Tessa Davis offers three steps for working with difficult people on healthcare teams: don't judge too fast, communicate clearly in both directions, and find common ground through shared goals like patient care.
How do you deal with difficult personalities? The first thing I would do is not to jump to conclusions. It's easy to make a first bad impression and decide, right, that's it, this person's a tricky personality, but actually there may be other stuff going on and your first impression may be wrong. When I meet people in the team, I try to get to know them and develop a relationship over time. Secondly, communicate well. Often when there's clashes of personality, it's due to difficult communication, and actually if we try to listen to other people, understand them, I try to convey my point but also listening to other people, we are usually able to develop good working relationships because we're actually communicating clearly. And the third thing is to find common ground. Everyone's human. We're all on the team trying to do the same thing, which is deliver great patient care. Being able to find common ground with someone through talking to them, through understanding their point of view and discussing the pros and cons of any disagreement. When we can find that common ground, we're able to work better together and be a better part of the team.
