Don’t Let Your Conflict Management Skills Become Extinct

Have you ever walked into the office and felt like you were walking into a dinosaur den? Roaring, grumbling, screeching personalities surrounding you and you’re just trying to stay cool and calm as the difficult people test your patience.

We’ve all been there and had to deal with one of the oldest struggles: getting along well with others. There will be days when you have to interact with the wide range of dino-personalities that exist in your office. Many people spend more time with their coworkers than they do their significant others, families and friends which means you’re more likely to become negatively affected by the individuals you work with. Let’s take a look at some of these difficult dino-personalities.

Grump-osaurus Gary

Traits: Is anything ever right with them? They prefer complaining to finding solutions.

Special Skill: Grumbles and frowns.

Diet: Bologna sandwiches

Dino-gative Nelly

Traits: They are quick to point out why something won’t work. What’s worse, they’re inflexible. They are consistently negative and unable to see the positives in any situation.

Special Skill: Turning something positive into something negative.

Diet: Salads

Lazy-osaurus Lori

Traits: Never offer ideas or let you know where they stand. They tend to push work onto others and always seem to be missing when you need them the most.

Special Skill: Doing the bare minimum.

Diet: Frozen meal

Angry-osaurus Aaron

Traits: They bully and intimidate. They’re constantly demanding and brutally critical. Controlling situations is their specialty, even when they aren’t the expert.

Special Skill: Never smiling.

Diet: Whatever they find in the community fridge

Dino-it-all Doug

Traits: They’re arrogant and usually have an opinion on every issue. When they’re wrong, they get defensive. May fib to be right and typically enjoy one-upping others.

Special Skill: Never, ever wrong.

Diet: Fast food

Dino-pet Peter

Traits: They agree to any commitment, yet rarely deliver. You can’t trust them to follow through. They are constantly being the “teacher’s pet” and enjoy taking credit a little too much.

Special Skill: Un-humble-able.

Diet: Leftovers

Now that we’ve unearthed the dino-personalities that live in your office, here are some tips to keep in mind to ensure your communication skills don’t become extinct:

• Stay on your own level. Don’t move to their playing field because then they will have the upper hand. Just remember that the only attitude you can control is your own.
• Remove yourself from the situation. A simple way to destress when the personalities are roaring around you is to take a walk or sit in a quiet room and breathe.
• Don’t bottle it up. Bottling up your feelings and thoughts can cause you to explode in a very negative way. Be sure you’re allowing yourself to properly vent and get some of those negative feelings out before they become too much to handle.
• Put yourself in their shoes. You never know what is going on in someone’s life to cause them such unhappiness. Be sure to apply a little empathy to a situation before being instantly upset with someone.