Managing Your Team-Avoiding the Pitfall of the Personality Conflict
by Carol Bowser

Everyone has a team.  Co-workers.  Family members.  Key Vendors. Professional Advisors. Friends.  There are the teams made up of people you invite in.  There are teams of people assigned to you. 

Whether you are the team leader or not, you have an impact on how the team functions.

Teams that can weather times of turbulence and remain intact have some things in common-they know how to handle conflict and can address the personality conflicts which naturally arise.

I have a theory; conflict allows us and those around us to see what is really important.   Unfortunately, how we behave in conflict and how others interpret our action obfuscates the fact that we are in conflict because we care a lot about what is going on.

In the workplace, what we care about is being successful at our job which allows us to gain self-fulfillment and provide for our families.  Thus, when we feel that the actions of others impede being successful, we get upset and feel even more impeded in our success.

The biggest cause of workplace issues is usually categorized as "personality conflict."  Yes, there are a variety of personalities out there. Some that are very complimentary to how you interact with the world.  Some...well, not so much.  Here is something I want to highlight-if you are having conflict with them, they are likely having conflict with you.

Avoiding the person, creating elaborate workarounds, or retreating into silence only keeps the problem on life support and builds resentment.  None of these actually address what is going on.  They do, however, do a nice job of transforming smaller issues into larger more intractable ones.  One of the largest perceived intractableissues? The personality conflict.

Here is the pitfall of about labeling something a "personality conflict"; you give yourself permission not to engage while giving the other person a really good argument why they shouldn't change.

Instead, think of it as each of you are behaving in different ways.  If someone's behavior is impacting your ability to successfully perform, ask for a modification AND be willing to adapt. 

When formulating your requests, determine if it is significant or merely you trying to compel someone else to agree with you and do it your way.  Your way may be the best for you, but not for the rest of the team or the organization. Usually, a team can tolerate some variances in how things are done.

HOWEVER, smart people can disagree.  Too much variance can cause disruption and confusion.  When there needs to be consistency in approach, it is a manager's time to step in and make a decision on how things are to be done.  Period.

No one is more invested in your success at work then you.  Consequently, take action and make the "ask" for what will minimize your ability to succeed at work without saying "it is just my personality."

 

Organizations hire Conflict Management Strategies, Inc. to increase productivity by easing workplace conflict and tension, to train employees in conflict resolution skills, to evaluate internal conflict resolution processes, to coach key employees to higher levels of performance and to facilitate tangible change within the working environment. 

Have a conflict-management question for Carol? Ask here. Your question/answer may be printed in a future issue.