How To Work With People You Hate

Have you ever had to spend endless days with someone that you just cannot stand?

Forced to be polite to that nasty piece of work from accounts or that annoying bloke from admin who always disagrees and makes everything a problem? Knowing that you have no choice but to work with them even though you would avoid them in ‘real life’?

You may think I am being extreme, but in my time as a leadership and team performance specialist, I have seen this happening all too often.

“Have you heard the one about the 2 employees in the call centre?” (It’s not actually a joke).

A client I worked with had this situation. Two ladies who worked from the same desk block, next to each other every day, had not spoken for 4 years!!! And everyone else had to dance round them to prevent fireworks from going off. No one dealt with the issue and it was allowed to continue to an all-time low where one of them would be off sick, complaining about the other, or their shifts would have to be adjusted so they didn’t need to speak to each other.

It was stressful, annoying and down-right unnecessary for two adults to be ‘working’ this way. And I felt sorry for the poor people who had to encounter them. It was the talk of the office and was costing the business a lot!

When I came in the first thing I had to do was find out what this was all about. In the end, I discovered (after working through a mediation process with them) that this whole thing was, in fact, about a small thing that happened a long time ago where someone got hold of the wrong end of the stick. Feelings ran high and things were said that couldn’t be backed down from. Does that sound familiar in your business?

The funny thing was that once we had aired the issue and helped those two to understand the perspective of the other and clear up the common issue, then they

both felt totally different.

This was the first time that they had communicated, looked at their differences and

accepted each other for who they were. There were a few tears and a lot of hugs at the end because they had once been good friends.

To the relief of the manager, after this had been aired, these two were able to work

together again and the department went back to “normal”.

What bothered me most though, was the fact that the manager had let that fester and grow for 4 years before it got so bad that I had to come in and deal with it!

However, he was terrified of “digging”, for fear of what he might have to deal with, and I think this is something that a lot of people would probably worry about.

But here’s the thing. Whenever we have someone that we don’t like, we will probably find that the reason is because they are “different” or have a different perspective on life, love, work etc.

So, before you decide you can’t work with someone, perhaps you should ask yourself a few questions….

1. What perspective are they coming from?

2. Am I just disliking them for their different way of being or doing?

3. How could I try to understand their point of view before I decide that they are

wrong?

These 3 simple questions could open up a whole new perspective for you, and prevent the waste of 4 long years!!

Feel free to email me anytime on [email protected] if you need a bit of a hand with this kind of situation!