Minimize Personality Conflicts at Work: How to Adapt Your Business Styles to Your Colleagues'

Do you have a particular coworker with whom you just don't get along? You're not alone. Maybe the two of you are simply wired differently in terms of your business styles. Jim, a 27 year old call center agent, had this to say about the woman across the aisle from him at the office: "She's been working with me for two years and I still don't know a thing about her. I mean, I'm not trying to hit on her, but a little friendly banter makes the day go by more quickly. Why does she have to be such a snob?"

Lauren, a 34 year old administrative assistant for an employment agency, finds her colleagues' email habits extremely irritating: "They actually send around these fruity little inspirational messages every day. It's very Chicken Soup for the Headhunter's Soul. Why does my inbox have to be clogged with messages that aren't directly business related?"

According to management consultant Ronna Lichtenberg in her book Pitch like a Girl, most people fall clearly into one of two categories when it comes to relating to colleagues. Lichtenberg calls these categories "pink" and "blue." Although she uses the stereotypes of the nurturing woman and the aloof man, who are traditionally represented respectively by the colors pink and blue, the colors are just a shorthand method of making the deeper meaning of the lesson stick in people's minds.

Obviously, as in the examples above, sometimes business styles do not conform to traditional expectations of either gender's personalities. Jim, a classic pink, needs to connect with coworkers in order to work comfortably; blues such as Lauren prefer to keep interactions limited to work discussion.

Lichtenberg writes, "Many of the worst fights are between pink women and blue women. A pink woman sees another woman and expects connection- after all, she's another woman, right? For whatever reason, it's not the blue woman's thing to connect, so she either doesn't even notice the pink's friendly nature or doesn't respond."

One woman who found this out the hard way was Sarah, a blue education student who coordinated an elementary school's read aloud program. Sarah communicated with the teachers at the school only regarding their students and their story time schedules. One of the teachers began complaining to the principal that Sarah never spoke to her in a conversational way or smiled in the hallway.

"I don't see why I should have to say hello to teachers with whom I have nothing to talk about every time I pass by them," said Sarah. "Interacting in a positive way with the kids should be enough." The slighted pink teacher went to the principal about Sarah so often that, as the administration's policy was to inform the subject about all coworker complaints, Sarah felt harassed. She eventually left the school to take a restaurant job that would give her no experience relative to her major.

Lichtenberg describes these types of conflicts by saying, "The pink feels hurt, rejected, then angry. The blue gets angry because there's no rational reason for the pink to get angry. Then it simmers until full boil. All for lack of a little slack about style."

Sarah may have avoided the debacle had she added what Lichtenberg calls stripes, or characteristics of the pink style, to her blue nature. A blue can offer a compliment or a friendly greeting before discussing the task at hand. Other solutions for blues include adding a personal greeting to an email, or the larger behavior modification of learning to think of pink coworkers as important clients. Because internal customer service, or being polite to colleagues, is the most important kind, a blue could occasionally present a coworker a small gift or note or invite him to lunch.

The best way for a pink to add blue stripes is to accept that her blue coworkers are just wired that way. When introduced to an aloof person, a pink may also have success by describing herself in terms of her accomplishments and credentials rather than her family or what diet she is currently on. The point, Lichtenberg says, is that "what you are not going to do is learn how to change other people. They are not going to change. You can only change how you approach them, which will increase the chance that you will get the reaction you want."