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It’s a case of fire versus ice when it comes to dealing with employees that won’t get along. It’s not as easy as separating those that find it difficult to work together as you might think. For one, they may be excellent at what they do. Their minds are superb and they can not only solve problems but they are dedicated to their profession. It’s only when two or more people with strong personalities are bunched together is when the friction occurs. As the business owner, you don’t want to get to a point where a fight happens or to when you have to take one team member out of the equation, weakening a department in the process. Rather than allowing things to boil over, a good leader will nip it in the bud. Essentially, the people that don’t get along are on the same team, they’re working toward the same goals, even though they may have diverging agendas themselves. So, find a way where they have to cooperate in order for all of them to succeed but in a non-work related manner.
Organizing a presentation
If you’re planning on going to a business event and perhaps even offer a presentation to the audience attending, use this chance to get those at loggerheads to work together. Put the people that can’t get along together into a team, with just them and no one else. Inform them that this is a just a theoretical task with no concrete implementation promised. They should come up with a presentation about a product or service that you have. Their aim is to convince audience members to either inquire further or be intrigued enough to buy. Do not set any strict rules and preferably, allow them to work out who does what. If you do this, there can be no resentment toward the other person for getting a role that the other wanted. Instead, they have to choose among them, meaning that it will have to be a push and a pull in order to move forward. Give them talking points such as areas to go over such as a feature or a special client privilege given to new customers. Overall give them the structure but no meat on the bones; they will be forced to do the best they can. If one of them looks bad, the others do too as it’s a group presentation. Therefore they will be incentivised to treat the presentation as a them versus the audience type affair.
Out and about
One thing most of us avoid is a public embarrassment. It’s funny yet awkward when we are angry with someone in public but because we don’t want to cause a scene we will try our best to get along. Cluego is a great group activity that involved being motivated to win but also using a logical mind to beat an opposing team. Set in London, teams have to reach various destinations ahead or more of the other team. It forces those that don’t want to cooperate to set aside differences in order to win. It’s also great because your employees are away from the office, meaning the competitive environment plays no part in the activity.
Every business owner would rather their employees get on with each other than have to separate or even fire someone. A good worker is difficult to come by, so make the effort to resolve an issue by creative means before you have to make a tough decision.
