Your best strategies for dealing with challenging co-workers

One of the top issues I hear about from my clients is the ‘difficult’ co-worker.  This is the person in your work life whose behavior so affects your day, it can eclipse everything else that is going on.   

Difficult co-workers can be just about anyone at work.  They can be show up as bullies, slackers, complainers, passive aggressive, or nit-pickers.  We know who they are but we can feel powerless interacting with them. 

Of course, we can’t change these co-workers or how they act.  But we can take a fresh approach for how to engage with them to feel more empowered, thoughtful, and ultimately forge a better strategy.  

Again and again, I’ve seen my clients devise new and better ways to engage with these co-workers that leave them feeling less heavy, more empowered, and even more effective.   Here are some of the best strategies we’ve identified.

Strategy #1:   Do your very best to understand where the other person is coming from.   

Before striking a new approach with a difficult co-worker, you want to understand the person you are dealing with.   What’s just under the surface of their behavior?  What is your assessment of this person’s main concerns and drivers?  What do they seem to really need?  What do you think they fear? 

For example, if they seem like a bully, are they trying to exert control?  Are they judging a lot but seem to have a streak of insecurity?  Do you sense that they feel unappreciated?  Or that their real interest is in being liked and appreciated?  These underlying ‘needs’ matter and can be a key to a new engagement strategy.

Strategy #2:  Be a detective and use curiosity to figure out how this person ticks.

How could curiosity help you better understand this person?  When trying to bridge a divide, you want to learn more about them, their background and interests, and where you and that person share common ground. 

In being a detective, you will learn how this person ticks and you will also be expressing an interest in them which helps to build trust. 

What to ask?  What do they really care about?  What does success look like for them?  What experience did they have in the past that leads them to show up in the way they are now?  What frustrates them the most?  How best to work with them?

Have a know-it-all co-worker?  Ask them to explain how things work. 

Have a control freak?  Ask them how they execute in order to create success. 

Have sometime who seems to focus on their opinions above all others?  Talk to them about how they form their decisions or opinions. 

Have a boss that isn’t interest in the details of your work?  Talk to them about what truly interests them about the work they are doing and their experience.

Strategy #3:  Make a plan to engage with this co-worker thinking intentionally about what you know about them.   

Once you have a stronger sense of your co-worker – their needs, concerns, fears, and interests  – consider adopting a tailored engagement strategy.  You may be interacting with this co-worker in different ways - meetings, projects, email communications, or even resolution of problem.  And your strategy will likely take time so avoid trying to resolve issues overnight.  Regardless of how you are engaging, you want to build your strategy around what you understand about your co-worker.

Here are some examples of how you might tailor your engagement strategy:

• If someone is seeking control, seek a path forward that keeps in mind their interest in having oversight and direction of their work. 

• If someone appears to be lacking confidence (perhaps underneath a rough exterior), ensure there is a foundation of recognizing their contributions to open dialogue and build trust.

• If someone appears to be reactive to input or feedback, understand first what they see as success from their perspective and consider over-acknowledging the work they have completed.

• If someone is avoiding engagement, consider small steps that would build a level of trust to establish a stronger foundation for collaboration and communication.

• If someone appears to be stonewalling, then understand better what they want and need in order to move forward in a project.

Keep in mind that sometimes, a more confrontational approach will be less effective.  Other times, direct engagement can open up common ground.  Regardless, consider your strategy an experiment and it can take time to shift to a more productive space.

Note:  I acknowledge there are difficult co-workers where the best strategy may be to seek distance and ultimately boundaries to avoid contact.  These extreme examples can be found in the workplace and help to create toxic environments.  You be the judge of whether you are in this situation.

Strategy #4:  Establish a mindset that embraces a level-headed approach.

This last strategy is usually the first strategy I work on with my clients.  When we decide we want a different approach with difficult co-worker, we start with how we are thinking about the issue.

And it starts with dropping the word “difficult.”

By the time a client come to me with concerns about a co-worker, they’ve usually had so many negative experiences that even a small interaction will trigger significant anxiety or frustration.  Even they would admit, they aren’t showing up for the relationship with their best selves.

This is hard but you want to get to a place where you can pursue Strategies #1-3 above from a place of having perspective.  This means leaving those strong opinions and judgments of the other person behind.  It means adopting more of an approach of equanimity or a level-headed mind.

What does level-headed mindset look like? 

• It means moving from thinking “My co-worker should…” to “My co-worker is…..” 

• It means focusing less on hoping or expecting our co-worker will change their behavior to looking at how you can adjust your own behavior. 

• It means stepping away from a belief there isn’t a way to successfully interact with this person to a place of being open to the possibility there is a better way.

Want to learn more?  Here are two outstanding articles on this subject.

Harvard Business Review:  Strategies for dealing with Difficult Co-Workers

One article that opened my eyes to thinking differently is worth a read by Adam Grant, Persuading the Unpersuadable (April 2021).