she’s filed a grievance, and when you do that, if the person found out that you have filed the grievances, they’re likely to trust you less than they already did.

ALISON BEARD: But she did also speak to her directly. It seems like this letter writer has followed every single one of the steps we’d recommend. She’s spoken to her supervisor, she’s kept a log of the details, she’s filed grievances, she’s talked to colleagues about it to see what she might be doing wrong, and they’ve told her she feels threatened by you. She’s in this really difficult position.

DAN MCGINN: I wonder if she’s misreading the power dynamic a little bit. She emphasizes I was here long before she was made my supervisor. She seems to come from a place that her tenure makes her invaluable and gives her a lot more power than she thinks she has. She seems to not really view the boss with the authority and respect that one should normally treat the boss. I’m understanding there’s a difficult dynamic here, but I wonder if that’s part of what’s going on here.

ALISON BEARD: That’s a really good point. The boss naturally might feel threatened, and so, our letter writer could help the situation by trying to walk a mile in her shoes, see it from her perspective, and that’s where we should all begin when we’re talking about conflict management.

JENNIFER GOLDMAN-WETZLER: Yes, ask yourself what might be driving this person’s behavior? What is going on for the person that the person may not be able to admit even to her own self? So, given what the letter writer wrote to us, the words I put to it are this person wants to be seen possibly as being the best. She wants to be seen as she has the knowledge that’s needed. And ask yourself if she wants to be seen as being the best, is that so terrible. Now what is terrible is arguably the behavior that the person is using to defend her best status– herself as best status. But it’s a very human desire to be respected. It just means you could ask the question, wow, if the tables were turned, how would I want to be treated if I were the boss.

ALISON BEARD: Yeah, Sherry Moss at Wake Forest has done a lot of great research on people who score high for social dominance orientation, which sounds exactly what you’re describing in the boss. Her research has shown that they do tend to bully even their highest performers because of this perceived threat. And ideally, the organization would step in to solve the problem, but what the individual who’s on the receiving end of this bullying can do is not fight back, but actually signal respect for the boss’s rank, share the spotlight, acknowledge her publicly and privately, and this goes against all of our natural instincts, right? Someone’s bullying you, and the research and advice is to actually be nicer to them, and tell them how great they are, and thank them for their contributions. So, I get that that’s maybe what we’re supposed to do, but how does our letter writer emotionally get herself to that place?

JENNIFER GOLDMAN-WETZLER: Yeah. I think it does require doing the work inside of yourself first, to allow yourself to raise your empathy for this person.

DAN MCGINN: This doesn’t help this listener now, but is part of what’s going on here sort of a case study in why you really need to exhaust every opportunity before you file an official grievance and start that whole process, which can have repercussions?

ALISON BEARD: Yeah, I did wonder that too whether she went nuclear too soon, and it’s too late.

JENNIFER GOLDMAN-WETZLER: Yeah, what is very difficult to build, and very easy to lose? Trust. Right? It’s not impossible to rebuild trust, but you’ll need to work very hard at it every day in a situation like this. And if there’s one thing that I know about having difficult conversations, even though we would not have them, when we do, sometimes from the most difficult circumstances come the most huge breakthroughs.

DAN MCGINN: Jen, at a certain point, should she just bite the bullet, take a lower salary, and jump to a new job? Isn’t that worth something just in terms of her own emotional health?

JENNIFER GOLDMAN-WETZLER: Yes. So, I think it is so important for us to always ask ourselves the question, what costs are we paying by staying stuck in conflict. We don’t typically ask ourselves that question, we stay there, we know we’re paying costs, but we don’t put a value on them, and we certainly typically don’t put a dollar value on them. So, I would challenge this letter writer to put a dollar amount on the costs she’s paying emotionally for staying put. And then see is it worth it to walk away, or is it worth it to stay put?

ALISON BEARD: Yeah.

DAN MCGINN: Alison, what’s our summary?

ALISON BEARD: First we’d like her to take a step back and realize her boss probably does feel threatened. Our letter writer has more tenure, she’s great at what she does, so we would just encourage her to put herself in the boss’s shoes. One way she might be able to rebuild trust is just to honor the boss’s need to be the boss. Show her respect, gratitude, compliment her, share the spotlight, see if she can make her an ally. That said, rebuilding trust in this way is definitely extremely hard. So, it might take one last candid conversation that’s full of open-ended questions about how they might be able to repair their relationship, and that could lead to a really big breakthrough. If it doesn’t, we think she should seriously consider taking some of these other jobs even if they are lower pay, because she needs to factor in the cost to her well-being of staying with a boss who’s a bully.

DAN MCGINN: Jen, thanks for coming on the show.

JENNIFER GOLDMAN-WETZLER: Thanks so much for having me.

DAN MCGINN: That’s Jennifer Goldman-Wetzler. She’s an executive coach and the author of the new book Optimal Outcomes.  Thanks to the listeners who wrote us with their questions. Now we want to know your questions. Send us an email with your workplace challenge, and how we can help. The email address is DearHBR@HBR.org.

ALISON BEARD: On our next show we’ll be talking about subversive employees with Adrian Gostick.

ADRIAN GOSTICK: When I was listening to this, I had flashbacks, because I had this employee!

DAN MCGINN: To get this episode automatically please subscribe.

ALISON BEARD: And if you like the show, please give us a five-star review.

DAN MCGINN: I’m Dan McGinn.

ALISON BEARD: And I’m Alison Beard. Thanks for listening to Dear HBR:.