July 8, 2024 • 9 mins
There are a number of reasons why we might not gel with a co-worker - some personal, some not. But luckily, being chummy isn't a requirement for great work, and there are tactical approaches to working in spite of interpersonal challenges. In this Upshots episode, product and marketing leader Natalie Kubitz shares her insights on identifying signs of difficult interactions to a framework that helps you identify common goals and foster effective collaboration without the need for personal rapport.
"It's inevitable that you're going to cross paths with a coworker where you just don't gel but results are still expected. Getting these skills is sort of a gift to yourself." - Natalie Kubitz
Free PDF guide @ https://bit.ly/upshotskubitz
You can connect with Natalie on LinkedIn.
Follow Unserious in your podcast app, at unserious.com, and on Instagram and Threads at @unserious.fun.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
This is Unserious you can start using right away.
Our guest today is NatalieKubitz, who's most recently the
Director of Product Marketingacross Integrity at Meta.
Welcome, Natalie.
What are we getting into today?
Speaker 1 (00:30):
We're going to be talking about working with
people you don't get along with.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Well, everybody I'm sure gets along with both of us,
but this is a favorite topic ofmine.
I think we can all rub eachother the wrong way for one
reason or another, but Iactually feel like I've done my
best work with people that Ididn't necessarily like or they
didn't necessarily like me, butwhen it came to work, we can
still do great work together,right?
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Absolutely.
There are many reasons peoplemight not get along at work and
they're not all deeply personal.
This is really for anyone who'shad partners where, for whatever
the reason, the work style,personalities, just the way that
they show up to work, don'tmesh well, sure, and that gap I
have seen, and I'm sure you'veexperienced too, can become a
(01:10):
real impediment to either one ofthem or both accomplishing
their work.
There are sort of like symptomsthat let you know when you might
be facing this, because noteverybody has high EQ either.
Sure, I can read the room, butis a partner excluding you from
meetings that you need to be into get the information to be
able to contribute your part, ordo they seem to undervalue your
(01:34):
work or contribution to theproject and belittle it or leave
it aside?
Another symptom is when there'sa case where, even though you
seem to have agreed on whatneeds to happen, there's no
action coming from the otherperson.
Maybe they're not prioritizingmy work or my project because
they're giving their attentionand their time to people that
(01:55):
they like more, who justnaturally they gel with.
So we really need to be able totake emotion out of this and
start to understand when thosesymptoms are actually signs that
there's something interpersonalthat's broken.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah, it's when the brain starts going to
storytelling mode, filling inall the gaps with the worst case
scenario.
Exactly so.
I think a common approach inthat area is where people just
sort of work around each other.
Why don't we have an approachversus just put the foot on the
gas and keep going past them orthrough them?
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Yeah, some of that probably may rely on the culture
that you're in, but I've beenin jobs where collaboration is
required for success, andactually you would be doing
yourself a disservice to kind ofmake yourself an island.
And it's inevitable in yourcareer that you're going to
cross paths with a coworker thatwhere you just don't gel or
like maybe vocally out louddislike each other, but results
(02:51):
are still expected of you, andso this is really like getting
these skills as sort of a giftto yourself, about how you can
come with non-emotionalapproaches that will help drive
alignment and remove thebarriers to working together so
that you can still do a good job.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Gift to yourself.
I love that.
Well, let's unpack it.
How does this work?
Speaker 1 (03:13):
So the thing that I like to think about is you don't
have to be friends, but youshould understand how a person,
what makes them tick, reallyestablishing why they're doing
what they do.
What are they hoping to achieve?
What does good look like tothem?
Some people have a differentexpectation, and so sometimes
(03:34):
there are frustrations justbecause they think maybe you're
not good at your job or you'rephoning it in, or vice versa.
You know you're taking over toomuch space, like you're trying
to get the baseline so that youmight understand some of the
like hot buttons they may haveor the preconceived notions that
they might be bringing to thetable.
Practically what you need to do, then, is identify what we call
(03:55):
missing conversations.
What assumptions are you making?
