Difficult Coworker? One Quick Way To Turn The Relationship Around
By Sabrina Nawaz
Do you fight at work? Fist fights are rare but toe-to-toe yelling matches,
stonewalling, passive resistance and backbiting are all too common in the
workplace. Do you think that if so-and-so weren’t so stubborn or political, your job
would be much easier?
If so, you aren’t alone. Nearly one-third of executives and employees argue
with a co-worker at least once a month, according to a survey of 1,000 workers by
Fierce Inc., a Seattle leadership development and training company specializing in
workplace communication. Work warfare, even in the form of passive resistance, wastes
energy, lowers morale and reduces productivity. You can be a high performer
individually but adversarial relationships with your co-workers can cause loss of trust up
and down the management chain, and damage your products and customer
relationships.
As an executive coach, I’m privy to many of my clients’ struggles with their colleagues.
My inbox contains “evidence” of why their COO is impossible to work with. I see them
bicker with colleagues in meetings. I’ve discovered that one of the most effective ways to
move beyond these battles is both simple and disarming: Ask your adversary for help.
Several years ago Dennis and Tim (not their real names) were locked in an adversarial
relationship neither seemed able to break. The two managers head up engineering
teams that need to collaborate to produce software. Dennis’s team develops the software
program that Tim and his team then test before it’s ready for release to customers.
Dennis has to complete his work in order for Tim to start his. And until Tim provides his
stamp of approval, the software keeps going back to Dennis to fix the defects. Both
Dennis and Tim are strong performers with deep technical knowledge. Two years ago,
conflicts between the two seriously threatened an important software release. They
wasted hours of meeting time on turf battles. Their teams were confused about
priorities. Their manager’s manager eventually needed to intervene, and the software
release was delayed by three months — causing it to go over budget.
At the end of the project, Tim received a below-average performance review. He directed
his anger and frustration at Dennis, blaming Dennis’s ego and stubbornness.
Tim’s manager wanted to invest in his development and help him work more effectively
with his colleagues. Tim was motivated to improve his performance. The company hired
me as Tim’s coach.
During our work together, I posed a challenge to Tim: Find a way to ask
Dennis for help.
This challenge touches on research by Wharton management professor Adam Grant on
workplace altruism. Grant believes the greatest untapped human motivation is a sense
of service to others — that giving, in effect, is the secret to getting ahead. In my work
with Tim, I reversed Grant’s concept, considering the value, not of giving aid, but of
requesting aid. What would happen if we asked others to help us? If giving motivates
human beings, then how will a request to give affect an adversarial relationship?
In other words, if giving is the secret to getting ahead, then asking is the secret to getting
along.
Tim’s response to my challenge surprised me. It seemed like he had a flash of
understanding. He looked both excited and scared at the same time. “Sounds like I need
to walk to Canossa,” he said. The phrase was new to me, but between Tim’s explanation
and some research of my own, I came to understand his comment and to see “walking to
Canossa” as a useful metaphor for this challenge.
First, some history: In 1075, Henry IV, King of the Germans, entered into a power
struggle with Pope Gregory VII. King Henry and Pope Gregory each wanted to control
how bishops and clergymen were appointed. During this struggle, Henry declared that
the pope should be unseated; and Gregory excommunicated Henry from the Church.
Either man could have taken the first step toward resolving the conflict, but Henry,
faced with mounting dissatisfaction from his people and aware that he needed the
pope’s support to survive on the throne, had a strong incentive to resolve the conflict.
Pope Gregory set a deadline by threatening that Henry’s excommunication would
become irrevocable in a year’s time.
As the story goes, Henry undertook to walk to the Canossa castle in northern Italy,
where the pope was seeking protection. Some say Henry wore a hair shirt, crossed the
Alps barefoot in the January winter and waited for three days in the snow before the
pope allowed him access into the building and forgave him. After this demonstration of
humility, both men remained in power and Henry later became the Holy Roman
Emperor.
Tim’s first step in his “walk to Canossa” was to set aside his ego and ask Dennis if they
could meet weekly to discuss issues one-on-one, before they met with their teams.
Dennis, however, refused this initial overture, telling Tim that he didn’t need to discuss
anything privately. Furthermore, he had no time to add additional meetings to his
calendar. This response confirmed Tim’s stance. In our next meeting, he said, “See what
I mean? He’s only out to help himself and doesn’t care about others.” I reminded Tim
that King Henry didn’t just wear the hair shirt — he also walked barefoot and stood for
three days in the snow outside the castle.
Tim swallowed his inclination to insist he was right and tried a different tack. He
respected Dennis’s technical skills, so the next time one of his projects ran into technical
challenges, Tim approached Dennis for help. He walked down to Dennis’s office and
asked him, “What do you think we should do here? I’d like your help in thinking through
this.” Tim made a specific request of Dennis that recognized one of Dennis’s strengths.
This time, Dennis did not refuse. He gave Tim useful advice that Tim then implemented.
The request became a first step in turning around their professional relationship.
Tim’s “walk to Canossa” is one example of how to move from conflict to collaboration.
Here are four steps to consider when asking a favor of a colleague:
 Be proactive. Make a resolution to walk to Canossa before you ask for help.
Identify where you need help and be willing to admit it.
 Be overt and clear about your motives. Explicitly state, “I’d like your help with
something.”
 Be honest. What do you genuinely appreciate about your colleague? How can
his or her strengths be helpful to your work? Target your requested favor to
align with that strength.
 Be brief. Ask for something that will take only a small amount of effort and
time. Don’t ask for solutions to a big existential crisis on your team. Instead
ask for something limited such as an opinion on an email draft to your
manager.
Last month I ran into Tim’s manager’s manager. He said that he had just approved a
strong performance review for Tim this year and that Tim was thriving in his
partnerships with his peers. Dennis and Tim were making decisions together without
escalating issues to him. Their current project was on schedule.
The next time you find yourself amassing evidence for your boss’ inbox about why your
peer is a dolt, step back and turn your irritation into an opportunity. Ask yourself what
your peer does well and then ask for his or her help. The walk to Canossa starts with
you: By deciding that you want to get along with your colleague, you take a step towards
Canossa and success. If you do this proactively, overtly, honestly and briefly, pretty soon
you can even dispense with the hair shirt.