Working with Someone Who Doesn’t Like You

You have a troublesome peer and their behaviour is causing you a headache.  This colleague of yours is talented. They have some leadership skills when they put their mind to it.  They possess some drive and, when they are engaged, some determination too.  They could use their natural strengths and their resolve to become an able and valued colleague, someone who consistently contributes to the evolving agenda of the organisation you both work for, someone who shoulders responsibility and gets things done. And sometimes they do behave like that.  But, the problem is that, in the main, they don’t.

Your peer is high maintenance.  They’re hard to connect with. You expend energy trying to work out how to establish a connection with them. They are changeable – sometimes warm, sometimes treating you as if the two of you have not met before.  They waste time in meetings taking the discussion along paths that are simply not productive. They say one thing, but then do another.  They seem to operate out of an agenda all of their own.  Sometimes they voluntarily offer to input to projects.  But, when it comes down to it, they don’t do the work and, if they do, their input is about their own political agenda not the best interests of your joint employer.  And when they are called on their failure to deliver they become nonchalant and flip, appearing unconcerned that they have let you and others down.

You have previously confronted your team member about their unhelpful behaviour and each time you did so you hit a brick wall.    So, what can you do? Actually, quite a lot.  Click here to keep reading and find out how.