How do you deal with a colleague who likes to argue with you?

Question

I am an intermediate level professional and I just joined a company and started coworking with a guy who is one level senior to me. He has been very generous in giving me suggestions, trainings and work guidance. However, he is very smart and he almost argues with every single point I make and I never get a kudos on whatever I contribute. Ironically, sometimes, he denied my ideas in the beginning, and then we ended up with using my ideas because he realized later on that what he thought was not right.

Maybe he is just that kind of person who is always argumentative, but sometimes I just feel uncomfortable talking to him because I know he will deny whatever I say. How can I keep things smooth with him?

Answer 1

Grab a [insert beverage/meal of your choice] and ask if he/she is free to chat over food.

Although the topic of discussion may vary, offering to eat with the coworker allows you the opportunity to discuss any rough spots in your working relationship.

If his/her behavior is affecting the company in a specific way,

He actually just say 'no' right after I say something, and he does have that habit of saying 'no...' a lot even to our clients.

then this is something that needs to be addressed as it would be unbecoming if there is dissentation in front of clients. As for everything else, keep the dialogue open even if he shuts it down initially, say how you would love to hear his/her counterpoints and see how your ideas can be incorporated with the final product.

Answer 2

I'm somewhat similar to your argumentative colleague. I have strong opinions and I love to argue because I believe that through a good argument, both sides can come out with more wisdom than they went into the argument with.

Some people are hard for me to work with because they don't respond when I start a discussion, or they just drop a statement without any arguments to back it up. To me, this feels like they're saying "This is the objective truth but I won't bother to explain why" which clashes directly with my need to know why I am wrong if that happens to be the case. This seems applicable to your situation: perhaps if you had provided a deeper explanation of your ideas from the beginning, you could have convinced your colleague and saved the both of you the time it took to work on the 'wrong' solution?

One of the most productive coworker relationships I ever had was with a coworker whom I had a very difficult start with, until he realised that I am not just arguing for arguments sake but am inviting him to explain his ideas to me so that I can understand it and we can consider the pro's and con's of the idea together by discussing it.

On the other hand, some people are worse than me and will say 'no' to any idea that isn't theirs, just because it didn't come from them. Those people are a lot harder to deal with because they're not actually interested in what you have to say. In this case, you probably want to talk to your manager and explain that you're having difficulties working with this colleague because you feel that they don't value your knowledge and experience.

In the end, you'll have to try to figure out which of these two cases applies. I would advocate trying the approach of explaining your ideas further first, since this gives you a strong argument if it turns out to be the second case: you'll be able to say to your manager something like "no matter how well I explain my ideas and back them up with arguments, [coworker] just doesn't seem to listen to me and just shots me down at every turn".

Answer 3

Let him win. It's only an argument if there's a disagreement.

Like this:

YOU: I've learned that a burning candle uses up oxygen in the surrounding air and produces carbon dioxide.

HIM: You're wrong. Burning candles produce phlogiston which fills the air immediately surrounding the candle.

YOU: Interesting. I hadn't thought of it that way before.

You'll find that other people either already know this person argues all the time or they will quickly figure out that he does, and they will give you the benefit of the doubt.

Often with someone like this, they will just argue no matter what, even if you ask them not to argue. They will simply argue with you about how much they argue.

Note that if he ever says something insulting when he disagrees with you, it's appropriate to tell him you feel insulted and you would like him to not speak like that in the future. If that happens, try to say nothing about the actual disagreement and focus on the insult. He will probably argue about whether it was actually insulting but if you mention the actual point of disagreement he is likely to focus on that and not on your feelings.