Caustic colleagues WORK Sadly, there’s always someone at
work who is not easy to get along with, so Iwona Tokc-Wilde asks the experts how to handle difficult co-workers.
LIKEANYOTHERPLACEwhere a bunch of people are thrown together, the office is a cauldron of personalities. What sets the workplace apart is that everyone must sim-
mer along nicely in order to move the business forward, which would be easy if everyone on the teamis easygoing, but that’s not realistic. Inmost offices there seems to be at least one person who makes your blood. “There are threemain sources of workplace conflict: failure
to get along with colleagues or bosses, failure to get stuff done and poor organisational fit,” says University College London Professor of Business Psychology Dr Tomas Chamorro-Pre- muzic. “These three issues determine a person’s employabil- ity and career success. Usually, if they’re a pain in the neck, can't
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get stuff done and don't fit in with the organisational culture, they soon have to leave.” This is good news, but what do you do in the meantime before they decide to - or are forcedto- move on?
SPOT THE SIGNS First, you need to understand why some personalities aremore “difficult” than others and how to recognise them. “People are ‘difficult’ because their early-life experiences and
some biological predispositions have made their habits prob- lematic to others,” says Premuzic. “There are three types of diffi- cult personalities: those who move against other people (arrogant and manipulative); those who move away from peo- ple (they disengage from others under stress); and those who move toward people (diligent and dutiful but with an excessive need to depend on others).” “People behave and perform according to their self-image
and programming (their thoughts, feelings and beliefs about themselves and their lives), so their difficult conduct can stem fromtheir insecurities, shyness or low self-worth,” says Love Life, Live Life author Sue Stone. “Equally, though, it could be that
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