【中英双语】同事交往有套路，把握这3点让你在职场如鱼得水

Navigating Peer Relationships While Climbing the Ladder

by Amii Barnard-Bahn

Just after finishing law school, I started a clerkship at a firm. There were seven of us from around the country; we worked long hours and were inseparable outside of work. Bonded by our entry-level rank and modest budget, we had lunch together daily, often at the Taco Bell across the street. After work, we commiserated at the local dive bar.

从法学院毕业后，我开始在一家公司实习。团队的七个人来自全国各地，大多数时间大家都在一起工作，因此闲暇时也总是形影不离。由于我们职级较低，预算有限，每天都会一起去街对面的塔可钟吃午饭。下班后，则会去当地的潜水酒吧共度良宵。

Underlying these relationships simmered a darker reality. We knew that at the end of 10 weeks, only three or four of us would be offered a job. It was just the way it worked. We were colleagues — and competitors.

但在这样的关系背后，却隐藏着一个残酷的现实。那就是10周以后，我们之中只有三或四个人能继续留下来从事这份工作。也就是说，我们既是同事，也是竞争对手。

These kinds of stressful situations are common with peer working relationships and grow exponentially in risk and complexity as you near the C-suite. They are both a conundrum and a paradox. The very people you need to collaborate with to get your work done and affect your satisfaction and joy at work, are also your competitors in a game of Survivor.

在工作中，这样“亦敌亦友”的同事关系并不少见。当你越接近核心管理层，相应的风险和复杂程度越会成倍增长。这是个难题，同样也是悖论——与你合作完成工作甚至“甘苦与共”的人，也是你在这场“幸存者游戏”中的竞争对手。

The fact is, the workplace is one of the few environments in which we are forced into relationships. We must work together amiably and effectively to achieve organizational goals. And if we’re ambitious or stay at an organization long enough, eventually, most peers become our bosses or our subordinates.

事实上，工作场所是为数不多的被动建立关系的地方。我们必须友好且高效地合作，才能实现组织的目标。同时，如果彼此都是事业心强或者有抱负的人，再或者一起工作得够久，最终，大多数同事也会逐渐发展成自己的上级或下属。

So how can we effectively navigate these potentially messy — and critically important — relationships? Here are three strategies, based on my experience as an executive and now as a coach supporting executive clients.

那么，该怎么做才能有效地驾驭这些复杂而又至关重要的关系？这里有三个策略可供参考，它们都是我这些年担任高管以及现在作为教练支持高管客户的经验之谈。

Don't expect friendship.

不要试图在工作中发展友谊

Several years ago, a peer and I were aiming for different SVP roles in the same department. I considered her a friend. We’d had lunch together for years, shared parenting issues, been publicly lauded as Top 20 performers in the company the year prior, and we were navigating a massive reorganization with a new C-suite boss.

几年前，我和同部门一位同事是不同高级副总裁职位的候选人。我将她视为朋友，多年来我们一起吃午饭，分享育儿问题，上一个年度还一起入选公司的前20名先进员工代表。当时，我们需要与一位新的公司高管进行大规模重组。

I hadn’t naturally warmed to our new boss, but my colleague clearly had become visibly favored. On our way to yoga class, seeking guidance, I confided, “I’m having a hard time building a relationship with our new boss.” She smiled widely, “I don’t know why; I think she’s terrific!” and made it clear the conversation was over and not to be revisited. That exchange and subsequent interactions indicated that she was not going to risk her new status to help me. That was the end of the work friendship, and after biding my time for a year, I left for an executive role at another company.

我对新任老板并没有萌生天然的好感，但我的同事显然很受这位领导青睐。在我们去上瑜伽课的路上，谈到这一话题时我坦白说：“我很难与新的老板相处融洽。”她微笑着说：“我不太能理解你的感受，因为我觉得她很棒！”显然，谈话可以到此为止了，她并不想继续这个话题。经过这次交流和随后的互动，我很清楚她担任新的职务后不会冒着风险来帮我。这份工作中的友谊就这样结束了，僵持了一年之后，我离职去了另外一家公司担任行政职务。

While it’s important to establish cordial working relationships, there’s a limit to how much emotional bonding is healthy as you climb the corporate ladder. Keep it friendly (like remembering the name of their partner or kids), but maintain boundaries. Oversharing personal information (like religious or political beliefs) can cause conflict in the relationship, leading to awkwardness and getting work done effectively. Don’t look to work as a place to have your core emotional needs met; invest in relationships and organizations you care about outside your company.

