Stop Going to Your Boss About Your Coworker

How do you handle a conflict with a coworker who doesn't report to you? Go to them directly, before your boss, and make it the two of you against the problem instead of you against each other. Most leaders were never taught this one. There are shelves of books on managing your team and managing your boss, and almost nothing on the sideways conversation with a peer, where you have no authority and still have to work together on Monday. 

So 70% of us avoid it, or worse, we go around them to the shared boss and quietly end the relationship. In this episode, Colby Morris tells the peer conversation he got wrong, what it cost him, and walks through the Third Chair: four moves for having the hard conversation with a peer without triangulating and without it turning personal.

"Going around someone you never talked to is triangulation. Escalating something you tried twice to solve directly is just the truth. Boss last, not boss first." Colby Morris, The Things Leaders Do

More on Handling Conflict With a Coworker

What is the Third Chair?

The Third Chair is a framework from Colby Morris for handling conflict with a peer. The default setup is two chairs facing each other, you versus them. The Third Chair is the move of putting the problem in a chair of its own so both people are facing it instead of each other. Colby breaks down all four moves in the episode.

Why shouldn't I go to my boss about a coworker problem?

Because it costs you three ways at once, and only one of them is the problem you went in about. Colby names all three, including the one your boss quietly files away about you.

How do I confront a coworker without starting a fight?

It comes down to your first sentence. Most people open with the complaint, which puts the other person on trial and starts a defense. There is a different opener that puts the problem on trial instead. Same facts, completely different next twenty minutes. Colby gives you both versions in the episode.

What is the difference between task conflict and relationship conflict?

Organizational psychologist Adam Grant draws the line simply: task conflict is people against a problem, relationship conflict is people against people. Peer conversations collapse from the first into the second faster than any other kind, because there is no rank and no referee in the room. The Third Chair exists to stop that collapse.

What if my coworker doesn't change after we talk?

There is a point where escalating to your boss stops being triangulation and becomes legitimate, and one condition that changes everything about how it lands. Colby covers the second conversation, the escalation, and the peer who turns your honesty into ammunition.

Research and Sources

• Bravely found that 70% of employees are avoiding a difficult conversation at work, whether with a boss, a colleague, or a direct report.
• The Myers-Briggs Company found that time spent dealing with workplace conflict roughly doubled between 2008 and 2022.
• Adam Grant, organizational psychologist, on task conflict versus relationship conflict.
• Patrick Lencioni, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, on artificial harmony and the fear of conflict.

Related Episodes

• How to Have Tough Conversations with Employees
• Stop Trying to Win Tough Conversations
• How to Disagree With Your Boss (Without Getting Fired)
• Conflict IQ Part I: Why You Need It Yesterday

About Colby Morris

Colby Morris is the Founder of NXT Step Advisors, where he helps leaders and organizations build cultures that put people first through keynote speaking, executive coaching, and leadership training.

Connect

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/colbymorris
Web: NXTStepAdvisors.com

• Colby's LinkedIn Profile
• NXTStepAdvisors.com

Transcript

When Escalation Makes It Worse

SPEAKER_00 0:00

People first leadership. Actionable strategies, real results. This is Things Leaders Do with Colby Morris.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

So you're standing outside your boss's office, little knock on the doorframe. Hey, you got a minute? And you go in, you sit down, you say some version of this. Look, I I don't want to make a thing of it, but Marcus's team keeps blowing the hand off. Man, third time this month. I've tried. I really have. I just figured you should know. And you walk out of that office feeling great. You handled it. You escalated appropriately. You went through the proper channels. That's what mature professionals do, right? No. No, you you just made everything worse. And I'm going to show you how. Here's what actually happened in there. You didn't solve a problem. You filed a report on a peer, and your boss now has a job you gave him that they didn't want. Your coworker's about to get that weird, vague talking to, and they will immediately trace it back to you. And the next time you and Marcus are in a meeting together, there's gonna be a wall. You can't see it, but you can feel it. And it won't come down. Not all the way. You know what you didn't do at any point in that story? Talk to Marcus. And look, I know why. Talking to Marcus is awful. Marcus is not your direct report. He just isn't. You can't coach him, you can't put him on a plan, you can't pull rank because you don't have any rank. Marcus is your peer, which means the only tools you've got in that conversation are your words and the relationship. And that's it. That's that's the whole toolbox. Which is exactly why nobody teaches this conversation. There are 10,000 books on managing your team and a whole shelf on managing your boss. The sideways conversation, that peer-to-peer, no authority in neither direction, crickets. You're you I guess you were just supposed to know. So today we're doing the one nobody covers. I'm going to give you a framework I call the third chair. Four moves for having the hard conversation with a peer, without your boss, without the the cold war, and without it turning personal. This might be the most useful 25 minutes I've ever handed you.

