Jeff [Name has been changed], like me, is a writer, a speaker, and the head of a consulting company. As far as I can tell, he’s professional, well respected, capable, honest, and has a popular following. Someone we both know has asked us to collaborate on a project and there’s clearly a mutual benefit to our working together.].
It all sounds great except for one thing: I don’t like Jeff.
Something about him rubs me the wrong way. He seems too self-serving or egocentric or self-satisfied. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I know I don’t like him.
I mentioned that to the person who wants us to work together. She told me, essentially, to get over it. “You don’t have to like him,” she said, “but you’d be smart to work with him.”
So how do you work with someone you don’t like?
I’m not simply talking about someone who frustrates you because they communicate poorly or can’t run a meeting. Sure it’s annoying to have your time wasted, especially when you believe you could do a better job. But that’s different than disliking them. Just think about how you respond differently to someone you like who can’t run a meeting (you want to help them) versus someone you don’t like (you want to stop working with them, or, if the meeting is really long, kill them).
The typical advice you hear about working with people you don’t like is simply to depersonalize the relationship. Just transact whatever business you need to with them and move on. In other words: Grin and bear it.
But I have found that almost impossible to do.The people we don’t like drive us crazy and we waste a tremendous amount of time complaining about them, or stressing about a conversation we need to have with them.
And that’s not the worst of it. The deeper problem is that if you don’t like someone, chances are they know it. Which will prompt them to not like you. And if you think working with someone you don’t like is hard, try working with someone who doesn’t like you.
It’s simple, really. The people you get along with will find ways to help you; the people you don’t get along with will find ways to obstruct you.
Being liked has irrefutable benefits. According to research, the more people like you, the easier, more productive, and more profitable, your life will be. Which means that someone you don’t get along with — even if you grin and bear it — poses a risk.
So if grinning and bearing it is a losing strategy, what’s the alternative?
Consider, for a moment, the reason you don’t like someone. Maybe you think they’re greedy. Or selfish. Or dismissive. Or downright mean. In other words, they have some character flaw or disagreeable trait that bothers you. Like my view of Jeff as self-serving, egocentric, and self-satisfied.
Now — and here’s the hard part — think about whether, in the dark shadowy parts of your psyche, you can detect shards of that disagreeable trait in yourself.
Can you be greedy, selfish, dismissive or downright mean? You really don’t like that part of yourself, right? You wish you could distance yourself from that side of you. Just like you wish you could distance yourself from that disliked person.
In other words, chances are, the reason you can’t stand that person in the first place, is that they remind you of what you can’t stand about yourself.
Suddenly, working with people you don’t like becomes a lot more interesting. Because getting to know them better, and accepting the parts of them you don’t like, is actually getting to know yourself better and accepting the parts of yourself you don’t like.
So the way to overcome your dislike of someone else? Overcome your dislike of yourself.
That’s where the person you don’t like can come in handy. Use him to understand yourself better. Consider why you have a problem with him. What does he do that bothers you so much? Move past his inability to run meetings or write a good email and get to what’s really bugging you. What about his personality or behavior sparks annoyance or disgust in you? What do you hate about him?
Then, consider how your answers might be a reflection of you. This is a game and you win by finding that hated behavior in yourself.
For me, Jeff reflected those attributes about myself that I disliked — the way I can be self-serving and egotistical and self-satisfied.
Think about times when you feel greedy or selfish or dismissive or downright mean. Can you see it? Can you feel your feelings of both attraction and disgust? Can you admit to yourself that it’s not black or white? It’s black and white. Can you live with the complexity of your humanness? That’s the key to being compassionate with yourself.
And being compassionate with yourself is the key to being compassionate with others. Before you know it, you’ll actually begin to like people you never liked before. Maybe you’ll even feel like helping them run those meeting more productively.
