Dealing with Frustrating People at Work

Do you ever wonder how much more work you’d get done without the people? And to prove it, do you sometimes go in on a weekend and notice that you got an entire week’s worth of work done in just two hours? Dealing with other people at work is one of the most time-consuming things you have to do. And dealing with frustrating people can downright stop productivity in its tracks.

One of the most common types of frustrating people are the ones who seem to be “blocking” your ability to move forward without any logical basis for their behavior. They might throw up additional hoops for you to jump through that seem completely insignificant. They might get distracted running in so many directions that the team can’t focus on one thing long enough to move forward. They may be polite and cooperative and seem to understand what needs to be done, but then never follow through. Or they may simply be “too busy” to help you and look completely offended and put out at the expectation that you would expect anything more out of them since they are already overworked.

We all have different work styles, and this tends to exacerbate the situation. Sometimes it can be really enlightening to learn about your work style and compare it to those on your team. Although there are many different “work style” assessments, almost all of them group people loosely into four categories:

The Visionaries: These are the leaders who see possibilities, get excited about them, and can get everyone else excited and moving in one direction, but they don’t like to bother with the details, and sometimes they get so many new ideas that they are off and running in a new direction before you have a chance to act on the first plan. If you are a visionary, process oriented people will bore you, and drive you nuts, because it will feel like they are slowing everything down to a snail’s pace while the window of opportunity closes. A good coping mechanism is to realize you need process oriented people to bring your ideas to life and build in the quality they need to stay alive.

The Systemizers: These are the process oriented people who care about the details and get things done thoroughly. They are behind high quality and reliability. Their diligence can make the difference between a brand you can trust and a “rinky dink” outfit. But they take a long time to think things through, and sometimes they are still working out the details of a project when everyone else has lost interest and moved on. If you are a systemizer, visionaries will seem like unstable lunatics, and it will be hard to see the method in their madness. One thing that can increase your appreciation for the visionaries is that they are usually the ones out there bringing customers in to appreciate what YOU have worked so hard to produce.

The Task Masters: Task masters are focused and they don’t mind pushing the team to get things done. Once their eyes are set on a goal, they drive everyone involved towards that goal and have no patience for dragging feet. Of all the work styles, task masters have the least patience for all the “people issues” that get in the way of progress. They aren’t interested in whether or not people feel fulfilled by the functions they perform, or whether people on the team actually like each other, or if things are “fair”. They just want to get to the goal as quickly as possible. If you are a task master, you may be puzzled because it seems like you are offending people left and right when all you want is to get the job done. One thing that may open your perspective to having a people pleaser on you team, is that when people are getting along emotionally, it’s amazing how much more productive they are.

The People Pleasers: People pleasers want everyone to get along, feel fulfilled, and enjoy working together. They care most about creating the kind of work environment that allows people to be their best and perform accordingly. What frustrates them the most is watching members of the team disengage because they aren’t feeling respected or valued, and they often build up a lot of resentment towards the culprits, labeling them as rude, political, or otherwise “unworthy” of respect because of their lack of consideration for their fellow human beings. If you are a people pleaser, one tool that helps is proactively looking for a positive intention behind the behaviors that offend, and taking the initiative to build stronger relationships with ALL personalities in the workplace. This enables you to use your natural strengths to help create the positive environment you cherish, and see people thrive as a result.

Understanding your work style and those of others you work closely with is a first step towards getting more done as a team. You can’t always get away from working with people, but the more you learn about how people work, the more work YOU can get done!