Why Peer Conflict Gets Avoided

SPEAKER_01 2:39

Hey leaders, this is Colby Morris, and this is Things Leaders Do. Today the conversation nobody trained you for. The hard one with your peer. Let's go. All right. First, let's be honest about the pattern because you can't fix a pattern you won't admit to. When there's friction with a peer, you've got three doors. Door one, I mean, you say nothing and just quietly sit there and seethe. Door two, you go around them, usually to the shared bus. Or door three, you go to them directly like a grown adult. Problem is almost nobody picks door three. And there's research on it. Bravely, the coaching platform, they found that 70% of employees are avoiding a difficult conversation right now with a boss, a colleague, a direct report, somebody. 70%. That's not a personality quirk. That's the default setting of the entire working world. And the Myers Briggs company found that the time we spend tangled up in workplace conflict roughly doubled, doubled between 2008 and 2022. So we're avoiding more conversations and marinating more conflict. And if you think those two facts are unrelated, well, I've got a bridge to sell you. Patrick Lincioni has a name for what door one produces. In the five dysfunctions of a team, he calls it artificial harmony. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. Everybody's pleasant in the meeting. Everybody nods. And the real conversation happens after the meeting. In DMs, in the parking lot, somebody's desk with the door mostly closed. Yeah, Linchoni puts it this way: if we don't trust one another, then we aren't going to engage in open, constructive, ideological conflict. And we'll just continue to preserve a sense of artificial harmony. The team looks fine. The team isn't fine. The team is polite. But door two is the one I really want to talk about because door two is one that feels responsible. Going to the boss feels like process. It feels like what the org chart is for, right? Here's what it actually is: it's outsourcing your conflict to someone with more power, and it costs you three ways at once. Your boss learns you can't handle a peer relationship, and don't kid yourself, they notice and they follow it away. Your peer learns you'll go behind their back, and that lesson doesn't expire. And the actual problem, still sitting there. Because your boss wasn't in the handoff meetings. They're going to relay a secondhand version of your complaint, probably badly, and now you've got the original problem plus the trust problem stacked on top. I know this one from the inside. Years ago, I had a peer and another department head who kept committing my team to deadlines in meetings I wasn't even in. Just volunteering us. And instead of walking the 40 feet to his office, I went up. I told our share boss, real diplomatically, you know, that I had concerns about alignment. Yeah. Office speaker right there. Concerns about alignment. I listen to me. I titled and business casual. And it worked in the sense that the deadline stopped. It also ended the relationship. He found out within a week, obviously, because bosses are not exactly vaults of silence. He never trusted me again. And honestly, he was right not to. Every project we shared after that ran through lawyer-level formality. Everything was in writing. CC's on everything. It it was literally miserable. It it was slow, and honestly, it was my fault. The 40-foot walk was the whole price of keeping that relationship, and I wouldn't pay it. So that's the diagnosis. Now the fix.

The Third Chair Mindset Shift

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Here's the framework, and I call it the third chair. When you finally sit down with a peer about a problem, the default setup is two chairs, and you're sitting there facing each other. You versus them. Your version versus their version, right? It's the same seating arrangement as a job interview, a deposition, and every movie scene where someone slides a folder across the table and says, we know everything. Nothing collaborative has ever happened in that configuration. Everything about the geometry says opponent. And the conversation, well, that kind of follows the geometry. Somebody wins, somebody loses, everybody remembers. The third chair is the move where you mentally and well, sometimes literally, pull up a chair and put the problem in it, and both of you turn to face the problem instead of each other. Yes, I have actually done the literal version. Yes, the other guy looked at me like I lost my mind, but it worked. Same two people, same issue, completely different conversation. Because now it's the two of you against a thing instead of you against each other. Now, this isn't me being cute with furniture. Okay. Adam Grant, the organizational psychologist, draws a line between what he calls task conflict and relationship conflict. And it might be the most useful distinction in this like whole subject. Task conflict is people against a problem, right? Relationship conflict is people against people. So task conflict, disagreeing about the work, the approach or the decision, that that's actually healthy. Grant goes further than healthy, though. He says that the absence of conflict is not harmony, it's apathy. If you're in a group where you know people never disagree, the only way that could really happen is if people don't care enough to speak their minds. It's people who quit arguing because they quit caring, or because they're doing the arguing somewhere and you know, where you can't hear it. You know that meeting where everybody agrees with everything, and you get out, you know, four minutes early and it feels great. Grant just told you that that meeting is a crime scene. The problem with with peer conversations is that they collapse into relationship conflict and they do it faster than any other kind. There's no referee in the room and no ring to hide behind. So the second it gets tense, the handoff is broken, turns into you're unreliable, and you're unreliable, and turns into, you know, well, your team missed March entirely, and congratulations. Now people are against people, and nobody comes from back from that real quick. Okay. Every move in this framework exists to do one job. Keep the problem in the third chair. Keep it people against problem. There are four moves, and we're going to take them in order.

