Although it might seem strange to see this topic on a CFO blog, knowing why it’s here might might place it in context and help this to be more valuable to my readers.
[1] In smaller organizations, the Human Resource function often falls under the Office of the CFO. There is intersection with both compensation and compliance.
[2] We looove efficiency. And there’s nothing that will take a bite out of organizational efficiency than human drama. So those of us who fulfill the CFO role for a combo of hard & soft skills and not just for being geekier than everyone else are really great at this stuff.
How do you deal with a difficult co-worker?
Language is our access to high performance. Language is access to reaching our potential. Language shapes how we view the world and what actions we take.
The question has two powerful words in it and a powerful assumption, and none of these lead to making mission and none of them lead to joy.
There is no winning answer to the question as asked.
The second word (stay with me) is ‘difficult.’
The assumption is that a person is fixed and unchangeable, and this assumption is revealed by the language ‘a difficult co-worker.’
The first word is “deal.” If I do not have the ability to create relatedness with others and create transformation in relationships and in performance, I will need to ‘deal’ with people for the rest of my life.
As long as I continue to believe that a co-worker IS difficult, as if that were a fact, I will never be successful in ‘dealing’ with that person.
The key is to see the world as my co-worker sees it. To be able to describe life, work, mission, a challenge as my co-worker would use language to say it.
Once I can do that, and my co-worker knows that I can do that, change is possible.
Does my co-worker need to change?
No such assumption.
Miracles come out of communication like this. Possible results include:
* I use language more effectively because I can communicate in the way that my co-worker needs
* My co-worker creates a new relationship with life, with work, with mission, with me
* A loyalty is created between us, because I cared to get someone else’s world. Loyalty and high performance go hand in hand.
This list is only the beginning of what happens when in the face of ‘deal,’ ‘difficult,’ and an assumption of unchangeability we instead create relatedness and transformation.
Author Richard Bach wrote: “When you ask the question properly it answers itself.”
The only way to ask the real question obviates the need for the question because it illuminates the solution.
“How do you create transformation in a professional relationship with someone whom you currently do not know very well?”
