Some might say that the decision by Santander, the Spanish bank, to publicise the productivity of its relationship with Abbey, its UK subsidiary, through an advertising campaign drawing parallels to the team spirit of the McLaren Mercedes Formula One outfit, has been a disaster.

After all, the F1 team’s Spanish driver, Fernando Alonso, has whinged all season that McLaren favours its British driver, Lewis Hamilton. Hamilton, who will be hoping he can seal the world title tomorrow in China, has, in turn, moaned about his team-mate's driving. Meanwhile, Ron Dennis, the team principal, had an argument with the Spaniard, which ultimately led McLaren to be stripped of all points in the constructors’ championship and fined $100 million for its involvement in a spy scandal. Frankly, more team spirit has been exhibited by Britney Spears and Kevin Federline.

On closer inspection, while Santander’s campaign has undoubtedly been the biggest clanger in sports sponsorship since a relegated Sheffield Wednesday forced its players to sport pink and yellow Chupa-Chups logos on their shirts, the bank has inadvertently made an important point. In real life, teamwork is rarely how it is presented in corporate brochures: all smiles and hugs between people of different racial backgrounds. Often, as at McLaren, teams are riven with tensions, and sometimes our closest colleagues are the people we can least stand. We don’t need to look far for examples. Morrisons, Arsenal and Vodafone have all suffered high-profile boardroom disputes in recent years. Show me a family business and I’ll show you a bunch of people who want to bludgeon one another to death. And then there are Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, Lennon and McCartney, the Gallagher brothers and Spandau Ballet.

An Australian survey from a few years ago named government, advertising and human resources as the sectors most susceptible to feuding. But no one is immune, and in my experience the creative and charitable sectors are the worst for bitching. There is perhaps no better illustration than the story this week about the Italian convent that is being closed down after a dispute broke out between its last three remaining nuns. So badly did relations deteriorate between the sisters of Santa Clara in Bari that the mother superior was admitted to hospital with scratches to her face.

We all fall out with a close colleague at some point of our careers. There are lessons to be drawn from McLaren, albeit not the ones Santander intended. At least, there are lessons to be drawn from how the situation has been handled by Hamilton, the only person who seems to have benefited from the debacle. They are:

–– Be the first to acknowledge difficulties. The temptation, when a feud begins, is to conceal it. As the years of tension between Brown and Blair demonstrated, people will pick up on it sooner or later, so you might as well get your point across first.

After a few attempts by the team to hush things up, and a statement that “we are not drivers at war, as has been widely reported,” Hamilton has started discussing the problems openly as Alonso has sulked. The result is that Hamilton has appeared more sympathetic.

–– Take the moral high ground. This is not easy, as you may appear sanctimonious, or may in fact have no right to adopt a high moral tone, but it is worth a try anyway.

Hamilton, rightly, began subtly in this respect, by issuing remarks along the lines of: “Fernando doesn’t seem to be speaking to me. I hope he still speaks to me. I don’t hold grudges over anyone.” Then he attended the World Motor Sport Council espionage hearing in Paris with his team, while Alonso, notably, did not and thus appeared the keener team player. But recently he has begun stating his position out loud: “The team have realised who the real people are in the team and who they should really back.”

–– Do not let the feud infect your work. As anyone who has been involved in a workplace dispute will know, it is difficult not to let it engulf you entirely. It is often said that a smile is contagious but backstabbing is even more so. A dispute between two individuals can wreck not only the atmosphere of a department but of an entire company. It can also make you hate a job you previously adored.

The single most remarkable thing about Hamilton is how he has not let this happen: he has made very few errors on the track and smiles with conviction in photos, even as his foe stands next to him, grinding his teeth to glue. The trait was marked out by someone who worked with him before F1, before the situation at McLaren exploded. “He has the ability to put barriers between different aspects of his life,” said Frederic Vasseur. “When something goes wrong, he tries to solve it rather than complain.”

–– Realise that a reconciliation may not be in your interests. Career advisers will emphasise the importance of clearing the air. But the fact is that sometimes it is not possible to mend fences, and the only solution is for one of you to leave. You don’t want that person to be you.

Again, Hamilton has realised this, hence the rookie’s acknowledgement that he wants his two-times world champion team-mate to go. The fact that he might have his way is a tribute not only to how well he has managed the situation, and a mark of how badly his team-mate has behaved — it is always handy when your foe acts like a child — but a mark of the better job he has done behind the wheel. And, of course, ultimately, the best way of surviving any work feud is to make yourself invaluable to your company.

sathnam@thetimes.co.uk

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