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3x3 - Relating Better With Difficult Coworkers

Summary

This episode addresses the common workplace challenge of dealing with difficult coworkers, framing the issue as fundamentally about relationship dynamics rather than individual behavior. The host emphasizes that difficulty arises from the relationship between people, not from one person being inherently difficult, and offers three practical strategies for improving these challenging workplace relationships.

The first strategy is to “be on their side” by trying to understand their perspective rather than entrenching in your own position. This involves setting aside your own opinions and seeing things through their eyes, which is particularly valuable for developers who often engage in unproductive debates about technical opinions. By understanding their viewpoint, you may either change your own perspective or find ways to bridge the gap between differing opinions.

The second approach is to “think further into the future” by recognizing that many workplace conflicts focus on temporary problems. By expanding your time horizon and considering longer-term goals, interpersonal tensions often diffuse naturally as the immediate conflict loses significance in the broader context of shared objectives.

The third strategy involves “articulating your problem in terms of your own fears” - examining how the coworker’s behavior triggers personal anxieties about negative outcomes like having to clean up after them, working extra hours, or being treated unfairly. By identifying these underlying fears, you can address the root cause of your frustration rather than externalizing it as anger toward the coworker.

The episode concludes by emphasizing that workplace harmony comes from changing how you relate to others rather than trying to change them directly. While occasionally a relationship may prove irreparably difficult, most workplace conflicts can be improved through conscious relationship-building and perspective-shifting.

Topic Timeline

  • 00:00:00 — Introduction to difficult coworker relationships — The episode opens by acknowledging that everyone deals with difficult coworkers at some point, with varying levels and reasons for difficulty. The host introduces the topic as focusing on three strategies for improving these challenging workplace relationships, emphasizing that each situation and person is unique.
  • 00:01:46 — Strategy 1: Be on their side — The first strategy involves trying to understand the difficult coworker’s perspective rather than retreating to your own position. This means setting aside your own opinions and seeing things through their eyes, which can help bridge gaps in technical opinions or approaches. By understanding their viewpoint, you may change your own perspective or find ways to explain how to bridge differences.
  • 00:04:07 — Strategy 2: Think further into the future — The second strategy recommends expanding your time horizon when dealing with workplace conflicts. Many interpersonal struggles focus on temporary problems like specific projects or features, and by considering longer-term goals, these conflicts often naturally diffuse. Stretching your focus further into the future helps put immediate disagreements into broader perspective.
  • 00:04:49 — Strategy 3: Articulate problems in terms of fears — The third strategy involves examining how coworker behaviors trigger personal fears about negative outcomes. For example, frustration with a “lazy” coworker might stem from fears about having to clean up after them, working extra hours, or being treated unfairly. By identifying these underlying fears, you can address the root cause of your frustration rather than externalizing it as anger.
  • 00:06:34 — Conclusion: Focus on relationship building — The episode concludes by emphasizing that improving workplace relationships is about changing how you see and respond to others rather than trying to fix them. While occasionally a relationship may not be worth the effort, most workplace conflicts can be improved through conscious relationship-building and perspective-shifting, which ultimately helps build stronger teams.

Episode Info

  • Podcast: Developer Tea
  • Author: Jonathan Cutrell
  • Category: Technology Business Careers Society & Culture
  • Published: 2019-07-31T09:00:00Z
  • Duration: 00:07:54

References

Podcast Info

Transcript

[00:00:00] whether we’d like to admit it or not we’ve all dealt with a difficult co-worker and the level

[00:00:12] of difficulty and the reason for the difficulty is really highly varied every single situation

[00:00:18] is different and every person is different in today’s three by three episode we’re talking

[00:00:24] about three strategies for dealing with difficult co-worker relationships my name is jonathan

[00:00:30] cattrell and you’re listening to developer t my goal on this show is to help driven developers

[00:00:33] like you find clarity perspective and purpose in your careers and we’ve all had this kind of

[00:00:40] problem and if you haven’t had it then you’re probably an anomaly or maybe you will have it

[00:00:45] in the future so you can refer back to this episode when it does happen but the reality is

[00:00:51] that there’s not any one silver bullet way to deal with the difficulty of difficulty

[00:00:54] with difficult co-workers now to lay the foundation for some of the kind of theory

[00:00:59] that we’re going to talk about in today’s episode we have to affirm the idea that the level of

[00:01:05] difficulty that you have with a given person is fundamentally a part of your relationship to them

[00:01:13] in other words someone is not just out on their own being difficult the difficulty is a difficulty

[00:01:23] of relationship

[00:01:24] now that’s not to say that you are the only one that has trouble with this particular person

[00:01:31] they may have particular ways of behaving that are not tenable for a lot of people or it may be

[00:01:39] that it just rubs you the wrong way in either case there are strategies that you can use

