How to Work with (Almost) Anyone

How many of your working relationships are just “fine”? You collaborate, meet deadlines, exchange polite updates—and yet, something’s missing. In How to Work with (Almost) Anyone, Michael Bungay Stanier (often called MBS) asks a provocative question: what if you could design every work relationship so it was the best possible relationship—one that’s safe, vital, and repairable? He argues that our professional success and happiness depend not on chance encounters or personality fits, but on intentional conversations that build trust and resilience. MBS contends that healthy work partnerships aren’t lucky accidents; they’re consciously crafted through a framework he calls the Best Possible Relationship (BPR) and anchored by a single practice: the Keystone Conversation.

This book isn’t about idealized team harmony or forced friendliness. It’s a practical guide to strengthening real-world relationships—those between managers and employees, peers, clients, and even difficult colleagues. MBS gives you tactical steps to turn friction into flow and unspoken expectations into deliberate design. He calls this movement an effort to improve ten million working relationships. Big promise? Maybe, but the wisdom here is deeply human and actionable.

The Core Argument: Stop Leaving Relationships to Chance

Most people start a new professional partnership by diving straight into tasks. We introduce ourselves, exchange small talk, and rush for results. Then, as inevitable misunderstandings arise—a missed expectation, a clash in styles, a moment of stress—things get awkward or resentful. Stanier argues this happens because we rarely talk about how we work together; we talk only about what we work on. The result is fragile collaboration. His antidote is simple yet profound: pause early and have a Keystone Conversation. This proactive discussion sets up how you’ll communicate, handle conflict, and repair ruptures when they occur.

The Three Pillars of a Great Relationship

MBS proposes that the Best Possible Relationship rests on three qualities. First, safe: psychological safety where you can speak up without fear of humiliation. Second, vital: energizing and growth-oriented, designed to help both parties flourish. Third, repairable: resilient enough to survive inevitable disappointments and cracks. Drawing inspiration from Amy Edmondson’s research on psychological safety, Daniel Pink’s ideas on motivation, and systems-thinking metaphors from ecology and architecture, he reframes work relationships as living ecosystems that need ongoing care, not one-time agreements.

“Every relationship becomes suboptimal at some point.”

Stanier reminds readers that deterioration is inevitable—but disintegration isn’t. Relationships thrive when designed to withstand stress and built on mutual commitment to repair rather than blame.

The Keystone Conversation: The Framework for Intentional Design

Borrowing from architecture’s keystone—the wedge-shaped stone that locks an arch into place—Stanier introduces the Keystone Conversation as the stabilizing element of any working relationship. It’s a discussion structured around five deceptively simple but deeply revealing questions: What’s your best? What are your practices and preferences? What can we learn from successful past relationships? What can we learn from frustrating ones? And how will we fix things when they go wrong? Each question invites openness, vulnerability, and practical understanding of each person’s work rhythms.

By answering and exchanging perspectives on these questions, you create shared responsibility and the permission to keep talking about the relationship long after the initial meeting. It’s not therapy or team-building fluff—it’s organisational clarity through personal honesty.

Why This Matters in Modern Work

Organizations often claim to value collaboration, but few teach people how to collaborate consciously. As management trends increasingly focus on psychological safety and engagement (echoing Google’s Project Oxygen study), MBS’s method translates these ideals into simple, repeatable behavior. It’s radical in its normalcy: have a human conversation before conflict forces you to. By doing so, you protect productivity, morale, and mental health.

He also admits the process takes courage. Suggesting a Keystone Conversation defies corporate norms that prioritize efficiency over connection. It’s unusual and sometimes uncomfortable. But as MBS’s Silicon Valley executive friend warns, “Not doing it is the mistake.” And once practiced, the awkwardness fades; what remains is an infrastructure of trust you can rely on, even under stress.

