Don't Let Co-Workers Hold You Back

You can continue on the path of your own career success by not allowing co-workers with problems to affect what you accomplish during a busy day.

One provider of EAP, Ceridian LifeWorks, has reported that there are multiple ways in which co-workers inject stress into the general staff which increases tension.

Negative co-workers can abandon their workloads to you, right before an important deadline. Their hostility can wreck the personality of a workplace and negatively impact your productivity.

Bad co-workers can waste your time, or they can withhold vital information that also hurts your productivity, which reflects on your career.

According to one recent report from "New Scientist," the average worker wastes two hours each workday fielding emails, annoying colleagues and phone calls.

Here are seven practical steps you can take to avoid letting your co-workers hold you back from your workplace success

1. Be honest with yourself first. Are you guilty of being that unproductive or unpleasant to co-workers? Anxiety and nervous tension can be infectious at work if you allow it an expression in the office. If you're the bad co-worker, take proactive steps to stop your own bad behavior.

2. Identify and isolate bad co-workers. Identify toxic co-workers and develop a plan to avoid those areas of the office housing bad co-workers. Don't give them the opportunity to ruin your day.

3. Don't ignore the situation. If a co-worker is behaving badly, immediate address the situation before it becomes a long-term instigator of stress. Politely ask a co-worker to stop a behavior, and include a polite explanation. Example: "I'm very busy between 10 a.m. and noon, so please don't visit my desk during these hours."

4. Agree to disagree. Respectfully agree to disagree with colleagues who insist they are right. Example: "I agree your work is important, but my deadline is my top priority right now." Example: "I respect your perspective, but I have to return to my desk to finish a project that is important to me."

5. Don't lose your temper. Like stress, anger is contagious, too. If (Oh no! It's that time waster, Joe!) some co-worker keeps coming into your cubicle, practice deep breathing and have a fending-off excuse at the ready. Or excuse yourself to take a quick, stress-busting walk outside the building or to another floor and back again. Don't encourage bad behavior from a co-worker by demonstrating your own bad behavior. When you do this, you're out of control and the bad guy wins.

6. Use your emotionally intelligence. This is your power to respond intelligently to emotional situations. Try not to get assigned to teams where a habitually procrastinating co-worker is, or see if some smaller jobs can be assigned to them in order to keep up the team's productivity. Make and keep a record of what you accomplished on a project, and, without resorting to blaming the lazy co-worker, act positively in positively addressing your achievements in a report to your superiors.

7. Turn a negative into a positive. If you find yourself in a workplace that condones or even celebrates bad co-workers, don't focus on what you cannot change. Search diligently for a workplace that is more positive and productive and you'll change the future of your career's success. Creating weekly reports tracking your accomplishments in projects involving unproductive co-workers becomes the basis for creating a great resume. Yes, you can turn a negative into a positive and leave negative co-workers or un-productive workers behind as you sail into your next success.