可见，虽然建立亲密的工作关系很重要，但在职场晋升的过程中，情感纽带维系在正常的限度范围即可。保持友好（例如记住他们伴侣或孩子的名字），但要有一定的边界感——要知道，过度分享个人信息（例如宗教或政治信仰）容易引发冲突，甚至造成尴尬，以至于无法顺利地推进工作。因此，不要把工作场所看成满足主要情感需求的地方；你尽可以在公司之外，发展自己看重的关系或组织。

Manage sideways.

采取迂回战略

When you’re being considered for the senior-most executive ranks, leaders will go to your peers and ask for their views. It’s often an informal dialogue, generally not acknowledged as part of the formal performance review process. Some organizations, most famously Amazon, have even changed their performance model to give more credit to peer feedback.

当领导考虑擢升你的职级时，他们往往会通过一些非正式的谈话向你的同事征询意见，而这种问询通常不会计入正式的绩效审查过程。以亚马逊为代表的一些组织甚至为此改变了自己的绩效模式，更为倚重同事之间的反馈。

But with our peers, we don’t always “manage up” or act on our best behavior like we might with our boss or direct reports. Our peers are therefore the likeliest group to experience, observe, and know our weaknesses. “Peers have the best read on you — and are the harshest critics, since they are at your level,” John Horton, an organizational psychologist, told me. Over his years of experience conducting workplace assessments, he has found that we’re most likely to exhibit derailing leadership behaviors to our peers.

但是，并非所有的同事都会一心为你考虑，在向老板汇报时强调你的优点或业绩。相反，同事是最有可能观察和了解到我们弱点的那群人。组织心理学家约翰·霍顿指出：“由于长年一起工作，同事往往最了解你，因此对你的批评也最有可能一针见血。”根据多年来对工作场所评估的经验所得，他发现人们对自己同事的评价反而最有可能影响领导的决定。

This aligns with my own experience conducing 360 reviews for clients. For example, one of my clients — despite her objectively top numbers in sales — was being blocked from an executive role due to negative feedback from peers absorbed two levels up at the executive leadership team. It took thorough feedback interviews, six months of coaching, and the development of a perception management strategy to undo the damage, and she finally received the promotion she deserved.

这与我为客户进行360度评估的经验相吻合。例如，我的一位客户尽管销售业绩名列前茅，但是同事向执行领导层提供的负面反馈，将她挡在了管理职位以外。经过深入的反馈访谈和为期半年的辅导，并为她制定感知管理策略，她最终如愿以偿得到了提升。

To understand your impact on your peers, ask them. Make regular time to check in and find out how you and you team’s actions are affecting achievement of their goals. Find common ground to support them and activate the norm of reciprocity — the concept that people help those who help them. Making peer inquiry a routine habit can surface opportunities and issues early, giving you a chance to cement the relationship and course correct, if necessary.

因此，要想知道同事对你的看法，可以直接请教他们。定期沟通，了解你和团队的支持能否帮到他们的工作。从而找到彼此互惠互利的交互点——人们往往愿意帮助那些有助于他们的人。如此一来，把同事间的反馈当成一种常规习惯，就可以及早发现机会和问题，让你来得及巩固关系，并在必要时纠正方向。

Sometimes simply affirming others does the trick. One of my clients was struggling with a key peer who would barely acknowledge him. Working together, we agreed he would find something worthy that this colleague put forward in each executive meeting, and visibly agree — through commenting or body language. After a few months, his peer asked him out for coffee to get to know him better and that kicked off a workable relationship.

另外，肯定他人也能起到立竿见影的效果。我的一位客户正在与另一位习惯性否定他的重要同事“斗智斗勇”。经过商量，我建议他在每次例会上针对这位同事提出的有价值的想法，从言辞或身体语言上予以赞同。几个月后，这位同事邀请他一起喝咖啡，以便更好地增进双方了解，这便开启了一种可行的关系。

Hone your political skills.

