Peers´ impact on one's career is much bigger than most would assume. Conventional wisdom tells you that managers will define you career progress. Well, they certainly do, but what peers say and think of you have an enormous impact on what managers will say and think - as easy as that. So don't underestimate their power and make sure to invest time in building these relationships. One of the things I always recommend in 360º feedback processes, is to have a significant percentage of weight attributed to the peers' evaluation, not the typical 10 to 20%, common to most of these exercises. You can fool managers, you can fool subordinates but, in my view, much harder to fool peers. The organisation will be much better equipped to evaluate anybody's performance if the peers' perspective is well established.
Here's a tip: make sure you praise your peers in meetings, specially when managers are present. Normally people do not know what to do with those "gifts" (we are well trained to react to criticisms, not that much to compliments), and you will have a "peer for life". And next time you need to criticize him, he will certainly be listening and not take that personally...
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