How do I find common ground with a coworker who thinks very differently from myself?

Question

I design electrical circuits for a living. Over the past few years, I've established a logical design method which works for me and helps me to keep track of how everything is connected together. Since these designs can become humongous, I group the sub-designs in a specific way, name my nets in a specific way, etc. This isn't a matter of right/wrong, but rather just how I think about things.

I was the only designer in my company for a number of years. A couple of months ago a coworker was hired to take up some of the work. I've found his structure of doing things to be difficult to keep track of. He seems to think very differently to myself and organises his designs in a very different way to me. I did speak to him about it, but he said this is what makes logical sense to him. Nonetheless, when I look over his work, it takes me double the time it would take to figure out what's going on than it would if it were my own design.

He is significantly less experienced than me (I'm at 10-ish years, he's at 2). I don't know if his method is due to him not really establishing himself yet or if this really how he does things.

How can I find common ground with my new coworker? I want to be respectful of him, but his design style is really getting in the way of our progress as a team.

---

To clarify where my techniques came from: I was trained by a company who was much larger and had an established internal design standard. I didn't question where this came from. When I started at my current employer, one of the first things I asked was "what's your design standard?". They didn't have one, and I was pretty much left to use the techniques that I'd learned. These have evolved slightly to fit the needs of a smaller company. I have only really worked at these two companies, so haven't been able to objectively evaluate my design process relative to the industry as a whole.

Answer 1

I design electrical circuits for a living.

How can I find common ground with my new coworker?

You worked all alone for years. Your standard makes sense for you. You should really look around for the industry standard on this. Sooner or later you will either hire more guys, or maybe you will switch companies. Designing electrical circuits is not exactly hipster territory. People have done this before and they had the same problems you have. How to keep organized.

You have this problem with 2 people, just imagine companies with teams of 10 or 100. They have standards. Find and read some and then decide together if you want to adopt one of them or build your own based on those. A standard also helps in onboarding new workers. They can read it and adapt instead of your team having to correct them every time until they are frustrated.

So go find the industry standard(s). Then pick one.

Answer 2

We have similar issues in coding, with regards to style and personal preferences. Occasionally someone will come along who feels very strongly about a certain thing (tabs vs. spaces, when to put the brace on the next line, etc.) and, if they're obnoxious, they'll make some kind of wide-reaching commit that makes everything conform to their way of doing things. Alternately, they might tie up the whole team in endless discussions about something that doesn't matter as much as they think it does (the materials of the bike shed).

The answers to these sorts of problems begin with conformity. There's nothing worse than having multiple standards half-applied because different members of the team either ignorantly or knowingly work against each other. If you spend the majority of the time working on your own designs and can respect each other's approach when you do have to work on theirs, it's not a huge impact. However, if someone spends an adverse amount of time converting to their preferences every time something passes over their desk or passive-aggressive yo-yo'ing of changes occurs, you have a problem.

Secondly, don't rock the boat. If you have a consistent standard that isn't your favourite, keep it consistent and don't change it purely out of personal preferences. Such efforts usually have very little benefit and the chance of introducing hard to find errors. Starting a new project is the right time to be selecting a standard. Any mixed-standards within a project (from new contributors failing to follow an old standard, or just a decision to switch) can leave things messy and confusing.

The third thing you need is leadership. Pople like to talk about this stuff but it's not always the most productive discussion to be having. Do take some time to talk about it, but ultimately someone needs to put their foot down and make sure everyone adheres to the same standards.

So my advice to you would be: have a discussion with him about his style, but ultimately come to a final decision on a singular style you can both live with. Learn his style and how to respect it for existing designs, but for all new designs use the agreed common style and hold each other to it. Don't be afraid to iterate on what that style might be and discuss it further, but make sure such changes are agreed and understood by all involved.

Answer 3

Identify gaps

It is relatively easy to get into friction with people who don't quite think like you. Brothers brought up under the same parents often do run into friction because of such differences. The first step is to identify where the gaps are. How severely do we have disagreement or not, which areas have more serious gaps, how does these gaps affects us beyond just basic comforts: for example, does it affect productivity? or final outcome of work?

Understand mutual point of view

Why does the other person think differently, because of their point-of-view. these gaps reduce as you have more and more communication. As we meet people who are different from us, we learn more : example-by-example. More you have open communication, more we can analyze whether or not the other person will be in agreement or disagreement irrespective of our liking.

Learn to isolate deliverables and dependencies

Some aspects will never get resolved because it is fundamental to our personality and core ideas. So as we learn to identify what seems unresolvable, we must identify ways in which we can separate out responsibilities or simplify how we can remain agnostic to each other's point-of-view and receive-deliver the work required mutually and for the organization.

Escalate positively

When things doesn't seems to be easy, or affects work be objective about where the thoughts differ mutually and how it affects the final output of the work. Present this to your higher ups who has the authorities to split the domains, or work areas or setup processes that simplifies these friction issues.

Don't take the friction home or onto your head

While it may take time to resolve gaps in people's thinking, and adults definitely won't give up their ideas easily. So there will also be periods where these frictions does make us uncomfortable. Be objective, and do not take elements of these disagreements personally. That will be essential for you to have your work output productive and of quality and will let you have peace of mind when you go back home.