Dealing with personality clashes between team members

Penny Etheridge of The Radiant Hair Consultancy looks at the issue of personality clashes between team members and how to deal with them. One of the questions I often get asked when conducting a business consultancy with a salon owner is: “How do I manage this particular person?  I don’t want to lose them but they cause me real headaches with the rest of the team?” Or “My Manager has real problems with a few team members what can I do to support them or is it their fault for being a bit weak? “ Often I will hear: “I think it’s just down to a personality clash between those two! “ Maybe so, however, a personality clash is an issue that won’t go away unless tackled and tackled it must be to protect the performance and health of your business. This type of situation will often have a very negative effect on overall morale of the team. People will not do their best work or provide great service to clients if they are always looking over their shoulders to avoid a colleague’s unhelpful, or undermining, behaviour. The key to avoiding this situation in the first instance is on careful recruitment of experienced people into a team. Even if a candidate has the necessary skills and knowledge on paper, often not enough thought is given on whether they are the best fit for the business and team. When interviewing a potential stylist consider not just their skills but their style of communication and the impact this will have on the culture of the team as a whole. If someone isn’t a perfect fit, but you need to employ them, spend a lot of time embedding your salon culture and ethics into the new persons working regime to ensure a clash cannot cultivate. Education leads to understanding I would not tolerate from anyone I recruited the attitude “don’t really care about your policies I’ve always done it this way. “ Believe me, if you do then it’s the quickest way to create discord in your team. Its best to take a strong stance on that sort of attitude from the beginning. Sometimes personality clashes occur when there is a lack of awareness or misunderstanding of how different people like to work and the different ways they interpret or receive information. I find it quite disturbing that in a recent survey by CMI 48% of managers said they had not received any training over the last 12 months. Learning and consistently updating skills to understanding personality types is key to maintaining a happy, stable and above all profitable team. Senior team members need to understand who they really are to fully understand the personalities that make up their team. My strong advice to any salon owner is to keep education in this area a top priority. I would actually suggest educating all your team on the different communication styles and understanding people types. A confident, stable team will more than perform to make up any financial cost. Even after consistent education, and open communication sometimes personality discord will still raise its ugly head.  One strategy I have used to good effect over the years was this. Invite the biggest offender into an informal meeting and ask them what they would do to manage the particular situation; it’s difficult for people to disagree or not comply with their own suggestions!   Penny Etheridge, founder of The Radiant Hair Consultancy, has more than 30 years’ experience within the hair and beauty Industry. In that time she has won numerous industry accolades both for her own company and companies she has worked with. An active member of the Institute of Enterprise and Entrepreneurs, and the Hair Council Steering Committee Penny empathises with the challenges salon owners face today.