Instant Manager: Dealing with Difficult People

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How to shine as a new manager. How to impress employers when you're young. Difficult work situations are rarely about you personally, it is about the situation. Never allow the altercation to become personal on either side as it makes finding a solution almost impossible.

What the other person is saying is important. Acknowledge their concerns, although never accept blame at this stage. Let me look into this and then we can speak again. As a manager, if the conversation seems to be going around and around, or is no longer productive, someone needs to curtail it, and that someone is you. Quite often, many difficult people are bound up in themselves and their own feelings. To change focus or take the heat out of the conversation, put the onus on yourself.

Allow others either to withdraw their comments, apologise or change their minds with their dignity intact. It helps no one to crush people, show them up in front of others or expose them to ridicule. That will only cause long-term bad feeling from which you may never recover. If your own manager is becoming increasingly tricky to deal with, try to understand what stresses and strains he or she is under.

Take an interest in business plans and forecasts so you can try to work with their frustrations rather than dismiss them. The same counts for your employees; put yourself in their shoes. Different cultures express themselves in different ways. Be aware of cultural differences before jumping to conclusions and possibly making the situation worse. If you are unsure, speak to a colleague or your HR team about your problem. Follow-up after the initial discussion. Has the behavior changed? Determine whether a follow-up discussion is needed. Determine whether a follow-up discussion will have any impact.

Decide if you want to continue to confront the difficult person by yourself. Decide how badly you want to make peace with the other person and how much you want your current job. Determine whether you have experienced a pattern of support from your boss. If not, escalate and move to the next idea.

Deal with the person with gentle humor or slight sarcasm. Or, make an exaggerated physical gesture — no, not that one — such as a salute or place your hand over your heart to indicate a serious wounding.

Instant Manager: Dealing with Difficult People

Direct confrontation does work well for some people in some situations. Their success for you will depend on your ability to pull them off. Each of us is not spur-of-the-moment funny, but if you are, you can use the humor well with difficult coworkers. Want five more tips?

Fleeing is definitely an option. Make a plan to address the issues. Recognize that a good boss is likely to bring your difficult coworker and his supervisor into a three or four-way discussion at this point. Expect to participate in follow-up over time. Rally the other employees who might have an issue with the difficult person, too — carefully. Sometimes, a group approach convinces the boss that the impact of the behavior is wider and deeper than she had originally determined. Be careful with this approach, however.

Know what works with your boss. You want to solve your problem, not make it look as if you are rabble-rousing and ganging up on another employee.

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Protect the needs of your business, but avoid working with the person when possible. Leave voluntary committees, Choose projects he or she does not impact. Transfer to a new job within your organization. Depending on the size of your company, you may never have to work with this difficult coworker again. If all else fails, you can quit your job. What, flee, you ask? I was not the difficult coworker. All I tried to do was my job. But, what price, in terms of your happiness and success, are you willing to pay to stay?

You need to decide whether the good in your current situation outweighs the bad or whether the bad outweighs the good. If the good wins, stop complaining and get back to work. Backtrack on these recommended steps and retry some of them when appropriate. If the bad wins, redirect your energy to leaving your current employment. Check out the second part of this article to find out how to conduct a stealth job search and much more about job searching. A former colleague holds complete conversations in his head with people with whom he is angry.

He rarely speaks directly with the other person. This anger in his mind continues to build because of his frustration, yet he never lets the other person know that he is frustrated and subsequently angry. His need to avoid confrontation is so strong that he has a safe confrontation in his mind and feels that he has dealt with the issue.

Are you guilty of holding mental conflicts and confrontations? Many people are uncomfortable when it comes to confrontation. I understand the concept of having the conversation in your head; so you can plan out what you want to say and how you want to say it. Sometimes these mental conversations are enough to settle the issue, as you realize you are making too much out of a simple situation.

I know that I have spent hours lying in bed at night having conversations with people with whom I am angry and frustrated. Not only does this practice disrupt your sleep, your attitude, and your health, it never really resolves the issue, and is potentially damaging to your relationships. If it comes back and you have it again, perhaps start thinking about holding a real conversation. Start by preparing yourself to confront the real issue. Be able to state the issue in one or two , non-emotional, factual based sentences.