A Human Approach to Success and Happiness

Throughout the book, he weaves stories from his thirty years of professional experience—moments of being loved, undermined, inspired, and devastated. His conclusion? Working well with others isn’t a soft skill; it’s the hardest skill—and the one that defines whether you flourish or flounder. Stanier connects these lessons to thinkers like Esther Perel (“Love is a verb”), Twyla Tharp (“Maintenance is an art”), and Nick Cave (“We’re gloriously entangled”). The point: relationships, like creativity, require constant tending.

In sum, How to Work with (Almost) Anyone argues that you can’t outsource good collaboration to luck. You create it through structured, brave, and ongoing conversation. Expect turbulence—people are complex, messy, and inconsistent—but conversations about the relationship itself are what turn ordinary work partnerships into extraordinary ones. That’s how you work with almost anyone—not perfectly, but intentionally.

At the heart of the Best Possible Relationship are three qualities—safety, vitality, and repairability. MBS adapts Leonardo da Vinci’s ideal proportions metaphor from architecture to human collaboration: instead of strength, utility, and beauty, workplaces need relationships that are safe, vital, and repairable. These principles form the DNA of resilient professional partnerships.

Safety: The Ground Zero of Trust

Creating psychological safety means removing fear from work interactions. Drawing from Amy Edmondson’s research at Harvard, Stanier defines safety as the belief that you won’t be punished or humiliated for speaking up. He cites data showing that two-thirds of employees “cover” aspects of their identity at work, hiding who they are to survive. Safety starts when people can bring their full selves—their ideas, flaws, and identities—without fear of ridicule. In practice, that means leaders model openness, inclusion, and curiosity.

Vitality: Amplifying the Good

Once safety is secured, vitality asks: what are we playing for? MBS channels Dan Pink’s motivation trio—autonomy, mastery, and purpose—to build relationships full of energy and growth. “Vital” means not just functional, but enlivening. The partnership becomes a source of creative tension—support and challenge balanced so each person gets to do meaningful work. You design not just comfort, but engagement.

“Vital acknowledges ‘safe’ as table stakes, then asks: what’s the game and what are we playing for?”

This is the stage where the relationship turns from fulfilling obligations to pursuing shared excellence.

Repairability: Resilience in Action

Even good relationships crack. Repairable ones don’t shatter—they bounce back. MBS makes clear that “safe and vital” relationships still break, but being repairable means committing to fix damage quickly and compassionately. He distinguishes between internal “cracks” (small irritations and misunderstandings) and external “dents” (pressures from stress, deadlines, crises). Repair isn’t automatic; it’s a deliberate process of naming what’s wrong, staying curious, and reconnecting.

Together, these three attributes create a structure much like an ecosystem: safe lets diversity thrive, vital drives evolution, and repairable allows regeneration. With these principles, relationships become sturdy yet flexible—capable of enduring challenges and adapting to growth.

The Keystone Conversation revolves around five questions that act like coordinates guiding honest, practical dialogue. Each one digs into a different layer of understanding, allowing you and your colleague to map how you work best together.

1. The Amplify Question: What’s Your Best?

Start by identifying your natural strengths and peak moments—the activities that energize you. MBS borrows Marcus Buckingham’s insight that “a strength is something that strengthens you,” not just something you’re good at. He warns against the “curse of competence”: when you get stuck doing tasks you’re skilled at but hate. By distinguishing “good at” from “fulfilled by,” you reveal work that energizes you versus work that drains you. Sharing this insight helps others know when you’ll shine and when support might be needed.

2. The Steady Question: What Are Your Practices and Preferences?

This question surfaces your working rhythms—the quirks others need to know to collaborate easily. Do you prefer early mornings or late nights? Slack messages or emails? Deadlines or flexibility? MBS compares this to crafting a “Read Me document,” like assembly instructions for an IKEA bookshelf, but insists it must be conversational, not declarative. Understanding each other’s routines reduces frustration and builds empathy around differences.

3. The Good Date Question: What Can You Learn from Successful Past Relationships?

Reflect on partnerships where you clicked—where trust, clarity, and humor flourished. Analyze what made them work: shared values, communication habits, environmental conditions, or timing. MBS notes our “self-serving bias”: we give ourselves too much credit for successes. So credit both sides—what the other person did and how you contributed. You’ll extract patterns to recreate later.

