The workplace is essentially a melting pot of different backgrounds, interests, personalities, experiences, and generations, all vastly divergent but presumably possessing at least one common demoninator and goal: the development of their professional career and the success of the organization. So how can we take this heterogenous assortment of colleagues, overcome all of the diversity and progress towards our common goals?
When personality conflicts arise at work, it can distract from your focus on tasks and depreciate your workplace experience, perhaps making it even downright unbareable to walk into office each morning. Some days, you might feel like shooting off a scathing email to an employee you didn’t see eye to eye with at the water cooler this morning. Some days you may even feel like leaping over your cubicle wall and pummeling the bothersome coworker. However, besides being juvennile, illegal, and something your mother would be ashamed of, this is not a productive manner in dealing with personality conflict in a professional environment.
So what’s the best way to deal with these types of situations without profanity, name-calling, tripping, hair pulling, and elbow biting? Read below for tips from a Leadershipjot.com post on 7 steps for resolving personality conflicts in the workplace.
Cordial and courteous actions and words are often all that is required to mitigate personality conflicts. Maintain a friendly environment and you may very well maintain a “personality conflict free” environment.
2) Keep it professional:
Professionalism is a pertinent factor to keep tempers and attitudes from getting out of control. The Type-A personality is a great person to have on the team, but the Type-A personality can cause problems if there isn’t a clear practice of professionalism.
3) Determine the source of problems:
When conflicts arise, do not dismiss them as matters of personality. Seek to resolve any and all underlying problems, differences of opinion, and genuine work issues. Focusing attention on problems that matter will unite the team and draw attention to teamwork.
4) Document conflicts:
When conflicts do arise, it is important to keep track of the problems to determine the depth and breadth of the issues that infect your workplace. Documentation can also be used to determine an underlying source of problems or avoidable trends in conflicts.
5) Keep relevant parties informed:
Conflicts should not be swept under the rug and hidden. Problems will haunt your team and infect your work; conflicts need to be resolved – this is the only way to maintain the unity and effectiveness of a team.
6) Don’t hesitate to take the issue higher:
Sometimes a team member may need to be laterally transferred in order to put personality issues in perspective. If properly managed, a personality conflict should never lead to firing a team member, but under some circumstance a lateral transfer may be the best answer. If you do not have the authority to transfer someone, take the issue to those with the authority. Keep in mind, proper documentation will probably be required in order to make the case, so go back to step number 4.
7) Keep it professional:
All in all, keep things professional. We are all different and this is the value of a team.
