Why is it so hard to work well with other humans?

We are going to start this post with some reflection. I am by no means writing this post because I feel I am an easy person to work with. There are many people that would classify me as “fiery”, “direct”, and “aggressive”. In some cases, these qualities are referenced in a positive way and can be used for the greater good, but if you are not thoughtful, they can really cause damage to your team and the people around you. 

My goal here is to help you learn ways to work well with others without having to learn it the hard way, or not at all. 

Let’s start by defining “working well with others”. 

Working well with others is the ability to effectively interact, cooperate, collaborate and manage conflicts with other people in order to complete tasks and achieve shared goals.

With that said, let’s discuss some of the lessons I have learned along the way. 

Lesson 1: Know Your Collaborators

The most impactful training I have ever gone through was based off the book Multipliers, by Liz Wiseman. In this training, we went through a fantastic exercise that led to one of the biggest “Ah Ha” moments of my career. The first step was a homework assignment. They sent us home with these personality flashcards and asked us to choose the one that best describes us. When we returned in the morning, we were then asked to divide into groups based on the personality type we most identified with. In our groups, we created two lists: 1) Illustrated the ways we like communicating, and 2) Illustrated the was ways we do not. Once we had our lists made, we then opened it up to the room for a larger group conversation. Each team got to talk about their lists. After all teams where done sharing, we were then asked to find ways each one of us could slightly change our communication style to help better communicate between the other three personality types. We referred to this as “stepping forward”. This was the moment  where I was like “I GOT IT”!! If each one of us can take a moment to understand that not everyone communicates the same, try to identify the personality you want to communicate with, and alter your approach to adapt to that personality type, we will all save ourselves a ton of time and pain. If we truly want to communicate, it’s not about forcing others to hear us. It’s about identifying the best way for someone to understand us.

Lesson 2: Close your mouth and listen 

I think anyone who knows me best, knows that this might be the hardest lesson for me to speak about. In my career, I have had to be loud. I have had to be passionate. I have had to care about things at a level that is not typical. With that, it is hard at times for me to just shut up. The good news is that I am working on this … every day. I have a few tricks I am doing that can help you as well. 1) Just stop talking so much. I bet if you make yourself more aware to all the things you say in a given day, you will start identifying times where you could have just kept quiet and listened more. 2) Don’t feel like you have to fill the empty silence. In some cases, the silence is needed or appreciated. 3) Think about your words carefully. I do this most in my emails, but always always always, think about what you are about to say before you do so. If you want to have fun with it, try this. The next meeting you are in (if you are not leading it), go into it with the intent to listen and don’t say anything. Just capture what is being said and respond later in a thoughtful email with your notes, thoughts, and next steps. A fun post on Fast Company, by Michael Grothaus, goes into this in more detail.

Lesson 3: Always assume good intentions

We live in a world where everything is go go go. With that, most of our communication is lacking context. Speaking for myself, a large percentage of my communication is on my phone. I find myself chatting, texting, or emailing bullet points and one-liners all the time. In doing that, I have upset a fair number of co-workers. I always felt that being fast, efficient, and to the point was the best way to get stuff done. In reality, it only led to hurt feelings and clarifying conversations. Going back to my personality type, I am ok with this type of communication, because I know the intention is good. However, I do my best to adjust and adapt my approach to different people depending on the delivery method, because it's hard for them to know my intentions. It’s easier to fix your approach rather than fix someone’s interpretation. In closing, it would help us all to just assume that most people are communicating with good intentions, and don’t take offense to everything.

Lesson 4: Say thank you 

Nothing is more demoralizing than being a part of something and not being acknowledged for it. Some find this more hurtful than others, but I think it’s fair to say that even a simple “Thank you” goes a long way. I’ll give you a great example. You walk in at 8am to see that an email request was made, and it has to go out ASAP. As the lead, you rally the team and get to work. Per usual, there are no details. You have a google document with copy, but a ton of comments and no approvals. You don’t know who the email needs to be sent to, what web page we are linking to, or what success looks like once the email is sent. It becomes a fire drill, and everyone is running around finding details, getting approvals, getting approvals again, building templates, testing, fixing, resubmitting, finding more approvals, changing things again and finally get … more changes. The craziness takes all day, but the project is finally completed, approved, and sent out. Now there might be some of you reading this and are thinking “That’s their job”. If you did, you are the person I am trying to get to. I don’t care who you are, what role you have  … SAY THANK YOU. You’d be surprised how far a simple thank you goes with a team that goes above and beyond to get your request out the door.

Lesson 5: You will not always get along with everyone

This is the best advice I can give. You are going to need to accept that not everyone you meet will like you, and not every person you work with will get along with you. The faster you acknowledge this, the easier it will get. I get it, you are thinking I am nuts, but I promise it will still be possible to get things done. You are just going to have to be more thoughtful about your approach. A few things to keep in mind: 1) Don’t try too hard to force a relationship. 2) See it for what it is and find opportunities to “Step Forward”. 3) Be adaptable, be humble, and say thank you. 4) Maybe you will have to work through someone else to get to this person. It’s ok if you find someone who this person likes and enlist them to help get the job done. There are endless opportunities, you just need to be open minded and get creative. A post I found supper helpful was “When you love your job, but hate your coworkers”, by Kathryn Vasel.

I hope these lessons that I have learned the hard way, help you in your journey. Working well with others is a constant learning experience. There is much more than what I have listed above, but if you can start to identify the personality you are working with, listen to them more, always assume good intentions, and say thank you, you are off to a great start :)