Where are the two of youtalking past each other?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
So missing conversations being like
conversations that you shouldhave had or could have.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Yeah, or like there was an example a long time ago
where somebody somebody actuallyI did get along with, but
they're a tough cookie and I hadto go to my manager and I said
what am I missing?
And she's like look like,here's this email thread.
It's clear he expects you to dothis thing.
It wasn't a we thing, he meantit to be a you thing.
And I was like oh, but I'm notdoing that.
(04:28):
She's like there's your missingconversation.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
All right, what comes next?
Speaker 1 (04:33):
So I was introduced to and have deeply adopted the
CARE framework.
So C-A-R-E the CARE is what isit based in?
Work you're both trying toaccomplish.
This has nothing to do with youas people.
This is just, objectively, whatdo you both care about?
A, so align very specificallyon what each of you will
contribute to make that area ofjoint care come to life.
(04:56):
Okay, you're going to do thisarea of joint care come to life.
Okay, you're going to do this,I'm going to do this.
And then R.
What results would you bothexpect to see if you go both go
off and do your best, work right, and those things come back
together and then E evaluatethat outcome?
So, if you're not aligned withthe results that you talked
about, reconsider.
Is there another missingconversation?
Yeah, so as you're goingthrough this process, it's
(05:20):
important to stay aware of whatyou were trying to solve here,
which is to get a productiveworking relationship going.
So take notes as you go,consider the progress you're
making, because this is a bit ofa cycle, right, this isn't
going to fix everything.
This is just a unemotionalframework for getting alignment
on how you're going to worktogether and what each of you is
(05:40):
going to deliver.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
I really like this.
There's a lot of advice in thisarea seems to be more about
like how do we become friends?
How do you get to know eachother better?
How do you?
Do you have to realize thatthat person's actually a decent
human being under there beforeyou can go further?
And I think a lot of that is abit of a fool's errand.
It might not work or it couldtake really long to do Like,
maybe in the process of doinggreat work together you could
(06:07):
become best friends.
But it's not crucial to befriends to do great work right.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Absolutely, and I very much agree with you it can.
It's actually one of thepitfalls that I think of, which
is trying too hard to makesomething work when there's just
not a magic there.
Right, there's no thing, and soyou can't fake friendship or
false connections, like peopleget.
That, and it's justdisingenuous.
I actually think it canundermine the sincerity of your
(06:34):
professional efforts and harmthe opportunity you have to do
high impact work, because thenit's just adding another layer
of like emotion and frustrationto that.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
I see Any other pitfalls we should watch out for
.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Don't mistake every missing spark of connections as
we don't get along.
Sometimes there are otherdrivers, maybe that's how they
act with everybody.
They're, like you know, allprofessional all the time or
maybe part of the missingconversation is actually I agree
that this would be in myresponsibility, but it's not a
priority, right?
So the missing conversation isthat you don't see the
(07:08):
priorities and that can actuallybuild up tension, but it has
nothing to do with you as aperson.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Yeah, I could see how differences in neurodiversity
could also play into that.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Yeah, that is a great point.
And just also in general, somepeople find the social aspect of
work to be a tax.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Yeah, good point.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
They don't want to go for drinks or for dinner, they
want to go to work and they wantto go home and like no offense.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Yeah, and is there a masterclass version of this?
What's the 201?
Speaker 1 (07:38):
The 201 is probably about you being more vulnerable
when you're facing thesesituations.
You know, when you're trying toevaluate the missing
conversation maybe a little tooclose to it, ask a trusted
coworker or a manager or mentorwhoever to help you identify
that missing conversation, orwho you think the struggle is,
so that they can help you seewhere you might be talking past
(08:00):
each other.
Because, honestly, when there'sall of that wrapped up and our
professional success is ridingon this relationship, we can't
always be fully objective aboutthe role we may be playing as
well.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Great ideas.
Thank you so much for thisNatalie.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah, this is great.
I appreciate this conversation.
And again, one thing I tell allthe people we all face this,
but it's not always you, it'snot always personal.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
You can connect with Natalie on LinkedIn and in the
show notes we'll have the linkto the PDF cheat sheet that
accompanies every Upshotsepisode.
It just scrolled onto the bigyellow button at the bottom of
the episode page.
This podcast is brought to youby Unserious Group.