磨炼“政治”技能

Peers serve critical information purposes — they often possess valuable knowledge that can alert you about what’s happening in the organization and why.

同事还担负着非常关键的“情报”作用——他们往往拥有丰富的知识和经验，可以提醒你组织中发生了什么以及原因所在。

But as Jeffrey Pfeffer, Stanford University professor and renowned authority on organizational power, told me, peer relationships are “a mixed-motive game.” Bluntly put, “the best, most politically effective peers will be able to successfully hide their true agendas and actions. So the first thing one needs to do with peers is, to the extent possible, find out what they are up to,” he says.

不过，正如斯坦福大学教授、著名的组织权力权威杰弗里·普费弗所说的那样，同事关系是“一场混合动机的游戏”。直截了当地说就是，“最有城府和政治头脑的同事总是能成功隐藏自己的真实想法和行动。因此，与他们相处的首要任务是尽可能找出他们的目的。”

When I served on the executive team at one company, my colleague who was our CHRO was always tight-lipped about everything, only sharing what was absolutely necessary with her peers about her business plans. You never really knew what she was up to, or whether she truly supported your initiatives. She was tightly aligned with our president, however, and made sure his objectives were executed. It paid off — when he suddenly left to become CEO of a larger, more prestigious company, he took her with him to lead HR.

以前，当我在一家公司的执行团队任职时，公司的首席财务官就是这样的风格——你永远不知道她在做什么，或者她是否真正支持你的倡议。她总是对所有的事情守口如瓶，只在绝对必要的情况下才与同事分享她的商业计划。然而，她却与公司总裁保持着紧密的联系，并坚定地贯彻执行他的目标。“回报”显而易见——当总裁突然离开，到另一家更大、更有声望的公司担任首席执行官时，他也带着她一起去了新的公司领导人力资源部。

To ensure you’re not left behind, candidly evaluate the behaviors that are rewarded in your organization. Examine who gets promoted and why. Be strategic, and broker partnerships with colleagues who are in favor, finding common ground for advancing mutually beneficial agendas. In a sharp-elbows culture, you may need to be more guarded.

所以，为了不让自己“掉队”，你要及时关注组织做出的奖励决定，并进行客观的评估和分析，判断谁能得到晋升以及为什么。做这些事要讲究策略，与意见一致的同事建立伙伴关系，尽量本着求同存异，互惠互利的原则，达成共同的愿景。当然，在锐意进取的企业文化里，你可能需要相对谨慎一些。

It’s also advantageous to manage your emotions and cultivate a poker face. According to Pfeffer, “Getting along, let alone being successful in the world, often requires a large amount of inauthenticity and self-regulation.” As you approach senior levels of the organization, you often can’t indulge emotions like irritation, anger, or fatigue without running the risk of impacting morale, being misinterpreted, or damaging relationships.

此外，善于管理自己的情绪甚至保持一张扑克脸也很有利。根据普费弗的观点，“相处，更不用说在世界上取得成功，往往需要隐藏真实的性情并学会自我调节”。当你越是接近组织的核心层，越不能“放飞自我”，任由烦躁、愤怒或疲劳这样的情绪蔓延，否则极有可能影响士气、被误解甚至破坏彼此的关系。

Executive leadership relies heavily, if informally, on peer perceptions of you for promotional opportunities — whether they are fair and accurate or not. Ambitious professionals will heed the strategies shared above for navigating these complex relationships as they ascend to the C-suite.

总之，我们在职场上的晋升机会，很大程度上有赖于同事对执行领导层的反馈——无论他们是否公平和准确。事业心爆棚的专业人士在晋级核心领导层的过程中，会注重以上分享的策略，以便驾驭好其中复杂的关系。

Amii Barnard-Bahn, a former Fortune Global 50 executive, is a consultant and speaker who specializes in accelerating the success of leaders and their teams. Her clients include Gap, Adobe, Chegg, Boehringer Ingelheim, and Bank of the West. 

阿米·巴纳德·巴恩是《财富》杂志全球50强的前高管，她是一名顾问和演讲者，专门负责加速领导者及其团队的成功。其客户包括Gap、Adobe、Chegg、勃林格殷格翰和西部银行。

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