For example, assume you want to confront your coworker for taking all of the credit for the work that the two of you did together on a project. My name does not appear anywhere on the document, nor I have been given credit anywhere that I can see. Notice that I avoided using the words I feel because that is an emotional statement, without proof and facts. The facts in this statement cannot be disputed, but an I feel statement is easy for your coworker to refute.

When the person you are confronting responds, allow them to respond. Defending why you feel the way you do will generally just create an argument. Say what you want to say the confrontation , then just allow the other person to respond. Resist the temptation to say anything else at this point. Confrontation does not mean fight. It means that you need to state what you have say.

Listen to what they have to say. Many times it actually ends right there. Do you need to prove the other person right or wrong? Get your frustration off your chest, and move on. I said both of our names to the boss just last week. If you already know what you are looking for in the confrontation , this is where you move the conversation. The other party will either agree or disagree. Keep to the issue at this point, and avoid all temptation to get into an argument. You will rarely look forward to confrontation; you may never become completely comfortable with, or even skilled in confrontation.

However, it is important that you say something when you are frustrated and angry. Most employees and managers have a story about a conflict in the workplace that got out of hand. Sometimes, the events remain in the past, but sometimes they take root and lead to rifts within an office.

Cold exchanges are made in the breakroom, two employees avoid eye contact in meetings, and projects slow to a crawl because of a breakdown in communication. Next time a problem flares up in the office, follow this method to identify the problems, find solutions and work toward fostering a positive team environment. The differences between a cooperative and a toxic office lie in how long problems take to get solved. However, the survey also shows that conflict can be an opportunity for growth. In fact, 75 percent of employees said they have experienced positive outcomes from a well-managed conflict that might not have occurred without the conflict in the first place.

In a study of 2, UK employees, CIPD found that 38 percent of employees experienced some sort of interpersonal conflict at work in the past year, and 25 percent said conflict is a normal part of the workplace. The team at CIPD then divides these incidents into two types: While an isolated dispute occurs because of an event and can may only last a few days, ongoing conflict relationships can last for months and build with every new problem. Regardless of the level or severity of the issue, conflict needs to be addressed.

The question is how it should be addressed. Bill Howatt writes at The Globe and Mail. Howatt writes that conflict is a natural part of the workplace and can lead to important changes and a better understanding through communication. Glenn Llopis agrees with Howatt. Before you address the conflict, you should evaluate the working relationship between the two parties in question.

This will help you decide whether you should get involved or step back. Your answers will determine whether to let it slide or try to resolve it. Fox highlights the relationship between employees and managers as an example. This is a highly important relationship, as both parties will have to keep working together even after the issue is solved. In this case, a third-party mediator like a co-worker or higher-level employee could help create a platform for communication.

When mediating between two parties, it helps to have an established framework to use in order to fairly evaluate both sides. By being fair and procedural, you reduce the risk of isolated incidents becoming ongoing relationship conflicts. Beverly Flaxington has created a five-step sample model that you can apply to most conflicts:. Most, if not all, conflict will be tied to some sort of emotion. Your goal as a leader is to separate the facts from the emotion and make the best possible decision.

One incident is a symptom of a larger problem. The fact that conflict is so closely tied to emotion highlights the value of emotional intelligence in the workplace. Emotional intelligence is your ability to accurately track your emotions as they happen and evaluate the emotions of others.

It is your ability to control how you react in certain situations while understanding why others might react differently. Travis Bradberry reports that emotional intelligence the foundation for traits like empathy, change tolerance and problem solving is one of the most useful workplace skills and accounts for 58 percent of success in most positions. He found that 90 percent of effective performers have high levels of emotional intelligence, but only 20 percent of the bottom performers do. Identifying emotions can actually help managers resolve conflicts. By isolating the facts, they can focus on the core issues at hand instead of getting involved in personal disagreements.

But the best managers know how to address conflicts in a productive manner. This fear ultimately makes you an ineffective employee because the needs of the business will always be second to your own personal discomfort.

Rhonda Scharf has also seen fear paralyze her co-workers. To abate these fears, Scharf created a four-step process that people can follow when they want to address conflict in a way that opens the door for healthy discussion:. Team members who fear conflict can mentally write out what they want to say following this process to temper the messiness of confrontation.

