Ep. 115 - Getting Along with Difficult People to Build Better Relationships - with Amy Gallo

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I wish I had been able to read “Getting Along: How to Work with Anyone (Even Difficult People)” when I was entering the workforce. Releasing on September 13, 2022, “Getting Along” is a research-based, practical guide for how to handle difficult people at work. Not always feeling equipped to best deal with the kind of people described in this book — and keeping my sanity — was one of the major drivers behind my unhappiness in my past roles. It was even a reason why I made a professional and personal pivot.

So I was thrilled to sit down and talk to the author, Amy Gallo, about why she wrote the book and how the framework is used in practice. Amy is also an expert in conflict communication and workplace dynamics, a contributing editor to Harvard Business Review, and a co-host of HBR's Women at Work podcast.

Amy Gallo’s Career Journey

Amy also has a wonderful career mashup story, one that I think reflects the journey that many have now gone on. The idea that our careers are these multifaceted things, that they could be more than just our day jobs, wasn’t really taught to us. But when you figure that out, when things sort of click into place, it can change the course of your entire life.

And if that sounds kind of obvious to you, I think that’s just fantastic. Because that means things really are changing for the better.

You can listen to Amy share the story of the ah-ha moment when she realized she could have a portfolio career — and that she kind of already had one.

“Getting Along: How to Work with Anyone (Even Difficult People)”

Overall, “Getting Along” is a book about developing stronger relationships. So why focus only on getting along with difficult people?

“By focusing on the relationships that cause us the most stress, anxiety, difficulty, [and] challenge at work, by getting better at those relationships, we actually end up improving our interpersonal resilience, our ability to bounce back from negative interactions with anyone, or the ability to deepen our relationships with people who we already have positive interactions with.”

There’s also just the ubiquity of the problem. 94% of people reported working with a toxic person in the last 5 years, according to a study that Amy cites in her book, and 87% said team culture suffered as a result. And I don’t think that’s really going to surprise anyone; working with difficult people is a challenge that everyone encounters.

And what makes “Getting Along” so helpful is that it breaks this challenge down into eight archetypes, or eight different kinds of difficult people, and provides short scripts that you can use to be more productive or defuse conflict with each type of difficult person. The framework provides a much-needed level of actionability and support.

The 8 Kinds of Difficult People

The archetypes are intended to help people understand who they are dealing with and apply specifically designed tactics against people who exhibit those behaviors.

The insecure boss - Their insecurity can translate into behaviors of micromanagement because they want to control everything and constantly change their decisions.
The pessimist - They have a negative outlook and don’t feel like they have the ability to change the outcome.
The victim - Like the pessimist, they have a negative outlook, but they also feel like everything bad is happening to them.
The passive aggressive peer - someone who says one thing yet does another and insists everything is okay
The know-it-all - They confidently say whatever they believe, yet they don’t base it on facts and data. It’s only based on confidence.
The tormentor - it’s someone you expect to be a mentor but they are actually focused on making your life miserable. You can think of the behavior towards you as hazing.
The biased coworker - They exhibit different types of microaggressions based on their biases and prejudices because they are more likely to say and do things that are inappropriate or hurtful of which they may not be even aware they are doing it.
The political operator - One who prioritizes their career above everyone else and does it at others’ expense.

The 9 Principles for Getting Along with Anyone

Amy also shares 9 principles that can help you — regardless of the archetype — navigate the complexity of human relationships.

Focus on what you can control. Remember that people rarely change because someone else wants them to.
Your perspective is just one perspective. You can’t be entirely objective about a conflict you are in and you probably aren’t seeing the situation as clearly as you think you are.
Be aware of your biases. This is a big one, and we talked a lot about identifying and addressing your bias with Kim Scott back in episode 106 if you want to dig in deeper.
Don’t make it ‘me against them.’ This just creates polarization.
Rely on empathy to see things differently.
Know your goal. Be clear on what you want from this relationship or this interaction.
Avoid gossip, mostly. Avoid it, but know it can be helpful sometimes.
Experiment to find what works. This is critical. This is also why the different scripts and solutions offered in the book are so valuable. You might need to try a few different things.
Be — and stay! — curious. Don’t go in being certain about what’s right or wrong, but rather seek to understand why they are behaving the way they are and why you are reacting so strongly to it. It’s about being open to a new way of interacting.

