Butting heads with co-workers you can’t stand working with? Stressed and frustrated because they prevent you from getting your job done?

These situations stagnate growth, productivity and revenue. There’s no reason to tolerate toxic relationships when all it takes is a conversation to repair and reinvent it.

Everyone has their own agenda at the office, and employees don’t always respect other people’s role and goals. For example, the salesperson in the field needs an internal resource to close a deal or serve a customer, so they contact the person who can help them. In the moment, they’re focused on what they need—not what they can give. And they’re not considering the fact that their request isn’t the only request the customer service rep has received today.

This type of departmental siloing adds pressure and strain to every relationship. Departmental silos shut down collaboration, cause distention and compromise the results each person is looking to achieve. And the irony is, at the end of the day, everyone is focused on the same goal—to serve customers well.

Imagine what would be possible if everyone at your agency was unconditionally supportive of each other and took personal responsibility for developing healthy, empowering relationships with their colleagues? Working within the confines of your team is one thing. But for a business to generate results, the marketing department needs to create mutually beneficial and supportive relationships with sales, sales needs to play nicely with operations, operations need to work with finance, and so forth.

So, what’s the solution to breaking down these silos to foster profitable collaboration instead of competing with other departments? A conversation is all it takes. Here are a handful of questions and conversation starters you can use with your colleagues to build the relationships that will help you successfully work with others:

1) I’d love to learn more about your responsibilities. Would you mind sharing your job description so I can be more respectful of your role?

2) By what criteria is your performance measured?

3) Do you have a defined set of performance indicators?

4) Can you help me understand the expectations the company and your manager have of you?

5) What part of your role or the work we collaborate on is most frustrating for you?

6) What do we need to do to work together in the most productive way?

7) What do you see that works well when we work together?

8) In your opinion, what’s not working that we need to address?

9) What’s your biggest concern regarding the immediate, timely requests I make?

10) If we were to redesign how we can work together, what would that look like to you?

11) How would you define exemplary, five-star customer service?

12) What is your approach to dealing with a customer issue?

13) If I need you for something, what response time should I expect?

14) How do you typically like to communicate?

15) If there’s a challenge that needs to be addressed, what’s the best way for us to approach and resolve it?

16) If I’m unable to contact you, who else can I contact in case of a timely need or challenge without overstepping you and your role?

17) If we don’t agree on something, what approach works best for us to create alignment?

18) How can I best support you in your role?

19) What are your thoughts on scheduling a weekly meeting to ensure we’re continually aligned in our approach and objectives and avoid potential problems?

20) What can we do to maintain our positive relationship?

21) What would compromise our working relationship?

22) If we notice that we’re reverting to toxic behaviors, how can we communicate that without offending each other?

23) What strategy can we put in place to ensure we’re achieving what we both want most?

24) What concerns do you have at this point?

The next step is up to you. You can retreat and give up, or you can redesign healthy, supportive relationships with people you may have given up on.

Keith Rosen, CEO of Profit Builders and founder of Coachquest, has delivered his programs to hundreds of thousands of people in practically every industry in over 75 countries. Rosen has written several bestsellers, including “Sales Leadership,” “Own Your Day” and the globally acclaimed “Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions,” winner of five international best book awards and the No. 1 bestselling sales management book on Amazon for eight consecutive years.