Working with people you disagree with

Being in a closed circle of friends shields us from opposing ideas, our friends are generally people we agree with or who would be willing to go along with our ideas or even convince us otherwise. There are only very few places where we meet opposing points of views, the few I can think of are; at work, siblings or random strangers. This means that we often don’t get to work with people we disagree with, for strangers we only work with them for a limited time, with siblings we have parents to mediate and often go separate ways during disagreements, at the workplace we have a clear hierarchy for decision making. This means that the average person doesn’t know how to work with people they disagree with.

These tips might come in handy if ever you have to work with people you disagree with.

Focus on common values and shared goals

No matter how different and opinionated people might be there are some unalienable values we all share, first at a professional level, then at a human level. Basic human decency requires for you to respect the other person and treat them the same way you’ll like them to treat you, things like; respect, integrity, listening, and communication are values we all share and owe to each other. Added to all of that we equally have shared goals which have brought us together, the reason you are even working with this person is to attain a common goal, so when you disagree with a person, its best to focus on these shared values and goals.

Communicate with intent, not emotion

A major source of disagreement between individuals is the emotional side of our character, which takes precedence over everything. It transpires not just through our actions but also our communication and intentions, leading us to be much more conflictual than solution oriented. Disagreements are nothing new, they aren’t even bad per se. It is rather the actions that result from them that can be bad.

Working with people who disagree with you will require you to be able to separate your emotions from your actions and communication for you to get things done. If you are not able to do so, then it would be nearly impossible to achieve this goal; your emotions will always lead you to make emotional decisions over rational ones.

Pick your battles

Disagreements can easily spiral into every aspect of our interactions with another person, they can easily lead us to hate the other person and judge every action of theirs based on one action alone, making it harder for us to collaborate with this person on multiple fronts. A person being wrong about one thing doesn’t automatically make them wrong about everything else, you have to learn to pick your battles and not to engage in an all-out feud with a person over multiple fronts, in which case you’ll spread yourself too thin, damaging your overall productivity.

Leverage strengths, not differences

Even when there might be things separating us, there are also a lot of things which bring us together, a lot of things we can agree on, and even more we can work on. A person who disagrees with you doesn’t mean they have nothing to offer to you, that’s just what your pride might make you feel in the moment but this person still has a lot to give to you and your collaboration with them. In order to stay productive, you have to leverage your strength and avoid focusing on your weaknesses and differences between you.

Take the time to analyze the strengths of this person and how you can best put it to use to move forward; from this you can easily address the differences between you. Finding common ground is a good place to start in order to resolve conflicts.

Set boundaries and stay professional

Being professional means abiding by your legal and moral contract with the company you are employed in, basically it means following what your employer expects of you which would be; competence, respect, integrity, hard work etc so no matter the disagreement or the person you are in conflict with, they also have these obligations. Your employer doesn’t expect you to be entering into some petty fights over who is smarter than the other but rather to find ways to attain the goals they set for you. No matter how you feel about a person and their ideas, if your employer gave you a task, that’s because they were confident you’ll be able to achieve it with your colleagues; no employer would be giving unrealistic tasks to their employees expecting them to do miracles.

In order to work with people you disagree with you have to be able to stay professional and set boundaries, your private life should be off limits, and your decisions should be taken in a professional way. When you start making decisions out of pettiness, resentment, or to hurt another person, that’s when you stop being professional.

Conclusion

You are not always going to meet people you agree with, a lot of the time you are going to meet people who have opposing ideas to yours, and you will still be expected to work with such persons. using these tips will take you a long way.

Thanks for reading ☺️