We are a communications andstrategic consulting practice
that helps companies and leadersnavigate the rapidly changing
workplace by lowering the stakesand working more efficiently,
(08:46):
playfully and creatively, andwe're open for business.
So check out unseriouscom andlet's be work friends.
But we don't have to be friends.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Sorry, but like no pressure.
Yeah, sorry, I should havemuted myself At Unserious.
We make work play.
This is Unserious you can start using right away.
Our guest today is NatalieKubitz, who's most recently the
Director of Product Marketingacross Integrity at Meta.
Welcome, Natalie.
What are we getting into today?
Speaker 1 (00:30):
We're going to be talking about working with
people you don't get along with.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Well, everybody I'm sure gets along with both of us,
but this is a favorite topic ofmine.
I think we can all rub eachother the wrong way for one
reason or another, but Iactually feel like I've done my
best work with people that Ididn't necessarily like or they
didn't necessarily like me, butwhen it came to work, we can
still do great work together,right?
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Absolutely.
There are many reasons peoplemight not get along at work and
they're not all deeply personal.
This is really for anyone who'shad partners where, for whatever
the reason, the work style,personalities, just the way that
they show up to work, don'tmesh well, sure, and that gap I
have seen, and I'm sure you'veexperienced too, can become a
(01:10):
real impediment to either one ofthem or both accomplishing
their work.
There are sort of like symptomsthat let you know when you might
be facing this, because noteverybody has high EQ either.
Sure, I can read the room, butis a partner excluding you from
meetings that you need to be into get the information to be
able to contribute your part, ordo they seem to undervalue your
(01:34):
work or contribution to theproject and belittle it or leave
it aside?
Another symptom is when there'sa case where, even though you
seem to have agreed on whatneeds to happen, there's no
action coming from the otherperson.
Maybe they're not prioritizingmy work or my project because
they're giving their attentionand their time to people that
(01:55):
they like more, who justnaturally they gel with.
So we really need to be able totake emotion out of this and
start to understand when thosesymptoms are actually signs that
there's something interpersonalthat's broken.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah, it's when the brain starts going to
storytelling mode, filling inall the gaps with the worst case
scenario.
Exactly so.
I think a common approach inthat area is where people just
sort of work around each other.
Why don't we have an approachversus just put the foot on the
gas and keep going past them orthrough them?
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Yeah, some of that probably may rely on the culture
that you're in, but I've beenin jobs where collaboration is
required for success, andactually you would be doing
yourself a disservice to kind ofmake yourself an island.
And it's inevitable in yourcareer that you're going to
cross paths with a coworker thatwhere you just don't gel or
like maybe vocally out louddislike each other, but results
(02:51):
are still expected of you, andso this is really like getting
these skills as sort of a giftto yourself, about how you can
come with non-emotionalapproaches that will help drive
alignment and remove thebarriers to working together so
that you can still do a good job.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Gift to yourself.
I love that.
Well, let's unpack it.
How does this work?
Speaker 1 (03:13):
So the thing that I like to think about is you don't
have to be friends, but youshould understand how a person,
what makes them tick, reallyestablishing why they're doing
what they do.
What are they hoping to achieve?
What does good look like tothem?
Some people have a differentexpectation, and so sometimes
(03:34):
there are frustrations justbecause they think maybe you're
not good at your job or you'rephoning it in, or vice versa.
You know you're taking over toomuch space, like you're trying
to get the baseline so that youmight understand some of the
like hot buttons they may haveor the preconceived notions that
they might be bringing to thetable.
Practically what you need to do, then, is identify what we call
(03:55):
missing conversations.
What assumptions are you making?
Where are the two of youtalking past each other?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
So missing conversations being like
conversations that you shouldhave had or could have.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Yeah, or like there was an example a long time ago
where somebody somebody actuallyI did get along with, but
they're a tough cookie and I hadto go to my manager and I said
what am I missing?
And she's like look like,here's this email thread.
It's clear he expects you to dothis thing.
It wasn't a we thing, he meantit to be a you thing.
And I was like oh, but I'm notdoing that.
(04:28):
She's like there's your missingconversation.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
All right, what comes next?
