Work relationships matter more than we think. They can be a key reason we stay in a job or the reason we leave. When they don’t go well, they can consume a lot of our time and energy, both in and out of work.

That’s why we need to get better at them. Even the difficult ones, like a boss who takes all the credit or a co-worker who’s perpetually negative.

Amy Gallo is an expert on conflict and a contributing editor at Harvard Business Review. In this interview, we discuss her most recent book, Getting Along: How to Work with Anyone (Even Difficult People). We talk about why work relationships are worth the time we invest, even when they’re challenging. In fact, it’s when they’re challenging that we need to work that much harder to overcome our most primal default settings.

Amy shares a number of tools we can use to gain a different perspective, pressure test our assumptions, and respond so that we spend less time outside of work dealing with difficult people. And so we have more options than to give up or walk away. It’s a book I think you’ll return to again and again over the course of your career.

Episode Links

4 Tactics That Backfire When Dealing with a Difficult Colleague

How to Navigate Conflict with a Coworker

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

The Team

Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here.

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CM 226: Amy Gallo on How to Work with Difficult People

Curious Minds at Work

CM 226: Amy Gallo on How to Work with Difficult People