[00:01:46] to relate better to this person and the first strategy is to simply be on their side

[00:01:54] what does this mean practically whenever that person is doing something that you don’t totally

[00:01:59] understand instead of entrenching yourself in what you already believe in what you already feel

[00:02:05] in your frustration in that feeling of annoyance that you might have towards that person

[00:02:10] instead of retreating back to that place where you normally go try to get on their side of the

[00:02:18] fence try to see things their way this is a particularly good technique for

[00:02:24] developers because a lot of the time the difficulties that we have come down to

[00:02:29] technical opinion we end up bike shedding for hours often unproductively but if we can set

[00:02:37] aside our own opinion if we can lay that down and see things through someone else’s eyes then we

[00:02:45] often understand that most of our opinions about software development are at least partially

[00:02:52] arbitrary

[00:02:54] it may not be that they are actually arbitrary to you but when it comes down to the goal that

[00:03:01] you have the common kind of objective that is shared between you and the person that is

[00:03:06] difficult both your way and their way may work well and if you can see things through their

[00:03:13] perspective one of two things is likely to happen either one you’re going to change your own

[00:03:20] perspective because you see things in a new way through their perspective or you’re going to change

[00:03:24] their perspective or the second thing that might happen is because you understand their position

[00:03:30] better you may be able to explain how to bridge the gap between your opinion and their opinion

[00:03:37] the fundamental idea here is instead of retreating and trying to pull somebody to your side it’s

[00:03:45] important that you take steps towards them you can visualize how an argument is going to play out

[00:03:52] if you can imagine someone leaning

[00:03:54] in towards the other person to hear the nuances of what they’re saying rather than leaning back

[00:04:00] so that they can yell louder the second strategy for relating better to a difficult co-worker

[00:04:07] is to think further into the future most of the time the struggles that we have between one worker

[00:04:15] and another those struggles are temporary they’re focused on temporary problems like for example this

[00:04:24] problem is a problem that we have and we have to deal with it and we have to deal with it and we

[00:04:24] project or this particular feature or this particular client and often if we can stretch

[00:04:30] what we’re focusing on if we can stretch that target out a little bit further into the future

[00:04:36] then a lot of that interpersonal conflict will diffuse very quickly the third and final strategy

[00:04:43] that i recommend in dealing better with a difficult co-worker is to try and articulate

[00:04:49] your problem in terms of your own fears

[00:04:53] most of the issues that we have with other people stem from fears that we have about how that

[00:05:03] conflict is going to affect us let’s say for example that in your opinion one of your co-workers

[00:05:10] on your team is lazy well your outrage at them being lazy is not some kind of problem that you

[00:05:18] have with laziness in general most likely it’s based on the fear that that person’s laziness

[00:05:24] is going to cause a negative outcome for you maybe you’re going to have to clean up after them or

[00:05:31] maybe you’re going to have to work extra to make sure the project comes in on time or maybe you

[00:05:36] are worried that this person is going to take advantage of their position and that they’re not

[00:05:42] going to be held accountable for their laziness and this means a bad outcome for you

[00:05:47] you

[00:05:48] because it likely creates a dysfunctional team or perhaps you have a fear that you will be treated

[00:05:54] unfairly the feeling that you are pulling your weight but the other person isn’t now the reason

[00:06:02] this is so important is because if you can articulate things in terms of your fears then

[00:06:07] you can start to address the underlying problem at its source rather than trying to externalize

[00:06:13] that fear and turn it into kind of an activated

[00:06:17] target

[00:06:17] targeting mechanism you can start to kind of work on your internal perspective your internal

[00:06:24] relationship with this person and address those fears these three techniques are all about

[00:06:34] realizing that you have a relationship with this person that this isn’t about fixing the team it’s

[00:06:42] not about fixing that person it’s more about fixing how you see

[00:06:47] that person how you respond to their actions in the workplace you’re unlikely to change people in

[00:06:54] your career you’re going to be much better off if you can focus more on changing the way you

[00:07:01] relate with them and very rarely you may run into a situation where the difficulty is simply not

[00:07:09] worth it but most of the time the relationship work is going to get you to the place where you

[00:07:15] need to be and really this is how you build your relationship with this person you’re going to be

[00:07:17] building your relationship with this person and really this is how you build your relationship with this person you’re going to be

[00:07:17] incredible teams to begin with thank you so much for listening to today’s episode if you enjoyed this episode then I encourage you to subscribe to developer team whatever podcasting app you are already using today’s episode wouldn’t be possible without spec.

[00:07:32] FM there are other awesome podcasts that are built specifically for designers and developers like you who are looking to level up in your careers go and check it out spec.

[00:07:41] FM today’s episode was produced by Sarah Jackson my name is Jonathan Cottrell and until next time enjoy your.

[00:07:47] I’m Jonathan Cottrell and I’ll see you in the next episode of developer team.

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