4. The Bad Date Question: What Can You Learn from Frustrating Past Relationships?

This is the mirror image of the Good Date. Instead of burying the bad, you mine it for wisdom. What behaviors triggered mistakes or tension? What did you say—or fail to say—that worsened things? Acknowledging these patterns reduces shame and prepares you to recognize early danger signs. Stanier writes that “there’s wisdom in the wound”: knowing what broke helps prevent repeat damage.

5. The Repair Question: How Will You Fix It When Things Go Wrong?

This final question normalizes imperfection. Drawing metaphors from tsunamis and bridges, MBS emphasizes preparation—expect things to break, then plan how you’ll reconnect. He uses Mr. Rogers’s wisdom: “Anything mentionable is manageable.” Discuss in advance how you’ll handle tension—naming issues, staying curious, apologizing quickly, rebuilding trust. Just having this dialogue in advance makes future repairs faster and gentler.

Together, these five questions transform vague compatibility into explicit agreement. You create a practical map of collaboration that grows over time. As MBS puts it, “You’re figuring out what success looks like together.”

Once you’ve prepared answers to the five questions, the real challenge begins: having the conversation. It’s a deliberate, step-by-step process designed to feel safe, useful, and uplifting. MBS structures it into three stages—Invitation, Middle, and End—each with specific actions and scripts.

Invitation: Make the First Move

Don’t wait for the other person. Like standing awkwardly at a school dance, someone must walk across the room first. You invite them by explaining what the conversation is about—how you’ll talk about working together, not the work itself. Share the five questions in advance. MBS’s rule: avoid mysterious invitations (“Let’s talk—I’ve got feedback”). Transparency lowers anxiety, builds trust, and raises what he calls the “TERA Quotient”—Tribe, Expectation, Rank, and Autonomy. These four elements activate the brain’s sense of safety and collaboration.

Start: Make It Safe

Opening the conversation with warmth and clarity matters. Choose a neutral setting, co-create the agenda, and match vulnerability levels—if you share openly, they likely will too. Stanier teaches that you must be “the strongest signal in the room”: your calm and curiosity set the tone. Smile, breathe, and hold your body open. Those simple cues quiet everyone’s defensive “lizard brain.”

Middle: Ask and Answer

The conversation’s power lies in reciprocity. This isn’t you interviewing someone—it’s mutual exchange. Stanier draws on Peter Block’s concept of “social contracts”: both parties contribute value. Go through all five questions without skipping the hard ones. Answer each question yourself before expecting theirs. Listening deeply—without rushing to action—creates understanding and permission to revisit tough topics later.

End: Appreciate the Good

End with gratitude and reflection. Ask, “What was most useful here for you?” and share what you found valuable. This positive close locks learning into memory (using the recency effect, as shown by cognitive psychology). Appreciation anchors the relationship in goodwill, making future conversations easier. As MBS quips, “Too many important conversations end with a whimper.” Finish on a high note—it’s how you turn a brave conversation into an ongoing practice.

Stanier emphasizes that the Keystone Conversation is only a start. Relationships, like houses or gardens, degrade without upkeep. He warns, “Disintegration is inevitable,” but offers six maintenance principles to keep relationships alive: stay curious, stay vulnerable, stay kind, adjust always, repair often, and reset as needed.

Stay Curious, Stay Vulnerable, Stay Kind

These three are daily mindsets. Curiosity reframes frustrations from “Why are they doing this?” to “What might be going on for them?” Vulnerability means telling the truth about what’s difficult or unclear—without oversharing. Kindness roots the relationship in empathy and positive intent. MBS quotes Aldous Huxley’s late-life advice: “Try to be a little kinder.” That alone could transform workplaces.

Adjust Always

Think of steering a small boat—you’re constantly tweaking sails to catch the wind. Relationships require the same micro-adjustments: clarifying priorities, checking assumptions, noticing tone. Small corrections prevent big crashes.

