I NEED HELP FOR AN HBR INTERVIEW! How do you deal with coworkers that you just can't stand?

Huggy Rao and I continue to be focused on the launch of our new book Scaling Up Excellence.  But every now and then i can't resist doing something different  I got an email the other day from Harvard Business Review writer Karen Dillon. Here is what she asked.  After reading it, I realized that it is such a hard question that I could use some help:

 

I'm working on a guidebook on the topic of office politics for HBR. It's a highly practical guide, part of a popular HBR guidebook series providing solutions for real-world problems. Each chapter identifies a challenge many people share, gives a real world example, and then asks experts how to navigate the challenge. The goal is to get away from the concept of office politics as a 'dirty' game and instead see it as a way of having a strategy for dealing with the vast array of complex human begins with whom you need to work.

I'd love to interview you for the chapter on how to work with people you really, really, really, really don't like. In fact, I can't imagine this chapter without getting you to weigh in!

Are you game? 

Any suggestions? How have you dealt with this challenge?  What tactics and strategies work?  Which are risky or unwise?