Let’s be real for a second.

We’ve all worked with that one person who made us question our career choices. They talk over everyone. They “circle back” to their own ideas 100% of the time. They write Slack messages like they're composing a ransom note.

At some point, we throw up our hands and say: “They’re just difficult.”

Most people aren’t actually difficult. They’re just operating on a completely different frequency. And no one gave you the manual on how to deal with that.

Welcome to the Workplace Hunger Games

The modern workplace is a mix of remote meetings, async updates, and way too many emoji reactions. And in this chaos, the odds of miscommunication are basically 100%.

You meant to sound direct. They heard: aggressive. You left out an exclamation mark. They assumed you were mad. You sent “Can we chat later?” They started updating their resume.

This isn’t just awkward. It’s expensive.

Time gets wasted. Tension builds. HR gets looped into things they shouldn’t even know about.

HR Is Not a Fire Extinguisher

Let’s talk about HR. They’re exhausted. They’re juggling onboarding, retention, compliance, DEI, benefits, culture, and probably a rogue office chair budget.

Now throw in:

🧨 Managers who can’t give feedback

🧨 Employees who avoid conflict like the plague

🧨 Teams with zero alignment and 1,000 assumptions

HR is not supposed to be your emergency therapist.

Onboarding Shouldn’t Feel Like a Crime Scene Investigation

Let’s say you just hired someone. Yay!

You send them a laptop, a Notion doc, and a Slack invite.

They join their first meeting like: “Who are you people and what do you do here?”

They don’t know how the team communicates. They don’t know how decisions are made. They don’t know that “John just has a strong personality” is code for “he’ll interrupt you but doesn’t mean it.”

And guess what? That lack of clarity? It’s directly tied to retention, engagement, and how long it takes before someone says “this place is a mess” and bounces.

It’s Not About Being “Nice” — It’s About Being Clear

Most workplaces don’t need another team-building exercise or personality quiz with cute colors.

What they do need is a way for people to:

✔️ Understand themselves

✔️ Understand each other

✔️ Communicate like grown-ups (with feelings, not just deliverables)

✔️ Stop escalating every issue to HR like it’s an episode of Succession

When people have visibility into how their teammates operate, they stop guessing. They stop projecting. They stop wasting time.

And they start… idk… working better together?

TL;DR:

• Difficult people? Mostly just different.

• HR shouldn’t be your referee.

• Onboarding should feel like joining a team, not solving a mystery.

• Emotional intelligence isn't soft—it's a competitive edge.

• The workplace is not your family. But it can be functional.

  
  

  Let’s normalize giving people the tools to actually work with each other.

Because “figure it out” isn’t a strategy.

All of the above can be resolved my helping your employees become more self-aware. How do you do that at scale?

Offer them Prism. Our self-assessment helps people understand themselves and each other, so teams can actually work like teams.

Take the Prism self-assessment for free, and get it for all of your employees - Get it here

No seriously, it's free for you AND your employees.