Repair Often

Handle minor damage quickly. “Sunlight disinfects,” he says—bring wounds to light before they fester. Ask, “What needs to be said that hasn’t yet been said?” This principle extends John Gottman’s concept of “bids”—small gestures of connection. The ratio of positive to negative interactions (five-to-one) predicts resilience. Keep adding deposits of goodwill.

Reset as Needed

Even thriving relationships need periodic resets. Sometimes collaboration stalls; sometimes roles change. Having the courage to stop and say, “Can we begin again?” can revive energy and clarity. He calls this the “wake” moment—a chance to celebrate what’s ended and rebuild what’s next. It’s a dignified, generous closure that turns endings into beginnings.

Maintenance is not optional; it’s the art that keeps connection human. As choreographer Twyla Tharp put it, “Love—or relationships—is the art of constant maintenance.”

Even in great partnerships, things go wrong. MBS provides sophisticated frameworks for orienting yourself before reacting. Drawing from conflict theory and military strategy, he introduces tools like the OODA loop—Observe, Orient, Decide, Act—and Edgar Schein’s “one up, one down” awareness. These methods turn emotional mess into insight.

Understanding the Landscape: Data, Judgments, Feelings, Wants

When conflict hits, peel apart the noise into four buckets: data (facts), judgments (opinions), feelings (mad, sad, glad, ashamed, afraid), and wants (what you actually need). This practice, derived from Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication, helps you see the difference between what’s true and what’s narrative. Most of us skip straight to judgment: “They’re unreliable.” Observing data—“the report was late”—creates clarity without blame. Finally, naming what you want—support, clarity, respect—makes solutions possible.

Balancing Power: One Up, One Down

Power imbalance distorts communication. Schein’s model asks: are you “one up” (controlling, directive) or “one down” (passive, resigned)? Knowing your position helps rebalance the dynamic. Relationships thrive when both move toward equal “adult-to-adult” footing. Awareness prevents repeating victim-persecutor loops (a concept also explored by Stephen Karpman and Terry Real).

Fighting Well

Conflict is inevitable, but good conflict is productive. MBS borrows from Amanda Ripley’s High Conflict and Liane Davey’s The Good Fight to outline essentials of generous fighting: breathe, listen, concede when possible, own your statements (“I make up that…”), and focus on mutual success rather than “winning.” The goal is to de-escalate tension until repair becomes possible.

Through these tools, Stanier reframes conflict from catastrophe into craft. By understanding what’s really going on, naming needs, and staying curious, you transform reactive fights into opportunities for deeper connection. Repair is not just fixing—it’s learning together.

Stanier closes with a wide-angle view: relationships are not soft skills, but the hard system that shapes everything in life and work. Drawing on physics, biology, and psychology, he argues that collaboration is the modern law of nature—it’s “relationships all the way down.”

From Atoms to Ecosystems

Quantum mechanics teaches that nothing exists independently—every particle affects others. Similarly, trees communicate through underground fungi networks (as Peter Wohlleben and Suzanne Simard describe). MBS compares workplaces to these interdependent systems: your energy, tone, and behavior influence others just as theirs shape you. Seeing this interconnectedness shifts your mindset from control to awareness.

Soft Skills Are the Hardest Skills

Stanier critiques calling empathy and communication “soft.” These are precision tools that keep organizations humane and effective. Building a Best Possible Relationship requires technical skill—self-awareness, listening, repairing, and reset—all measurable and learnable. The irony is that “soft skills” are what sustain “hard results.”

Working with Almost Anyone

The “almost” in the title admits humanity’s limits—sometimes relationships fail. But even then, intentional conversations make the worst ones less painful and the best ones extraordinary. Not every partnership becomes magical; every one, however, can get better. He ends with humility and humor, quoting a BBC headline about a man who joined a search party for himself—proof that the hardest person to understand is often you.

Ultimately, his message is both practical and philosophical: success and happiness rest on how well we work with others. Every conversation you have is an act of architecture—you’re building bridges that might just hold the weight of the future.