How To Handle Difficult Colleagues
January 16, 2009
The problem of handling difficult or mean colleagues is a fairly common one for many men working in a corporate environment, which has become increasingly competitive, especially with recession setting and people wanting to keep their jobs more and more. This is why learning ways to cope with difficult co-workers with astuteness and discretion so as not to adversely affect the pleasant working atmosphere of the office or productivity of your unit and still keep your cool is very important for excelling at work.
Sometimes, men find it difficult to keep their feelings under control especially if their colleague is the heavily argumentative, abusive or just petty types. At other times, men with short tempers themselves or high principles can get irritated with colleagues who are just impossible to work with as they lack team spirit, or shirk responsibility or blame them for their own mistakes.
The solution to dealing with arrogant, stubborn or colleagues who shirk work is to address the problem before it worsens and affects your psyche. Don’t spend too much time or energy just talking or grumbling about the problem as it won’t go away besides giving you tension. In matter of conflicting personalities or behaviour that is disruptive for proper office functioning, take the person aside and update him or her about your observations.
If you are not too sure you’re not being harsh on the colleague, first consult with a trusted co-worker and find out if they too feel the same way about that particular person. Perhaps, you’ll find the support you need to approach the difficult personality with constructive behaviour pattern suggestions without making him or her feel criticized, as no one likes that.
Don’t play the blame game. Focus on improving the office’s productivity by first analyzing if you’re contributing to bringing out the worst in the colleague; if yes, change your behaviour first before approaching the colleague. If not, then bring up effective solutions for working better together and ask for advice from the difficult co-worker; this will make him or her feel worthy of being respected by you and build a desire to help you instead of working against you
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