Speaker 1 (04:33):
So I was introduced to and have deeply adopted the
CARE framework.
So C-A-R-E the CARE is what isit based in?
Work you're both trying toaccomplish.
This has nothing to do with youas people.
This is just, objectively, whatdo you both care about?
A, so align very specificallyon what each of you will
contribute to make that area ofjoint care come to life.
(04:56):
Okay, you're going to do thisarea of joint care come to life.
Okay, you're going to do this,I'm going to do this.
And then R.
What results would you bothexpect to see if you go both go
off and do your best, work right, and those things come back
together and then E evaluatethat outcome?
So, if you're not aligned withthe results that you talked
about, reconsider.
Is there another missingconversation?
Yeah, so as you're goingthrough this process, it's
(05:20):
important to stay aware of whatyou were trying to solve here,
which is to get a productiveworking relationship going.
So take notes as you go,consider the progress you're
making, because this is a bit ofa cycle, right, this isn't
going to fix everything.
This is just a unemotionalframework for getting alignment
on how you're going to worktogether and what each of you is
(05:40):
going to deliver.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
I really like this.
There's a lot of advice in thisarea seems to be more about
like how do we become friends?
How do you get to know eachother better?
How do you?
Do you have to realize thatthat person's actually a decent
human being under there beforeyou can go further?
And I think a lot of that is abit of a fool's errand.
It might not work or it couldtake really long to do Like,
maybe in the process of doinggreat work together you could
(06:07):
become best friends.
But it's not crucial to befriends to do great work right.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Absolutely, and I very much agree with you it can.
It's actually one of thepitfalls that I think of, which
is trying too hard to makesomething work when there's just
not a magic there.
Right, there's no thing, and soyou can't fake friendship or
false connections, like peopleget.
That, and it's justdisingenuous.
I actually think it canundermine the sincerity of your
(06:34):
professional efforts and harmthe opportunity you have to do
high impact work, because thenit's just adding another layer
of like emotion and frustrationto that.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
I see Any other pitfalls we should watch out for
.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Don't mistake every missing spark of connections as
we don't get along.
Sometimes there are otherdrivers, maybe that's how they
act with everybody.
They're, like you know, allprofessional all the time or
maybe part of the missingconversation is actually I agree
that this would be in myresponsibility, but it's not a
priority, right?
So the missing conversation isthat you don't see the
(07:08):
priorities and that can actuallybuild up tension, but it has
nothing to do with you as aperson.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Yeah, I could see how differences in neurodiversity
could also play into that.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Yeah, that is a great point.
And just also in general, somepeople find the social aspect of
work to be a tax.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Yeah, good point.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
They don't want to go for drinks or for dinner, they
want to go to work and they wantto go home and like no offense.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Yeah, and is there a masterclass version of this?
What's the 201?
Speaker 1 (07:38):
The 201 is probably about you being more vulnerable
when you're facing thesesituations.
You know, when you're trying toevaluate the missing
conversation maybe a little tooclose to it, ask a trusted
coworker or a manager or mentorwhoever to help you identify
that missing conversation, orwho you think the struggle is,
so that they can help you seewhere you might be talking past
(08:00):
each other.
Because, honestly, when there'sall of that wrapped up and our
professional success is ridingon this relationship, we can't
always be fully objective aboutthe role we may be playing as
well.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Great ideas.
Thank you so much for thisNatalie.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah, this is great.
I appreciate this conversation.
And again, one thing I tell allthe people we all face this,
but it's not always you, it'snot always personal.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
You can connect with Natalie on LinkedIn and in the
show notes we'll have the linkto the PDF cheat sheet that
accompanies every Upshotsepisode.
It just scrolled onto the bigyellow button at the bottom of
the episode page.
This podcast is brought to youby Unserious Group.
We are a communications andstrategic consulting practice
that helps companies and leadersnavigate the rapidly changing
workplace by lowering the stakesand working more efficiently,
(08:46):
playfully and creatively, andwe're open for business.
So check out unseriouscom andlet's be work friends.
But we don't have to be friends.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Sorry, but like no pressure.
Yeah, sorry, I should havemuted myself At Unserious.
We make work play.
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