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4. Be aware of your biases.
When it comes to interacting with colleagues who push your buttons or who you find challenging, none of us are perfect, and I have certainly made tons of mistakes. Based on my own experience as well as on the research around relationships at work, I’ve developed nine principles that serve as a touch point, or really the foundation, for healthy interactions with coworkers. Another principle to keep in mind is that we need to be aware of our biases in these interactions. Even what we define as difficult, difficult behavior or difficult people, are going to be influenced by our prejudices.
An important concept here is this notion of affinity bias, which is the idea that we’re going to be more likely to want to work with people who look, think, and act like us. And when people don’t do that, we are going to be more likely to label them as difficult. Another bias that shows up here is confirmation bias. So the minute I think that my colleague Rachel is passive-aggressive, I’m going to have that passive aggressive lens on and interpret everything she does with that notion or with that prejudice.
One way to challenge yourself to make sure that you’re aware of the biases that you might be bringing is to get familiar with what biases you naturally hold. So if I see my colleague as being difficult or playing politics or being a know-it-all, I have to ask myself, “If this person were a different identity, a different race, a different gender, would I see that behavior in the same way?” And that will help you really test whether you’re assigning negative behaviors or negative notions to the way someone’s acting because of their identity as opposed to because of the behavior.
5. Avoid gossip, mostly.
One of the more interesting principles is to avoid gossip, mostly. Now, the research on gossip at work is fascinating, there’s a lot about the positive benefits. It allows us to connect with others, it allows us to gather information. However, we also know all of the downsides of gossip, which is that it can be harmful to our coworkers. It can reinforce our interpretation of events or a situation even if we’re not correct. And perhaps most importantly, we know from research that gossiping reflects most negatively on the person doing the gossiping.
So I really strongly believe we need to stay away from gossip. It may feel good to know that your colleagues also think Michael in finance is a know-it-all, but by communicating that, you’re going to only reinforce that interpretation, and you’re going to cement your dynamic with Michael rather than allowing it room to change. So instead of gossiping with your other colleagues in a negative way, try to find a way to be more productive about it. “So here’s my interpretation of what happened with Michael in that meeting, how did you see it?” And if they agree with your interpretation, use that to inform how you’re going to do something differently. Don’t use it to just decide, “Well, Michael’s helpless.”
6. Don’t make it “you against them.”
Another useful principle is to not make it about you versus them. It’s easy to conceive of the conflict you’re having with your coworker as having two entities, there’s you and there’s the other person. But I like to think of it as having three entities, there’s you, there’s the other person, and there’s the problem that you’re trying to solve. And if you can see yourselves on the same side of the table working on that problem together, you’re going to have a much better chance of a collaborative, open, and successful interaction.