Getting Along in The Future of Work

Pretty much all of us are currently struggling with how to best adjust to the new world of work. And learning how to get along with and communicate with people company no matter what level, function or type of org structure — even in roles that traditionally didn’t really require these sorts of soft skills in the past — is central to making this new world of work work for everyone.

Because the future of work is about being human, it’s about empowering humans.

A lot of our stress and anxiety comes from just not knowing. We’re repeatedly thrust into difficult conversations with insecure bosses, political operators, biased colleagues, et cetera, but we’re not taught how to have those conversations. Even at later stages in our careers, these problems still come up more often than we’d like.

But having a framework like “Getting Along: How to Work with Anyone (Even Difficult People)” helps illuminate the Why behind people’s behavior — and on top of that, it offers a plan and language you can follow. It enables you to test out new solutions to each of these people problems that, otherwise, just end up festering into a lot of fear, anxiety, and discord.

Definition of career success

Doing work that you love and that helps other people.

Best work advice

Learn what a portfolio career is because that is what you want to do.

Key Takeaways:

To deal with an insecure boss, the very first step is to think about what are the pressures there under what, what could be causing this insecurity.
- Understand that there are things going on that you do not see, and they may be intentionally hiding those things from you or it may just be organizational structure that you don't see. In the end, it’s not about you.
- More often it's about what they believe about their ability to do their job and how they perceive how others around them are performing or not performing.
- A tactic to employ is to express gratitude and appreciation for them authentically or find something they actually do well to help to start to shift the relationship dynamic.
- Reference their ideas before sharing your own because it can calm an overactive or a defensive ego response. For example, you can say, ‘ I'd like to build on your idea.”
- You might even say, ‘Do you feel like you're getting enough information? It's important for me to keep you in the loop, right?’ That shows them we are in this together. You’re on their side. You don't trigger any of their insecurity which makes them feel threatened.
To learn how to get along with a political operator, make sure your good work is known because they will try to outshine you.
- Find ways to make clear you have actually contributed to the project that they're taking credit for by speaking up in meetings when there's a question about something that's really in your purview, not really in theirs for example.
- Enlist them by offering to help or asking for their advice. This can often disarm a political operator because people don’t typically offer help since they are difficult to be around. You might be pattern breaking their actions so make clear that you're trying to collaborate, not compete.
With any of the archetypes, you can also just say what's on your mind and do it in a neutral tone, labeling the behavior and talking about the consequences of that behavior.
- For example ‘I felt like you didn't respect the amount of work I put into that. Why?’
- That can make people realize that their behavior's being noticed, and trigger them to change it.
It’s also important to remember that the archetypes are not a mutually exclusive model - we all behave in these ways at some point in our lives. We bring the same behaviors and patterns to our interactions with our family, friends, children, etc.
You cannot escape the social and political complexities of working with other people. So, if you want to thrive in the future of work, you have to learn how to navigate conversation with all kinds of people — even difficult people.
Don’t go in having a fixed mindset when it comes to your viewpoint on how people are behaving. It’s important to build that emotional intelligence and be strategic in terms of what you are trying to solve.
It takes two people to have a difficult conversation; try to avoid villainizing people or you’ll never muster up the will to solve the problem.
Test, learn, and iterate when things aren’t working. You will never work through the problem if you keep tackling it with the same solution.
Almost every organization suffers from their people just not knowing how to navigate difficult or uncomfortable conversations. These tensions affect happiness, engagement, and productivity. And it’s no one’s fault — most of us just aren’t given the right tools to do this — but it will take effort from everyone to change this.