I work for a family owned SME and I am having problems with one of my colleagues. What should I do?

I work for a family owned SME and I am having problems with one of my colleagues, who are difficult, rude and take credit for my ideas. The other problem is that this person is a relative of the family who owns the business. How can I deal with this person?

Start with self

Before we can look at dealing effectively with others it’s important to start with examining our own behaviours, patterns and responses. How do you interact with this person? Has the situation always been like this or has it recently developed? Have you experienced this situation in other teams/companies that you have worked for? If yes, how did you respond? What patterns do you notice? What do you need to change about your approach?

Find a trusted colleague, friend or mentor that you can talk through the situation with to help you explore possible solutions, being mindful not to use the discussion to whine or complain about the person. Use this time productively to explore how the situation is impacting you on a personal and professional level and to explore ways to move forward. Aim to come up with at least five ways to handle the situation and then use this to develop a strategy for moving forward.

Look at ‘other’

Observe the person that you are having difficulty with, how do they behave with others, in meetings and in any social context that you have observed?

Take some time to understand them, often hard to do when you are struggling with someone’s behaviour. What’s happening for them? Are they under pressure? While understanding this doesn’t excuse bad behaviour it will help you to find a more productive way to open up a conversation with them. If the person feels heard and understood they will be more open to hearing how their behaviour is impacting you.

Talk to the person about the situation

Approach the individual and talk to them about the impact they are having on you, your team and the business where relevant. Talking about the impact rather than directing the conversation at them personally will help to keep the conversation civil and less of an attack, with the outcome being that the person is less defensive.

Follow up with the person after your initial conversation. Has the situation improved? If so acknowledge this and share the positive impact of this with the individual. If the situation hasn’t improved, decide on your next course of action. Do you need to directly confront them with the situation and set some boundaries on what is acceptable and unacceptable to you?

Seek support

Do you need to escalate this to a senior person in the company? If you choose this option you may wish to document some of the behaviours and the impact this is having on the business. It may be useful to involve others if they are having similar problems and again focus on the impact on the business, projects, etc, ensuring that you avoid any personal attacks on the individual.

Raise your profile

Raise your profile and ensure that you communicate your ideas and successes so that you get the credit for these.

Limit contact with the individual

If all of this fails, is there a way to limit your contact with this individual? Is the company large enough for you to consider working in another area/on another project?

The final option if you have tried everything and nothing has worked is to ask yourself if you can you live with this situation? Are you prepared to? If the answer is no it may be time to look elsewhere for an environment that you will be happy in.

I spoke to a senior HR Executive of a large family owned Australian business who offered the following advice.

“It’s important to understand that you need to think and operate differently in a family run business as the rigid guidelines in a corporate environment are often not present. Take time to understand the important factors within the business, by understanding these you will connect more easily with family members.”

“Most family businesses are driven heavily by strong values, take time to understand these values and use this as a basis for opening up a conversation. Use the core values as the framework to deal with the situation. How are the behaviours aligned with these values? What would it feel like to that person if the situation was reversed? What does this mean for the individual, team and business? What are the implications for the business should these behaviours go unchecked? Ask, how can we be doing it better going forward? Could this be affecting the bottom line of the business?”

“Watch the person and observe their behaviour, watch the people around this individual and talk to some of them about their experiences. Ask a valued colleague for his/her advice to help you get perspective. And finally, take ACTION! You have choices, establish what they are and act on them.”

Pollyanna Lenkic is the founder of Perspectives Coaching, an Australian based coaching and training company. In 1990 she co-founded a specialist IT recruitment consultancy in London, which grew to employ 18 people and turnover £11 million ($27 million). In this blog Pollyanna answers questions from our readers on issues they are experiencing leading or being part of a team.  She offers insights on teams and team dynamics. For support and information on team days run by Perspectives Coaching see here. Her previous Blog for SmartCompany, 2nd Time Around was about the mistakes she made and the lessons she learned building a business the first time round and how to do it better second time round.

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