Four Moves To Fix The Handoff

SPEAKER_01 10:50

Move one. Go to them, not around them. Direct, private, and first. Before the boss, before the group thread, before you mention it casually to one of the coworkers who tells everyone everything. Go to them first. And do it, do it earlier than feels natural. The math on timing is brutal. The first time it happens, the conversation's small. Hey, that handoff came in rough. What happened? 30 seconds, no charge on it. But the fifth time it happens, you're not having a conversation about a handoff anymore. You're having a conversation about a pattern, carrying four conversations worth of stored up, ticked-off resentment, and they can hear all four in your voice. Okay? You waited so it wouldn't be awkward, but the waiting is what made it awkward. Okay, so you're in the room with them, not about them. What's the first sentence? Well, that's move to, and it's the one that decides everything. I want you to lead with the shared cost, not the complaint. The complaint sounds like this. Your team keeps missing the handoff. True, maybe. But listen to the shape of it. You wrong me. Wronged. That's that's two chairs facing off, and and you put them there with your opening sentence. Okay. Their brain isn't hearing your evidence anymore. It's it's loading up a defense. Let me show you where that goes because we've all sat in that exact scene. You open with a complaint, he comes back with missing the handoff. We're working off specs that show up two days late. Now you're stung, so you reach for your receipts. Late, I've got the timestamps right here. And he goes, Oh, we're doing timestamps now? And that's it. That's the ballgame. That's it. 90 seconds in, and you're not two colleagues fixing a process. You're two lawyers and no judge. Okay, nobody in that room is thinking about the handoff anymore. Both of you are thinking about winning, and there's nothing to win. Even the winner of that conversation loses because the loser goes back to his desk and starts, you know, keeping a file on things. That's what the complaint opener buys you. Here's the other one. The shared cost sounds like this. Hey, the handoff between our teams is broken three times this month, and it's it's costing both of us. My side eats the rework, your side eats the blame in the hops meeting, and I want to fix it. Can we dig into that? Notice what that did. The problem got a seat. The handoff is a thing that's broken, not Marcus. Okay. You name damage on both sides, which tells him you've been looking at the whole board, not just your half of it. And you ended on an invitation. Okay? Nobody has to defend anything yet because nobody's been accused of anything yet. Same facts, same frustration underneath, honestly, but different first sentence, completely different next 20 minutes. Now, that move separates the grown-ups from everybody else. Because you lay out their side of the problem on your piece of it out loud first. And part of this is on me. My team's been sending the specs overlay, which shrinks your window, and I'm sure that's not helping. I should have flagged that sooner. I I can feel some of you tightening up right now. Why would I hand them ammunition? If I admit fault, they'll just pin the whole thing on me and we'll never get to their part. That fear feels smart and it's wrong. Here's what's actually happening. And I've I've watched it play out more times than I can count. The other person walks in this conversation braced. They've got their defense preloaded, their counter list of everything your team ever screwed up on, every fumble, and going back to, you know, whenever. And when your opening move is to put your own failure on the table voluntarily, their whole prepared fight has nothing to push against. You can you can see it in their shoulders. The armor comes off, or at least comes down, because there's nothing to armor against. You didn't come to prosecute, you came to fix a thing that you're both tangled in. And something better than disarmament usually happens. Confession is weirdly contagious. You own your late specs, and more often than you'd believe, the next thing out of their mouth is their half. Yeah, and honestly, my guys have been sitting on those specs a couple days before anyone even opens them. Now it's all on the table. Both halves, and neither of you had to be dragged there. Now, is there a version where you eat your half and they just take it and give nothing back? Sure, that happens. You'll know inside of a minute, and I'll deal with that person before we're done. But really, that's the exception. And you you don't build your whole approach around the exception. You build it for the 80%, and the 80% responds to honesty with honesty. One warning on this move. Your half has to be real. Okay. Not the job interview version. My half is that I care too much about deadlines. That that's not eating crow. That's that's BS. If if your half is that you've been talking about him behind his back for a month, that bar is higher, and you might have to clear some of it. Real ownership, or don't bother, because people can smell that fake stuff instantly. All right, last move. You've gone direct, you've named the shared cost, you've eaten your half. Now comes the fix. And here's where your manager instincts will betray you if you let them. Because your own team, this is where you'd hand down, you know, the plan. Here's what we're doing, here's who owns what. And with a peer, that move that's DOA. That thing is dead on contact. He doesn't work for you. The instant you start assigning him action items, you've reminded both that you have zero authority here. And worse, you've made your fix feel like his homework. So don't hand down a verdict. Ask a real question. What would make this work on your side? And then, and this is the actual hard part, shut up and listen to the answer. A fix he helped design is a fix he'll actually run. Doesn't matter if his version is only 8% as clean as the one in your head. His 80% with him bought in, beats your 100% that he slow walks into the ground. That's that's not a a pure conversation insight. That's that's just people. We defend what we build. Okay, let him build some of it. Then nail it down before you leave the room. Okay. Loose agreements, they they disappear, they evaporate. Okay, so specs from my side by Tuesday. Your team confirms receipts same day, and if either side's slipping, we say so that day instead of saving it up. Does that work? Two sentences. Now it exists. All right. The question half of

