Lifescripts, 3rd Edition

95Asking a Coworker to Improve the Quality of Their Work

STRATEGY

Most of us get along swimmingly with our coworkers, which is why it can be so disconcerting when the quality of a peer's work begins to slide. Where once the two of you functioned like a well‐oiled machine, you now find that either your job is harder to do because (a) you're trying to compensate for their sloppiness, laziness, or inattentiveness, or (b) the caliber of your work is slipping because it's contingent on the quality of their work. The goal of this lifescript is getting a peer to improve the quality of their work without harming your professional relationship and/or coming across as holier‐than‐thou. Your first gambit will be to appeal to their sense of fairness, pointing out it isn't right you should suffer because they're turning out subpar work. That means you'll need to be able to prove their work “isn't what it used to be,” as well as show how it's affecting you. If, after receiving concrete evidence of their lackluster performance they still insist they're the best worker bee on the planet, resort to your most powerful gambit: making the boss aware that the inferior quality of your peer's work is having a deleterious effect on yours.

TACTICS

• Attitude: Even if you're ready to blow a gasket, your attitude should be one of asking for help. Never resort to begging, yelling, or threats. If you can't kill them with kindness, you could turn the heat up a notch and show how ticked off you are—again, ...