Work With People You Don’t Like!

Don’t limit yourself to one view of the world

Sounds counterintuitive. Why work with someone you don’t like? Isn’t life difficult enough as it is without making it more painful?

True, it may not be as much fun – but if we only work with people we like – who will for the most part share our views, have similar interests and personality traits – then we are less likely to grow, and our work is more likely to be average and less informed!

I watched an interesting Ted Talk last week (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The danger of a single story | TED Talk) – if you get the chance give it a watch.  It’s essentially about the dangers of not having a rounded view of the world. This is the risk we run when we only associate ourselves with people we like.  If we only mix with people who have the same views as us – then it limits our ability to thing and act more broadly.

Our perspectives are limited.  Take the following tale as an example.

Three blind men come across an elephant, an animal that none of them had encountered before. They each touch a different part of the elephant and describe what they have come across based, not realising they are touching the same animal.

The first one feels the elephant’s trunk and says – “I’ve found a snake like creature, with skin like my uncles old coat.”

The second one feels the elephant’s tail and says – “I’ve also found a creature, it’s lively and skinny, with rough hair.”

The third one feels the elephant’s tusk and says – “I haven’t found a creature at all, but something very hard, smooth in places, rough in others, it would make a good weapon.”

At which point, the elephant, annoyed at all the interference trumpets to scare the blind men away.

They all have valid knowledge based on their experience, but without working together, they fail to see the full picture.

The importance of working with people who aren’t like us is particularly key when it comes to working in a team and collaborating. Collaborating with people you like is probably going to be more enjoyable, and you may even get the task completed more quickly, but it’s unlikely to be the best solution.

Working with people with different views of life, who have different experiences and views can be challenging, sometimes even frustrating – but the result will be better structured, take account of more options, be stronger and have a greater chance of working in practice.

Why?

With differing views involved more options will be presented, discussed and challenged.  People with different experiences will question ideas, identify problems and propose alternative solutions.  Discussions may be heated, but not always.  Sometimes it’s as gentle as someone pointing out an issue they’ve encountered in the past (which you have no experience or knowledge of) which leads to a refinement or slight adaptation of a proposal that results in a significant improvement.

We all have our personality traits, if we only work in teams where everyone else is similar to us the resulting solution will be very biased, and not at all well presented.

Belbin (Management Teams, Why They Succeed or Fail. London. Heinemann. 1981) Identified nine team roles – The Plant, The Resource Investigator, The Co-ordinator, The Shaper, The Monitor Evaluator, The Teamworker, The Implementer, The Completer Finisher and The Specialist.  Don’t be put off by the labels, if you look at what each member does, and what their weaknesses can be it makes a lot of sense.  If you’re missing some of these roles in your team, your chance of success is limited.

At the extreme end imagine a team of Donald Trumps! A lot of conviction, ideas, and enthusiasm, but probably not a lot actually getting done due to lack of interest in the detail. 

On a less extreme level imagine a team comprised of a number of you.  Think about it, what would the strengths of that team be?  What are you good at?  Now think about what you’re not so good at – if no-one in the team has that skill how’s that going to impact the result?

If it was a group of me’s then the ideas will probably be ok (but I’m not overly creative so perhaps we’d miss out on a really good idea), we’d get some solid options, and a good way down the road of identifying how to put it into practice, but then it might not get implemented so well as I’m not the greatest completer-finisher either!

The best way to avoid all this is to take any opportunity you get to mix and work with people who aren’t like you (you’ll actually find out in many cases that you do have some things in common). 

On a training course and asked to form into groups?  Pick to be with a group of people you don’t know.

Waiting at a bus stop or the train station?  Strike up a conversation with a fellow passenger – you can use the fact you’re both waiting as a starter.

Out for a meal? Don’t just say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to the person waiting your table, have a bit of a chat.

At an exhibition or conference? Use breaks to discuss the event with other attendees.

There’s a whole world of experience out there – go tap into it.  You’ll find that once you get going there are fewer and fewer people you don’t like.

P.S. It’s fine to work with people you like, just don’t do it all the time.