What If They Ignore You

SPEAKER_01 19:10

you, well, maybe more than half of you have been muttering since part three. What if you run every move clean and he just blows you off? Nods through the whole thing, agrees to everything, changes nothing. Or he gets defensive anyway, or smiles in the room and then goes and tells your shared boss that you ambushed him, which is a special kind of fun. First, run the play twice. Okay. One conversation doesn't undo two years of pattern. And some people need a second pass to believe that you're actually serious. Okay, the second conversation is shorter and plainer than the first. Hey, we talked three weeks ago. We agreed on Tuesday's specs and same day confirms. It held for a week and then it just kind of slid back. What happened? No new framework. No, you know, relitigating, just holding up the agreement you both made. You'd be surprised how many people straighten up right there. Not because the problem got scarier, but because they realize you're actually tracking it. Half of chronic peer problems survival in the assumption that you'll eventually get tired and just drop it. Don't be tired. And what about the rare one who takes your crow eating and then weaponizes it? You own your late specs, and two days later your admission shows up in a meeting out of context and sounds like a confession. Yeah. Yep, those those people exist. Special people. Here's the thing, though. You just learn something that cost you one uncomfortable moment and would have eventually cost you something much bigger. This peer converts honesty into ammunition. That changes how you work with them forever. Everything in writing, agreements confirmed by email, and honestly, that's information worth the price. You didn't get burned, you got a warning at a discount. But after a genuine second attempt, here's the part that might surprise you coming from me. Now, you can go to your boss. Because now it's a different movie entirely. Going around someone you never talked to, that is triangulation. Escalating something you tried to solve, maybe twice directly, is just the truth. And you walk in with a completely different story. Not, you know, Marcus keeps blowing off, you know, blowing the hand off, but Marcus and I have talked about this twice. Here's what we agreed to, and it's still not holding, and I need it. Help. Do it in daylight too. Tell him you're doing it. Hey, I don't want this to be a surprise, but I'm bringing the handoff issue to Diane since we haven't been able to crack it ourselves. That's not going behind his back. That's going right in front of his face. The order was the whole problem. Boss last, not boss first. All right.

Escalate The Right Way And Close

SPEAKER_01 22:27

So somewhere in your work life right now, there's probably a Marcus. A peer, some friction, a conversation you've not been having for weeks, maybe months, and a wall going up, you know, one polite meeting at a time. You've thought about them, you know, at least twice during this episode. Don't don't lie to me. But here's what I want you to take with you. The reason pure conversations feel impossible is that you've got no authority to hide behind. And the reason they matter so much is the exact same fact. When there's no rank in the room, the only thing holding the whole thing together is the relationship. Which means every one of those conversations either builds a relationship or spins it. And avoidance spins it too, just slower, where you can't see the balance. So this week, run the play. Go to them, not around them. Put the problem in the third chair with a shared cost and not a complaint. Eat your half first, the real half, okay, and build the fix with them, not for them. The 40-foot walk to their office is shorter than a year of Cold War. I paid for that lesson, so you don't have to. You can do this. All right, before we wrap, quick word. If your leadership team has a few of these walls up, peers who are perfectly polite and completely done with each other, that's a thing I help organizations fix. Through Next Step Advisors, I can do keynotes, executive coaching, and leadership training on the exact kind of thing that we talked about today. Real conversations between real colleagues. If that sounds like a meeting you were in this week, come find me. Hey, and connect with me. I'm on LinkedIn, or you can hit my website. Both links are in the show notes. And if this one hit home, please do me a favor, man. Subscribe wherever you listen. And the big one, please leave a review. Okay, that is how we get the word out about the podcast, and we help more letters get better faster. Send this episode to a peer. Maybe even the one you've been avoiding. Bold move. I I dare you. I double dog dare you. All right. Keep going to them, not around them. Keep putting the problem in the third chair and keep having the conversation. Okay? Yeah. And you know why? Because those are the things that leaders do.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

Thank you for listening to Things Leaders Do. If you're looking for more tips on how to be a better leader, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and listen to next week's episode. Until next time, keep working on being a better leader by doing the things that leaders do.