I have a work colleague who is always making unneeded suggestions about my work. How do I stop this? I’ve tried asking them, telling them I don’t like it, being cold and unresponsive and even getting annoyed and showing my annoyance. Thanks R
Hi R. It can be really challenging when we have work colleagues who for various reasons we don’t get along with. We spend a lot of our week at work, so it is really important that we have as pleasant and harmonious working environment as possible.
It is clear you have tried quite a few different ways to deal with this situation and your colleague has not responded in a way that works for you, one thing I can say is that in some way it is working for them. I know this because all behaviour is intended to meet our needs, and we generally don’t continue with a behaviour unless it is meeting one or more of those needs to some degree. It is possible that your colleague has high power needs and genuinely wants what they believe is the best outcome possible or perhaps they simply find it fun to be critiquing. Maybe they want to help you so they can build a relationship with you, not recognising they are damaging their chances of achieving this. Without knowing more about the situation and the circumstances of their behaviour, I can’t be sure what motivates them and in some ways it doesn’t matter.
What does matter is that you focus on and deal with what is in front of you. You asked how you can stop them, and the short answer is you can’t. You can’t control anyone else behaviour, the only behaviour you can control is your own. Taking the focus off thinking about how I can stop them and putting it onto how I can get a better result for me, opens up the possibility of a solution, or at least a great improvement in the circumstances.
By choosing the responses you mentioned above, you are focussing on trying to get them to change their behaviour and getting poor results because this is not something you can control. Focussing instead upon what you can do lets you take control of yourself. The first thing you can do is start thinking differently about their behaviour, instead of seeing a problem, see a chance to practice taking charge of yourself and building your skills at relationships. We are not going to get on perfectly with every single person we ever work with. The next thing is to change what you have been doing. There is an old saying that “If you keep doing what you’ve always done you will keep getting what you’ve always got.” One of the simplest things you can do is to listen to what they say, thank them for their input and let them know you will consider their suggestion. Evaluate whether there is any merit in what they have suggested and use it if there is, after all their information may well be useful. If not, simply get on with your work. This approach is not confrontational, respects both your needs and the needs of the other and most of all leaves you in charge of your own behaviour.