# How to mend a broken work relationship

- **Episode:** [150](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/150.md) (2024-12-03)
- **Type:** news-roundup
- **Tags:** work-relationships, conflict-resolution, communication
- **Time:** 5:38–11:23 (start 338s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/150?t=338](https://truthliesandwork.com/150?t=338)

---

[5:38] Al Elliott: Well, breaking news, Al's wearing a pair of spectacles on the pod. If you're watching it on YouTube, you will see, um, I got these new specs, which is great, so I can actually see, um, Leanne now. However, Because I'm wearing these fancy-ass spectacles, these fancy-ass glasses, I felt like I needed to up my game in terms of what I've been reading. So this week I've been reading the Harvard Business Review. Well, actually, that's not true. I haven't. I haven't. I saw— I think I saw someone link to it on Twitter, so I haven't been reading it. But my art— the article I am going to talk about is from the Harvard Business Review. It's around broken relationships at work. Now, just a quick thing, we'll leave the link in the show notes, and it's one of those few on Harvard Business Review, HBR, That he's actually, um, not got a paywall, so you can actually just read it. Um, and in fact, I think it might even be a video you can actually watch or listen to. I think we've all had them, the bad relationships at work. Now, as I've always said—
[6:27] Leanne Elliott: You sure do
[6:28] Al Elliott: Exactly. Well, hang on a minute
[6:30] Leanne Elliott: Whoa. Uh, only joking, joking. He queued it up. I just had to—
[6:34] Al Elliott: Yeah, he just had to nod it in. Anyway, uh, so, so bad relationships at work. I think no matter where you worked, you've always had someone who you didn't, didn't get along with. This article talks all about these. It's really quite interesting because there's a, there's a lady called Susan David, um, who's the author of the book Emotional Agility, and she says there's 2 types of broken relationships at work. On one end, she says, people who you don't just seem to get on well with. It's just like someone you might say hello to, you might wish you had a better relationship, you don't really know them, and it's just like, oh, nah. Then on the other end, you've got your mortal enemies. These are the people who you just know that you're not going to get on with. You either— you've more than likely had an argument with them, but there's something about them
[7:12] Leanne Elliott: They've crossed you
[7:13] Al Elliott: They've crossed you. Maybe they are dark empaths
[7:15] Leanne Elliott: So let's start with these—
[7:15] Al Elliott: the second one, the ones who are the mortal enemies. As I said, I think often these start around an argument where you thought they were wrong and they thought they were right. And this is exactly what Susan Davis said. She said, and I thought that the article was going to go down the whole Buddhist route of going, oh well, they might be right, but you know, just give them the benefit of the doubt. No, Susan, Susan surprised everyone by saying, imagine them walking around the office wearing a huge sticker saying, I'm wrong. To be fair, in my head that sticker would say something different, like, I'm an— yeah. Something like that. So just imagine them wearing it, because you'll be— she reckons you'll be surprised at how just pretending that they know they were wrong can dispel a lot of hard feelings. Of course, they might also already know that they were wrong, but we're going to come back to that in a second. Then the second thing she suggests is stop going over all the negative interactions. And I know this has happened with me when I've met someone, not necessarily in workplace, because I've only worked with Leanne recently, but, um, if I meet someone who I'm not a big fan of, I tend to think, oh God, oh, I remember when they did this, and I remember when they did that, and that really annoyed me
[8:14] Leanne Elliott: Yeah
[8:14] Al Elliott: The problem with that, Susan's saying, is that you just make yourself angry again. So instead, focus— this week gets a bit more Buddhist— instead focus about what you do like about them. And if there's nothing you do like about them, and I'm sure there's some people out there that there aren't, then think about what you actually want from them. Now I have a thought that if there's— if there's— if you don't like them and there's nothing you want from them, then I reckon just forget them because they're not important. Like the whole idea of, you know, control those things that you can control or worry about those things you can control. But if there is something you want, then just focus on getting what you need with civility. Um, it might also be a little bit superfluous— supercilious, I think is the right word. Um, a bit sort of, uh, you're lacking in depth, but that's what you want, so just leverage it. This is going back to maybe 10, 15 years ago, maybe even 20 years ago. Someone said to me that people are just making the best decisions they can given the information they've got right now. And I go back to Rob Kalbarowski's comment last week that assholes are almost assholes because they have huge amount of fear. So most people aren't actually bad people. So could this person you think is an actual idiot actually be intimidated by you? Perhaps. Could they worry that by giving you what you need to do their job, they'll be redundant? Leanne is nodding along like a nodding dog here. I'm sure you've had someone like this who, who kind of gatekeeps certain information because they need to feel important, um, to dole this information out or tasks out on that sort of thing. So just to kind of summarize this article, the link's in the show notes, and it's well worth— it's only a short article, it's well worth reading. You've got to ask yourself, do you even want to repair the relationship? And if not, then let it go. If you do, then do it the same way you would make up with a partner after an argument. Well, not the exact same way, but with small gestures that show you care and get you back to where you want to be. As I say, the link is in the show notes. Lee, anything to add to that?
[9:59] Leanne Elliott: I think there is a scale of relationship breakdown. I think, I think, and I think a lot of it depends on where I think if you start quite well and quite in a, not necessarily friend, like best mates, but like a productive, effective working relationship and then that breaks down, it's much easier to rebuild 'cause you've already got some professional commonality. What's really hard is when you have a breakdown in relationship with a member of the team who you didn't really have that together in the first place and then it got worse
[10:31] Al Elliott: Yeah
[10:32] Leanne Elliott: And then there's a power dynamic involved, and then, and then it just escalates and you lose all respect for that person and it's really hard to get back. And I think what I like about that article, Al, is, is, do you need to? And if you need to, focus on what you actually need to productively get out of this professional relationship using civility, um, and hope that the other person is also civil in return. That doesn't always happen either. Um, yeah, good, good solid advice, I think, there, Al. I think it's always with kind of not necessarily like putting like a grading, grading scheme on relationships. I'm not sure you want to be that, that dark empath about it, do you? But kind of that, how important is it to me in terms of my ability to work, or how important is it to me and my ability to, you know, I want a personal relationship with this person. And if both those things are low, is it worth the energy?
[11:19] Al Elliott: Yeah, is it worth it? Is it worth it? One thing which is worth it is Leanne's next article