How to Deal with Jealousy and Exclusion in the Workplace?

Autumn is my former colleague from McKinsey, with a wealth of valuable workplace experience. After leaving McKinsey, we each embarked on different career journeys. Today, I’d like to share some highlights from our conversation, in the form of questions and answers, hoping they will be helpful to you as you navigate your own career path.

Autumn: I've said before that when I'm unhappy, I always think of ways to comfort myself and try to reduce my worries. One of the methods is to imagine the world as vast and immense, imagining myself flying to a very, very high place, then looking down at a tree: in that tree, there's a bird's nest, and inside the nest, there's a feather—a very delicate, tiny, fluffy feather... My feeling is: the world is incredibly vast, and I can see far, far into the distance, yet every microcosm is so small. Whenever I'm unhappy, I think to myself, the world is huge and complex, and all the messy things happening at my company right now are nothing in the grand scheme of things. What I mean is: let's take it easy, don't take it too seriously. If it really doesn't work out, I can just leave. I can't let one or two people, this company, or this one thing affect me or impact my lifelong happiness and joy. It's not the deciding factor in my career.

Second, there are people like that everywhere. This has been a significant lesson for me as well. Before I left McKinsey, I was particularly critical, often thinking that this foreign colleague wasn’t good enough, that my teammates weren’t up to par, that this person was selfish, or that someone else lacked a sense of responsibility. When I went to Amazon, I realized McKinsey was actually quite good. After I joined a startup, I felt Amazon was still pretty good. Then, when I moved to an even smaller startup, I found the previous startup was actually quite decent. Eventually, you come to understand that every environment has people who don’t quite mesh with your personality. I think treating it as a normal part of life makes it easier to handle. I have indeed encountered jealousy. Honestly, I believe it’s precisely because I’m better than you that you feel jealous. Even though others might treat you unkindly or say inappropriate things because of it, I actually feel quite pleased about it. When I think about it, others act this way out of jealousy—because you truly are stronger, better, and luckier than they are. So, I’ll just keep being strong, excellent, and fortunate. If someone speaks ill of you or clashes with you, just treat these situations as normal occurrences in life and handle them accordingly.

Second, you can choose how to deal with others' jealousy. Others may indeed affect you, but ultimately, you should treat them with the greatest kindness. It's possible that this person may not understand you for a long time, but I have no regrets. When you think through the whole situation and realize I never meant you any harm, I believe others will at least be able to see things clearly.

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