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Career advice

Working with others

For when the work itself would be fine, if the people part of it were a little easier.

What to understand about working with others

Most of what goes wrong between colleagues has little to do with character. It tends to be two people under different pressures, each guessing what the other needs, and guessing from their own habits. The person who is slow to reply may be answering to several people ahead of you. The one who rewrites your work may have been burned by a late surprise. Nobody hands out a manual for each other, so you build a story from scraps, and the story usually runs harsher than the truth.

The room to move is mostly in asking, earlier and more plainly than feels natural. What does a good result look like for you? What are you being judged on? How do you like to hear bad news? People tend to answer generously, partly because so few colleagues ever ask. It runs the other way too. Saying how you work and what you need can feel self-important, but it mostly spares people the guessing you've been doing about them.

The hard part is that someone has to go first, and it doesn't work every time. Some colleagues stay guarded. Some relationships stay cordial and thin, and that is often enough to do good work together. You can't do this with everyone either, so it goes to the few people your work leans on. And now and then it isn't a misunderstanding at all. If someone is treating you badly, more curiosity is not what's missing, and it's fair to ask for help.

What people often get wrong about getting along at work

  • You might think“Some people are just difficult to work with, and that's who they are.”
    More oftenA few are. More often the same person is easy for somebody else to work with, which points at the setup between the two of you: what each of you is being asked for, and what neither of you has said out loud. That is a good deal easier to change than a personality.One thing to try: Get curious before you get annoyed →
  • You might think“If my work is good, the relationships will take care of themselves.”
    More oftenGood work earns respect, but people tend to help, forgive and speak up for the colleagues they know a little. Small, ordinary attention over time often decides who gets the benefit of the doubt on a bad day.One thing to try: Map who matters to your work →
  • You might think“Being a good teammate means saying yes.”
    More oftenPeople plan around what you tell them. A yes you can't keep tends to cost them more than a no that comes with a reason, and the colleagues others rely on are usually the ones whose yes means something.One thing to try: Say no without burning the relationship →

Things to do when you're new to a team

“I don't know who anyone is yet, or how things really get done here.”

The first weeks are when questions are expected and nobody minds being asked. These use that window to learn the people and the habits before you form opinions about either.

Things to do when you and a colleague keep missing each other

“We're both trying, and it still comes out wrong.”

No one is in the wrong here. You work differently, and neither of you has said how. Each of these puts one of those differences on the table, where it's easier to laugh about.

Dealing with something else at work?

Things to do when someone is getting under your skin

“I've started to dread seeing their name in my inbox.”

These go from lightest to heaviest. The early ones happen mostly in your own head and may settle it. The later ones are for when the same thing keeps happening and a hint hasn't landed.

  1. Step 1: Get curious before you get annoyedOne question can turn a careless colleague into an overloaded one5 minutes
  2. Step 2: Check the story you're telling yourselfMost of the sting is in the part nobody actually said10 minutes
  3. Step 3: Summarize their view before you share yoursEarn a fair hearing by giving one first10 minutes
  4. Step 4: Name a pattern directlyWhen hints haven't worked, say the thing, kindly15 minutes
  5. Step 5: Have the conversation you've been avoidingHalf an hour of honest writing makes the first sentence easy30 minutes

Things to do after a moment that went badly

“That did not go well, and I keep replaying it.”

A bad meeting or a dropped ball is usually recoverable if you come back to it soon. These are short on purpose: cool off first, then say something small and true.

Things to do when you need something from people who don't report to you

“I can't finish this without them, and I can't make them do it.”

With no authority to lean on, the ask itself has to do the work. These make a request quick to answer, safe to decline, and tied to something the other side cares about too.

What working well with colleagues depends on

  • Remote or in person

    In an office, small repairs happen for free in a hallway or over lunch. Remotely, tone has to survive in text, and the casual chat that builds trust has to be put on a calendar by someone.

  • Company size

    In a small company you work with the same few people on everything, so one sour relationship colors the whole job. In a large one you depend on teams you've never met, each with goals of its own.

  • How people are rewarded

    Where colleagues are ranked against each other, helping has a cost and people know it. Where a team shares a goal, generosity comes far more easily.

  • Where people come from

    Directness, silence, interrupting and open disagreement mean different things in different countries, industries and families. What reads as rude to one person can be plain respect to another.

  • How long you've been there

    New, you can ask anything and are forgiven a lot. Years in, you carry history with people, both the goodwill and the old grudges, and a reputation that walks in ahead of you.

How working with others changes through your career

  1. Starting out

    You mostly need things from other people: answers, context, a second look. The useful skills are being easy to help and doing what you said you'd do, which is how trust gets started before you have a track record.

  2. A few years in

    Your work begins to depend on people outside your own team, and the first real disagreements with peers arrive. This is often when people learn to disagree with someone and still eat lunch with them.

  3. Senior

    More of what you deliver comes through other people. Colleagues may start deferring to you, which means you hear less, and an offhand remark from you can land heavier than you meant it to.

  4. Later on

    You've known some colleagues for a long time, which is a real asset and also a risk: it's easy to keep working from an old picture of someone. Much of the satisfaction tends to shift toward making other people's good work possible and seen.

Teamwork terms worth knowing

Stakeholder
Anyone who is affected by your work or has a say in it, whether or not they do any of it.
Cross-functional
Involving people from different departments, who usually answer to different managers and are judged on different things.
Alignment
People agreeing on what they're trying to do and who is doing which part. "Getting aligned" usually means having the conversation that should have happened earlier.
Psychological safety
Whether people on a team feel able to ask a question, admit a mistake or disagree without being made to pay for it.
Glue work
The unglamorous work that holds a team together, like onboarding people, chasing loose ends and smoothing things over. It's often valuable and often goes unseen.
Escalate
To take a question or disagreement to someone more senior because the people involved can't settle it themselves.
Retro
Short for retrospective. A meeting where a team looks back at a stretch of work and decides what to do differently.

When you have more time

Questions people ask about working with coworkers

What can I do when a colleague takes credit for my work?

It's often less deliberate than it feels, since summaries tend to shrink and names fall out. The gentlest fix is to make the record visible in ordinary ways: write down who did what as you go, and be the person who names contributors out loud. If it keeps happening with one person, it's reasonable to tell them plainly what you noticed.

Name everyone behind a shared win →

Do I need to be friends with the people I work with?

No. Friendly and dependable is enough for most work, and plenty of people prefer to keep the two apart. What tends to help is knowing a little about the person behind the role, which takes far less than friendship.

Together →

When should I take a problem with a colleague to my manager?

Usually after you've tried once with the person directly, so your manager isn't hearing it before they have. Bring what you saw and what you've tried, and ask how they'd handle it. The exception is anything that feels unsafe, discriminatory or cruel. That can go straight to your manager or to HR without a first attempt.

I now manage people who used to be my peers. How do I handle that?

It's awkward on both sides, and saying so early tends to help more than acting as if nothing changed. Ask each person what they'd like from you now, and expect a few friendships to shift shape for a while.

The Making of a Manager →

How do I work with someone who barely speaks in meetings?

Quiet in a meeting often means someone thinks before they talk, not that they have nothing to say. Sending the question ahead, or asking them afterward, tends to bring out a more considered answer than putting them on the spot.

Run a meeting everyone can speak in →

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