In an industry dependent on working with others, it is inevitable that we will come in contact with people we don't like. It might be a contractor, a consultant, or even one of our colleagues in the office. Whatever the case, working with someone we don't like can make work difficult. How do we deal with this? Bregman Partners CEO, Peter Bregman has some ideas.

Bregman says that we can't just "grin and bear it," like we might be tempted to do. "According to research, the more people like you, the easier, more productive, and more profitable, your life will be. Which means that someone you don’t get along with—even if you grin and bear it—poses a risk," he writes. 

Instead, according to Bregman, we need to really look at the reason that we don't like someone. Perhaps, they're selfish or dismissive or mean. Ultimately, they tend to have some character traits that bother us. And so, after we identify this, we are supposed to look at ourselves and see if we can detect elements of these traits within our own character. Bregman admits that this is a hardest thing for us to do.

Essentially, his point is that we tend to hate the things in others that we hate in ourselves. "So the way to overcome your dislike of someone else? Overcome your dislike of yourself," he writes. Now, interacting with this person becomes a way to better understand our darker tendencies and to learn to show compassion to both ourselves and this other person.

It's an interesting take on a common dilemma. If it works for Bregman, it may also work for some of us in architecture.