Tell me about working closely with someone whose working style collided with yours. What did you change on your side to make it work?

The framing blocks the comfortable exit of describing how difficult the other person was — the question is what the candidate adjusted. It separates people who can flex how they work from people who wait, politely, for everyone else to convert.

• What specifically clashed — pace, planning, level of detail?
• What did adapting cost you?
• What did you refuse to change, and why?
• What did you end up borrowing from their way of working?

The difference described as work habits rather than character flaws, concrete adjustments made on their own side, a line they held with a stated reason, and something genuinely borrowed from the other style.

The other style is treated as simply wrong, all the adapting was expected from the other person, "we're just different" with no adjustment ever made, or the difference drifts from working style into personal territory.