Win at Work!: The Everybody Wins Approach to Conflict Resolution

Chapter 5. Challenge 2 Deal with Your Partner or Allow Him/Her to Continue Causing Chaos?

There are some people who, by their very nature, cause problems. They may be sloppy, careless, inattentive, and/or unaware of their impact on others. What's clear is that when they leave a situation, things are usually worse than before their arrival.

Usually, these people mean well. I work under that assumption until proven otherwise. That is what this challenge is about: those people who instigate issues and make problems, and don't really mean to do so.

Note

For those people whom you suspect cause problems at your workplace intentionally, I recommend that you keep written records of your interactions with them, and go directly to your manager or to human resources to get support and backup for dealing with them.

Meet Les and Adam

To explain this challenge, I share with you the story of two partners—although it could just as well be about two coworkers or two managers on the same level of the org chart.

These two men are peers, who trust each other, became successful together, and then strayed off the path. Les and Adam were partners in a small start-up technical company. They had been in business for three years, during which time revenues climbed at a steady pace. At the end of their third year, the company had 18 employees and an expected growth rate of 16 percent in the upcoming year. In order to accomplish this growth, they needed to institute more internal controls and processes and further ...