It’s now easy for me to see myself in Jeff. I can be self-serving and egotistical and self-satisfied. It’s still hard to admit that — especially in writing — but it’s a part of who I am and, in the right doses, it actually serves me well.
And there’s an added bonus to admitting it: I now like Jeff.
This article is reprinted here with permission. Peter Bregman is the CEO of Bregman Partners, Inc., a global management consulting firm which advises CEOs and their leadership teams. He speaks, writes, and consults about how to lead and how to live. Peter has authored several books, most recently the award-winning 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done. More thought-provoking articles from him: When Nothing Works and Visualize Failure. Peter can be reached through his website.
1 reply: Karen | Post Your Reply
That's just your own personal experience and personal thoughts I read you article thinking it may help me but unfortunately it didn't. Everyone's experiences are different... I work with someone who doesn't wash enough and brings a horrible stale stench in with her. On top of that she doesn't let anyone else speak and she has an incredibly loud voice even when speaking to someone right next to her. I'm happy to say I don't see these traits in myself so I'll have to look elsewhere for guidance.
I don't like 2 people I work with. I think they are just evil people. Not just to me, but hateful to others. I stay away as much as possible, but still have to deal with their attitudes, as we have to work closely at times. This approach may work for this individual, but my situation is different. That won't work. I don't know what to do.
Quite unproductively contradictory approach. The qualities you did not like in yourself were found in Jeff too. Instead of correcting yourself or influencing Jeff, the ego and self-love goes on to accepting Jeff's evil part. Also it seems so important for your corporate world to perform at meetings that you are willing to sell your soul for it. This is not at all a happy ending of the triumph of good over evil... This is actually a sad story of Peter embraces bad to stay in fools paradise.
Good points to consider, however one may find after assessment, that some folks manipulate, lie, cheat, steal and "use" others for their gain. I would caution that these folks are basically harmful, even dangerous, and one needs to move away from these relationships. We have discernment for good reason; a protective device that needs to be listened to.
I have to partially disagree. When I think of people I actively dislike (and there are few), it's because of their behaviour which is completely alien to what I would do. For example, a particular karaoke host that regularly refuses to play my song, even though he plays everyone else's - I would NEVER treat anyone that way. I don't understand it, so I don't like it. Ditto an annoying ex- co worker who was arrogant and condescending, something I've never been in the workplace - even when I was placed in charge of others. The people who irritate me, sure, they have annoying qualities I can see in myself. But the people I truly dislike? No.
Generally people get angry with people who violate their personal set of rules. The catch is most people don't know what their personal rules are until someone else breaks them!
I think this theory is sometimes true, but more often than not when we don't like someone it's because we are allowing ourselves to take on what they are projecting. If someone is mean and egocentric their goal will be to force everyone around them to feel the inadequacies they don't want to accept in themselves. If you take this projection on you will definitely feel angry and frustrated because you won't like the way it feels. It's not yours to own! As a therapist, I have to tolerate these kinds of projections all the time to get to the real underlying issue in the person.
Hm. What if you don't share the specific offending trait? I know someone who is cold hearted, and I don't like this person because of it. I am not a cold hearted person.
Thank you... boy did I need some perspective. This hit the nail on the head.
I have long considered Matthew 7:3-5 to be the best verses of the Bible.
3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
So he decided those disgusting qualities were good things instead and that he should love himself more? How egotistical and self-serving! I hope you're satisfied....in yourself.
At the end of the day this fool learned nothing.
I totally agree with we are mirror image of others. I find one person dismissive. On reflection I find I have the same trait.
My father has a great number of expressions and the one that comes to mind as I read this is, "You hate in others that which you dislike in yourself."
On Feb 12, 2013 valauriev wrote:
Weigh, measure and compare will feed the ego, close ourselves off from introspection and not serve our highest good. Stop these things and our compassion grows, nourishing the love within ourselves and feeds the soul and broadens our consciousness and hey, how could that be bad?
1 reply: Gail | Post Your Reply