Personality conflicts hurt businesses by contributing to declines in collaboration, communication, morale and teamwork. Culture, efficiency, productivity, retention and team member satisfaction all suffer — along with business growth and profits.

The degree to which team members don’t communicate effectively and collaborate presents one of the greatest obstacles to business success. The effective, efficient and smooth flow of information is critical to consistently meet and exceed the wants and needs of customers, foresee challenges and take advantage of opportunities. It’s also essential to producing and delivering high-quality goods and services in a timely manner. When communication is limited or even impossible due to personality conflicts, businesses weaken from within, and the effects are far-reaching.

It’s vital for business owners and managers to remain aware of negative behaviors that result from personality conflicts and address them early and effectively to keep collaboration, communication, morale and teamwork at consistently high levels.

Do you recognize any or all of these sabotaging behaviors in your business?

Arguing: The antithesis of effective collaboration, communication and teamwork, arguing doesn’t contribute to positive environments where team members perform at peak levels. Arguments and aggressive disagreements disrupt operations, send negativity rippling through the business and damage culture and morale.

Avoidance: Some people choose avoidance to cope with personality conflicts. While this might be a quieter and more discreet way of dealing with the situation, it’s not effective in fostering the high levels of collaboration, communication and trust necessary in highly functional teams.

Resistance: When in resistance mode, individuals overtly resist the demands, desires, directions and suggestions of the person with whom they conflict, They could even demonstrate intentional spiteful actions intended to get back at or push the other person’s buttons. This type of behavior isn’t part of a successful team.

Verbal sabotage: Gossip and snide or edgy comments are common when there are a personality conflicts between team members. This type of negativity damages the work environment. It has no place in a powerful business model.

If you recognize some or all of these behaviors in yourself or team members, it’s important to realize the tremendous drag they exert on the operations, resources and team as well as the profitability of your company. When top talent and customers are lost because of these conflicts, it’s already gone too far. Given the overwhelming downside personality conflicts bring to a business, it is imperative to discover, address and overcome them as quickly as possible.

Many personality conflicts arise out of unconscious habits and tendencies that exist within each team member. Sometimes these habits can be corrected by simply drawing attention to the damaging negative behaviors in which team members engage and making it clear they’re not acceptable in the workplace.

Team trainings based on accurate assessment results that help people understand themselves and others — their similarities and differences — and teach participants how to effectively communicate with various behavioral types are invaluable. With greater understanding and acceptance of each other and enhanced communication skills, personality conflicts are reduced.

Effective coaching is successful in helping people become fully aware of the situation at hand and their roles in it. By working with a qualified professional, team members learn to take responsibility for their attitudes and corresponding behaviors and then correct them to create a more collaborative and positive work environment.

Still another option for reducing personality conflicts is to hire for not only skills, but also attitude and emotional intelligence. Through the use of highly accurate assessments that measure these attributes of the team member you bring into your business, personality conflicts can be diminished from the outset.

Sometimes, team members insist on keeping conflicts alive and refuse to set aside differences. In these instances, the wisest choice is to let them go. Anytime you reduce negativity and tension at work, you improve the satisfaction of the team and, in turn, customer service and profitability.

A well-designed team working together in an environment free of personality conflicts delivers the best possible experience to customers. We’re all unique and don’t always agree. When strategic investments help team members understand themselves and others, they accept differences and communication and teamwork become the norm.