Once I heard a story of two department managers who had ongoing issues with each other’s work, which got out of hand to a point that a senior manager had to intervene.
This senior manager’s solution to resolve this conflict was simple: temporarily reassign both managers’ departments to each other, so they end up doing each other’s work. As such, if any one of these managers wanted to do something different in each other’s department they could do it, no strings attached.
This experience was eye-opening, as the managers understood why things couldn’t be done exactly as they wanted in these respective departments, becoming more sympathetic to each other’s work. In the long run, this solution led to these department heads becoming very close colleagues and their departments working together in the most efficient way in the whole company.
The lesson here is simple: if you have a conflict with someone else’s work, temporarily try to do their work, or at least try to learn what it takes to do their work, instead of just criticizing it. Often, you will find that there is more to their work than what meets the eye.
Research supports that if your boss knows how to do your work, you will have much more smooth sailing with your work (providing that the issue wasn’t with you in the first place).
