Q+A: How to handle a toxic colleague

Picture this: you've got a colleague who's talking about you behind your back. Maybe they've stolen a client from you, or going out of their way to make your job difficult. Do you confront them? Complain to the boss? Report them to HR? Quit?

Michael Thompson talks to Fear & Greed's Adam Lang - who is also a CEO and executive coach - about the best way to resolve workplace conflict.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to Fear and Greed Q and A where we
ask and answer questions about business, investing, economics, politics and more.
I'm Michael Thompson and good morning Adam Lang.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Good morning Michael. Adam.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
You have had a long career in the media, and
I shouldn't emphasize long. Yeah, but you've had a lot
of experience in media and music as well. But you
are also a CEO and executive coach. You do a
lot of work with performance by design, working with individuals
and teams on culture and performance. So please for today
put on that hat channel it yes, channel that a

(00:36):
hypothetical scenario of what to do if you have a
toxic colleague. Okay, so this is a very broad thing.
It can happen in any industry, in any workplace. But
a hypothetical scenario, say you've got to you get on
well in your workplace might be part of a larger company.
You might be a salesperson, for instance, but you understand

(00:58):
that one of your colleagues maybe taking credit for your work,
maybe throwing you under the bus a little bit, talking
about you behind your back, spreading rumors, perhaps to make
sure he gets the lion's share of new clients coming
through the door. How do you deal with this individual?
Do you confront him, do you make an anonymous report

(01:18):
to HR, do you complain to the boss, or do
you just go nuclear and quit.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Or do you just have a chat. So let's it,
confronting can be very very difficult, right, because it goes
to matters of trust and do you feel comfortable and
depending on how long you've been with a company and
how senior you are in years and experience competence, it
really matters to how you feel. But obviously, let's say

(01:46):
you perceive something is going wrong, don't sort of leap
to well, then it definitely is like there is a
possibility you may not be correct, You may not be
seeing everything for what it is, have all of the information.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Saying, we might go off half cock sometimes at it.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
It's possible because you know, things can feel a certain
way doesn't mean they are a certain way. You know
that old expression of believe none of what you read
and hear in half of what you see. So did
you see it? You know? What do you actually know happened?
And try and speak to the person about that. And
one of the probably I guess suggestive ways of doing

(02:26):
that is, don't make it about the person being a
good or a bad person, or you thinking they've done
bad or done well. More about what was it the
behavior that you saw and why did it happen, and
see if you can talk to them on the basis
of the behavior and not person versus person.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Okay, so you approach them, ask for a conversation, and
really this is largely information gathering. It is to establish
the facts of what's actually happened. And if it is
the case that this is what you have suspected is true,
do you just use that same opportunity to call them

(03:05):
out on it.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yes, and I think that's the key here. But not
everyone feels well trained or drilled or experienced enough to
do that, So you might need to do it in steps,
and sometimes you could call upon your boss for advice
as to how to do that. But the sooner you
can do it, and the more minor the thing to question,
the better. Like the sooner you can calibrate your relationship

(03:29):
to fix the small stuff, the less it's likely to
become the big stuff. But let's just say you've got
hang on, this person took a client that was mine.
You know, that's pretty serious stuff and you probably need
to act on that. And the first thing is ideally
is to approach that person again, focus on the behavior.
You know, why is it that this has happened, what's

(03:51):
gone wrong or right? And talking to them about what
you think has gone wrong and whether or not it's
that that's resolvable between the two of you. And you know,
it's a difficult terrain, particularly where it involves hey, this
is my job, this is me attempting to do it. Well,
it looks like you're stopping me from doing that.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yeah, it becomes quite a personal thing.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
Then, and I suppose it solutely go that way.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
Trying to remove the personal element of it and just
make it about the business.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, and if you're not comfortable having that conversation, it
can often be useful to talk to your boss about
this is what you think has happened, how do you
approach it, and maybe they want to be in the
room at the time, you know, to help supervise it
with the right level of seniority and experience around it
to make sure it's a good conversation not a damaging one, because.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
It's a bit of a misconception. Then around the purpose
essentially of the HR department. Isn't it that it's not
so much a thing of filing a complaint with them
and just letting them handle it. This is a job
for you and potentially your your boss, your manager, your leader,
to work with the support potential of HR.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
Right. Look, we are very much in the realm of
personal and professional opinion here, and professional my professional opinion
is absolutely right. I think the purpose of human relations
and departments of whether it's officer of people and culture
that sort of thing, is to help leaders lead well,
not to do their job for them. And really, when

(05:21):
you've got matters of conflict, that is one of the
first requirements of a great boss to do to work
with their teams so that you get that team environment
being productive all the time on the floor, right, rather
than having to say, oh, something's gone wrong quick, we'll
just send that to HR and one day we hope
they'll deal with it for us. I think that is

(05:41):
a mistake and in terms of too many people involved,
when it really should be resolvable with the smallest number
of people in the shortest amount of time.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
Okay, so we've established what you should do, how you
should approach it. We are short on time. But is
there anything that you shouldn't do apart from going really
personal and getting very kind of aggressive. Understand? Yeah, okay,
I think we can sayfully say that the nuclear option
is not the best bad But what else should we
rule out here?

Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yeah, don't assume, don't presume you know everything, ask don't
make it personal. Focus on the behavior, right, So don't
make it personal, and therefore, don't eliminate empathy for what
that person may have seen or be going through in
making that decision. And don't be so focused on what
you want to say that you don't even listen. Right,

(06:31):
Establishing empathy is absolutely important and making sure that you
know they know that you're listening.

Speaker 1 (06:36):
That is great advice.

Speaker 2 (06:37):
Thank you very much, Adam, My pleasure, Michael.

Speaker 1 (06:39):
If you've got something that you would like to know,
perhaps a workplace scenario that you would like, you can
post it as a hypothetical then send it through on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook,
or go to Fear and Greed dot com dot au
and get in touch there. I'm Michael Thompson and this
is Fear and Greed. The Q and a