Maybe they’re not out to get you?
How many times have we sat in meetings with our teams, seething about the actions of another group. “Why are they doing this to us?” we decry, “why do they want to make our lives harder?”. As much fun as it can be to moan (and we all enjoy having a moan a little bit), and as bonding as it can be (nothing unites a group faster than complaining about a shared foe), if we’re in a leadership position then we do know it’s not really that helpful to let the Us vs Them attitudes fester and grow.
'“But what do you mean” I hear you say, “they are out to get me, they make my life so difficult, it can’t be an accident”. Well I’m here to tell you that I’ve seen the light. And the light can be summed up through Hanlon’s Razor:
“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”
It clicked for a couple of reasons:
incompetence (possibly nicer than ‘stupidity’) is common. It doesn’t mean all our colleagues are incompetent all the time. It means that sometimes, in some situations, we work with people who don’t know as much as we do. Or who have motives we don’t understand. Or who are under pressure in ways we can’t see. And in that moment, it can feel like they’re working against us.
It is just much, much more likely that someone is incompetent (again, only in that moment) rather than actively trying to make our lives difficult. We think about ourselves far more than anyone else thinks about us. That colleague who torpedoed that workshop really wasn’t doing it to be difficult, they probably hadn’t put that much forethought into it. It’s really not that likely that someone is premeditating sabotaging our work.
This is where I caveat - there are exceptions to every rule, and maybe occasionally you'll meet a Work Nemesis.
---------
This is where I caveat - there are exceptions to every rule, and maybe occasionally you'll meet a Work Nemesis. ---------
So they’re not out to get me?
Nope. So let’s overcome the unhelpful (albeit slightly fun) rivalries, and break down some barriers.
Address it head on
There is a fine line between letting a team vent about a frustrating interaction, and enabling the Us vs Them perspective to grow. Catching it at the right moment, asking the team how they’re feeling, and posing the question ‘do you think they did this deliberately? Could there be misunderstandings or other factors driving the frustrating interaction’ can stop it in it’s tracks. Teams can be coached out of turning their frustration into something unhelpful. Which leads us to:
Build empathy
We can use empathy to understand out stakeholders. This doesn’t mean letting stakeholders walk all over us. It means looking at things from their view: understanding the pressures they’re under; the limitations in their knowledge (which they may not have been upfront about); and what’s driving their perspective. Which leads us to:
Align on shared goals
If we know where they’re coming from then we can build a foundation of shared goals. If make the shared ambitions visible and agree the Why, it becomes a lot easier to align on the How, and take the friction out of the collaboration.