How to work with someone high in openness

To work well with someone high in openness, give them real problems to explore, then agree on the point where exploring stops and building starts. People who score high on this trait tend to enjoy ideas, novelty and unusual connections. Your job is not to rein that in. It is to give it a shape.

If you want the fuller picture of the trait itself, our page on what openness to experience means covers how it shows up across life. This guide stays at the desk.

What you are likely to notice

Picture a Monday stand-up. You report that the client survey is finished. Your colleague asks whether a survey was ever the right tool, and whether a week of shadowing customers might teach you more. It can feel like a detour. Often it is a genuine question that nobody else thought to raise.

You may also see some of these:

• They read widely and bring in examples from fields that seem unrelated.
• They get restless when a task repeats with no room to change it.
• They treat a draft as a conversation starter, not a near-final product.
• They ask "why do we do it this way?" with curiosity, not criticism.

None of this tells you whether someone is good at their job. It tells you what tends to light them up.

Three habits that help

Separate the wide phase from the narrow phase

Most friction comes from two people working in different phases without knowing it. Name the phase out loud. On a product launch, you might set aside Tuesday for wild options and declare Wednesday the day you pick one. Now their appetite for possibilities has a home, and your need for a decision has a date.

Ask for options with a recommendation

A list of twelve ideas leaves you doing the sorting. Try a small request that keeps the creativity and adds a filter:

"I'd love your thinking on the onboarding problem. Can you bring me your three strongest options on Thursday, and tell me which one you'd back if it were your call?"

Notice that this does not ask them to think less. It asks them to finish the thought.

Give the routine work a reason

Everyone has compliance forms and monthly reports. When you hand these over, explain what they protect, and leave room to improve the method. A person who finds the monthly report dull may happily rebuild its template, which saves everyone time next quarter.

When a new idea lands at the wrong moment

Late ideas are the classic flashpoint. The design is signed off, and on Friday afternoon they suggest a different approach. Saying "not now" flatly tends to teach people to stop sharing. A parking lot works better:

"That's a good one, and I don't want to lose it. We're locked for this release, so let's put it at the top of the list for the next round. Can you write two lines on it so we remember why it excited you?"

Then actually open that list next round. If nothing ever comes back from it, the parking lot becomes a polite way of saying no, and they will work that out quickly.

What they might need from you

Your steadiness is useful to them, even if it does not always feel that way. A colleague who loves possibilities often appreciates someone who remembers the budget, spots the dependency and asks who will maintain the clever new thing in a year. Offer those questions as help with making the idea survive, and they tend to land well.

If you are the one who likes things settled, you might also enjoy reading about how to date someone open to new experiences, because the same gap shows up at home. Friendships have their own version, as you will see in being friends with someone who likes routine. And if your team includes both types, the flip side of this guide is managing someone who prefers the familiar.

A quick test for next week

Pick one decision coming up. Before the meeting, ask your open-minded colleague one question: "What are we not considering?" Then tell them when you need to close the discussion. You may be surprised by how little friction is left once both needs are stated.

Everyone's mix is different, and a written guide from the person themselves beats any general advice. Get a Field Guide written for the people in your life.

Curious where you sit on this trait, and why their ideas energise or exhaust you? The Core Personality Expedition maps your own openness alongside the other four big traits.