For six months I watched a coworker take credit for work I had done. In meetings, on calls, in emails to our manager. I smiled through it every time and told myself it was not worth the conflict. By month four I resented going to work. By month six I was considering leaving a job I otherwise loved.
The conversation I eventually had took eleven minutes. It went fine. Not perfectly, but fine. The situation improved. Looking back, I should have had that conversation in month one and saved myself five months of accumulated frustration.
If there is a coworker situation you have been putting off addressing, this is about how to actually address it.
The longer you wait the harder it gets
This is the thing most people do not realize until they have lived it. Every week you let a workplace problem sit, you are adding weight to the eventual conversation. By the time you finally say something, you are carrying months of resentment into a conversation that would have been straightforward if you had had it at the beginning.
The version of the conversation you are dreading is the version that happens after you have waited too long. Early conversations are easier, lower-stakes, and more likely to be received well because the other person has not had time to entrench in a pattern.
Be specific about what you are addressing
The biggest mistake in workplace confrontations is being vague. "I feel like there is some tension between us" or "I wanted to check in about how things have been going" leaves the other person with no idea what you are actually talking about. You will leave the conversation having said nothing and nothing will change.
Name the specific behavior and the specific instance. "In the Tuesday meeting you presented the client proposal as your own work and I had drafted most of it. I need us to talk about how we handle attribution going forward." That is a conversation. The vague version is not.
Being specific does not mean being aggressive. You can name something directly without accusation in your tone. The goal is to make sure the other person knows exactly what you are referring to so the conversation can actually address it.
Do it privately
Never address a coworker issue in front of other people. Not in a meeting, not in a group message, not by copying their manager on an email where you raise the concern. This puts them on the defensive immediately and makes the professional relationship much harder to repair.
A private conversation, whether in person or by message, gives both of you room to be honest without an audience. It also signals that your goal is to resolve the situation rather than to embarrass them, which makes them far more likely to actually engage with what you are saying.
Say what you need, not what they did wrong
Framing the conversation around what you need going forward is more effective than framing it around a detailed case for why they were wrong. Both might be true. But one of those framings invites a conversation and the other invites a defense.
"I need us to be clearer about how we divide and attribute work on shared projects" is easier to engage with than "you took credit for my work and that was wrong." Even if the second sentence is accurate, the first one moves the conversation toward resolution rather than toward who was right.
Do not bring it to your manager before you bring it to them
Unless the situation involves something serious like harassment or a policy violation, going to a manager before you have spoken to the coworker directly is usually the wrong order of operations. It escalates before you have given the other person a chance to address it themselves, and it typically makes the professional relationship much harder to recover.
Try the direct conversation first. If it goes nowhere or the problem continues, then escalate. But give the direct route a genuine attempt before you involve anyone else.
What to say and how to start
The opening is always the hardest part of these conversations. "Can I talk to you about something?" is fine but it creates anticipatory dread. Something more specific is better. "I wanted to talk about how we handled the attribution on the Henderson project. Do you have ten minutes this week?"
If you are doing this by message, unsaidit can help you draft something that is direct and professional without being aggressive. You describe the situation and what you need to address, and it gives you options for how to open the conversation in a way that is more likely to go well.
Eleven minutes. That is all it took, once I finally did it. Do not wait six months.