Learning to tolerate difficult colleagues

What do you do when someone on your team is tough to tolerate and causes you to question if you can be bothered working there anymore?

What if you could fix it without needing to leave your job?

“If you find a job you love, you’ll never work again…..” Winston Churchill
This quote makes total sense, right?

As humans, connection is one of our basic fundamental needs, and the workplace is where a lot of us fill that need.
You love to catch up and have a chat, get excited with a new idea or work together on a project.

And then there’s the person who causes you to groan every time they walk in the room……….

So much time is consumed with you going over in your head
how annoying they are, or why they’re not doing something, or checking if it’s done right. You find yourself going out of your way to avoid them.

One of the tricks I use is to pretend I’m their Defence Lawyer in Court and it’s my job to find the evidence to build their case of innocence.

How could they be right?
What’s their reason for doing it?
What’s going on for them that I don’t see?

For me, this approach forces me to look for:
– Facts not drama
– Where my opinions may be hindering objectivity
– Opens my mind to alternatives I don’t consider

Remember, you still may not like the person. You don’t need to.
But viewing them through the lens of curiosity gets them out of your head.
You start to think of them differently.
They become less annoying.

Then 💥
One day you hear yourself saying “that’s just who they are”

Acceptance. So amazing.