Every one of us definitely has people we probably don’t get along well with at work. It could either be a personality, ideological or religious clash. Regardless of how disturbing and exhausting it could be, it is not an excuse to relegate to clashing heads neither becoming best friends but there are a lot of ways you can actually manage the situation to get along and focus on your job execution instead.
It is safe to state that your relationship with your colleagues always has an impact on your happiness. We have all had bad experiences working with someone of a different understanding and personality.
It is quite easy to actually hope others were more like you and you would probably think this would reduce pressure and frustrations of working with those who think and act differently to ourselves. It is better to actually think outside the current picture and learn from people with different personalities.
When you work with a series of personalities can actually bring benefits for individuals personally and the organization at large. It merely depends on how you can handle or manage the differences at hand. How can you manage or handle this issue?
1. Be Observant Of These Differences And What They Might Perhaps Mean
The first step to managing your colleague’s differences is to first observe and acknowledge that there are actually some differences first rather than jump into judging them.
It is very wrong and unprofessional to label others with negative or derogatory descriptions. You have to accept other people for who they are so in return they can actually accept your style of working too.
You are probably an introvert and your colleague is an extrovert that definitely likes to talk a lot, so it’s probably best you just suggest if they could probably be a little quiet and tell them about how you like to think well while working and I am not suggesting you ask them to keep shut, just ask them to talk silently and not loudly. Be as polite in your approach as possible.
2. Take Into Consideration What You Can Actually Learn From People With Different Approaches
Instead of actually condemning another person’s style of approach to certain things it is best you actually, explore and examine what works for them rather than criticize them.
There might perhaps be a lot of things you can learn from them or their approach and see if there is one or two things you can pick from their style of approach. Confirm if there is anything you can actually learn from them because of their differences to your own personality or approach.
For instance in a boardroom meeting, your colleague who is an extrovert probably likes to ask too much questions and this could be weird and irritating to you, but instead of seeing why it is weird, think from the colleagues perspective sand see why he or she actually does this, it could be to get more understanding of the tasks at hand just to reduce or totally avoid making mistakes and errors during the execution of the task to work on.
3. Ask How You Can Best Work Together To Achieve Your Joint And Individual Goals
Sometimes we make wrong assumptions of people at the first time because of personality or ideological differences and fail to see the advantage and good in the person instead.
You need to meet people and your colleagues especially halfway before even attempting to judge them. It is advisable you move closer to the person and ask about their work style or patterns and talk about your own work style too with them.
Your colleague might be the type of person to priories his or her tasks and you just might be the one to do your tasks as it comes, create and establish a better understanding of how both of you approach situations and how you can support each other or come to an arrangement which would most certainly lead to better deliveries and outputs.
4. Find All Means To Actually Get Your Work Or Task Met
Like the saying, respect is reciprocal, when your colleague finds out you are probably willing to go with his or her own style of working, they might also want to reciprocate and use your style too.
Per adventure they do or do not want to return the gesture, it is best to move on from dwelling on this and focus on getting your own tasks done before the execution deadline. You should also focus on the work or task at hand at the moment.
5. Celebrate Your Differences
It is safe and less stressful to actually come to the realization that you can’t change everyone around you neither should you even try to. Ensure to change your belief that working with people like you would be preferable.
Have the mindset that people are different, accept this with respect and assume that everyone is capable in their own capacity and working with people of different personality might just be a great experience for you.