How To Work With People You Don’t Like: Ever Thought to Entertain?

If you are able to do this crucial step – step out of your ego for a while – then all else will be easy. To entertain someone you don’t like will not only be easy but fun too! You will have one less person you dislike and add a friend. So the effort becomes worthwhile. It all depends if you can let that ego go just for a few minutes.

Assuming you can do that, then how to work with people you don’t like by entertaining them will come naturally.

Entertain
To do this, first you must be able to have a sense of humor. Sure, to have a sense of humor around someone you don’t like is tough. But the tougher it is the more you should have a sense of humor. Especially when the situation becomes tense and you can feel animosity. Cracking a joke and looking at the lighter side of things can break a smile on the face of people you don’t like. Entertain them a little. Even if you ‘lose’ what do you really ‘lose’? Think about it.

Learning to entertain then means being able to have a sense of humor. When you do that you can be someone fun to work with. Perhaps you have never thought of it, maybe you are also someone who is tough to work with. Ever considered you could be part of the problem?

Ask yourself, are you fun to work with? Do you complain and gossip a lot? Perhaps you are too dogmatic with certain things. If that is so, you may choose to find out if that is the case. One way to find out is to get into a more relaxed situation. You could entertain the person with an after work drink. Or invite the person out for lunch, if drinks are difficult.

Sometimes it takes more than one session for the person to open up. At the very least, they do feel your sincerity to solve a particular challenge. In a less formal situation people can open up more and speak more frankly. So to entertain is one way to solve how to work with people you don’t like.

Assuming the above is difficult to do, then entertain the tough questions and resistance coming from the person. In work situations, you know these people whom you don’t like is likely to raise tough questions in order to make it difficult for you. Entertain those questions and resistance. When you put it into context, entertaining these can be fun. It can be very satisfying when you are able to answer them. Dogged determination can wear even the most difficult person down. Try entertaining the people you don’t like.

How to work with people you don’t like? One way is to entertain them by buying them lunch or drinks with an objective to put them in a relax mood to talk frankly. If that is difficult, entertain their tough questions at work and entertain their resistance.

With effort and some luck, either individually or in combination – engage, enlighten or entertain can be your answer to how to work with people you don’t like.

This is part 3 of a 3-part article.