In many ways, voicing your problems is a learning process. The more you do it, the better you will get. Even the best conflict-resolution managers avoid difficult conversations sometimes. However, difficult issues need to be addressed for the health of the company. James Kerr notes that when management refuses to acknowledge conflict, the results are often diminished teamwork, reduced productivity and unresolved conflicts that ultimately can compel your top employees to leave.

This often leaves management with just the people who benefit from the status quo. The Trade Union Congress reports that 29 percent of workers have been bullied at work. Nearly half of these respondents said it has affected their performance along with their mental health. By failing to address conflict in a fair and timely manner, you could be contributing to a culture of bullying within your office. When leaders encourage teams to address differences instead of suppressing, both parties can come up with opportunities to overcome and even embrace challenges. Bullying, turnover, lost employees and a toxic workplace; is all of that worth giving into the fear of addressing conflict?

By improving your conflict-resolution skills, you will be able to solve more isolated problems and create a more positive work environment for your team.

Complainers

Furthermore, you will grow as a manager and continue to be an asset within your company. Conflict is part of life. Conflict is any situation in which people have incompatible interests, goals, principles or feelings and experience. In other words, conflict means that two people experience discomforting differences. Despite our best efforts, we find ourselves in disagreements with other people in all aspects of our lives: How we respond to provocation can determine if conflict moves in a beneficial or a harmful direction.

The good news is that we can learn skills, strategies and processes to manage conflict. When handled effectively, conflict carries with it opportunity:. Conflict is a signal that changes might be necessary in the relationships or the situation so conflict management can build relationships.

It also encourages listening and taking the perspective of the other person for greater rapport. Conflict stimulates problem-solving and open communication to arrive at better solutions. Conflict provides a means for expressing emotions which can ultimately clear the air and reduce tension. Let us examine the first step in becoming an effective conflict manager: The start of being an effective conflict manager is being aware of your style in conflict and the style of those that you deal with. There are 5 different styles for managing conflict.

These are tendencies and we may use any one of these styles at different times. However, people tend to have one or two preferred or default waysof dealing with conflict. Avoid A person who avoids conflict does not deal the issue at hand when it arises. This means that neither his own concerns nor those of the other person are addressed. Avoiding might mean diplomatically sidestepping an issue, postponing an issue until a better time, or withdrawing from a threatening situation. Accommodate Someone who accommodates the other person in a conflict prefers to satisfy the concerns of the other person, thereby neglecting his own concerns.

Accommodation carries with it an element of self-sacrifice. Compromise The individual who prefers to compromise wants to find an expedient, mutually acceptable solution. Compromising addresses an issue more directly than avoiding, but does not explore it in as much depth as collaborating. Compromising might mean splitting the difference, exchanging concessions, or seeking a quick middle-ground position. Collaborate In collaboration, the individual prefers to work with the other person to find a solution that fully satisfies the concerns of both. It involves exploring an issue to identify the underlying interests of the parties in order to arrive at an outcome that meets both sets of concerns.

These styles translate into 5 different strategies for managing conflict which are based on 4 factors:. By knowing when to use each strategy, you can begin to make choices about which is the most appropriate to the situation. Avoiding is an appropriate strategy where there is a clear advantage to waiting to resolve the conflict. When used as a choice, it helps to cool things down and reduce stress.

However, if either the issue or the relationship between the parties is important, avoidance is a poor strategy because important decisions may be made by default and postponing resolution of the issue may make matters worse. Accommodate is a good strategy when you find yourself in conflict over a fairly unimportant issue and you would like to resolve the conflict without straining your relationship with the other party.

Someone who accommodates builds good will and can be perceived as reasonable. Collaborating is also an option, but it might not be worth the time. The focus is on the relationship, as opposed to the outcome. The downside is that your ideas do not get sufficient attention and may be neglected, causing you to feel resentful. Moreover, you may lose credibility and influence if accommodation becomes a pattern. When dealing with moderately important issues, compromising can often lead to quick solutions.

However, compromise does not completely satisfy either party, and compromise does not foster innovation the way that taking the time to collaborate can. Compromise helps to get to solutions and is good for overcoming impasses. However, compromise can backfire if the parties overlook important principles and long-term goals for the sake of the details. Moreover, it is not the best way to reach an optimal solution on important issues. Conflict management experts advocate collaboration as the best way to resolve a conflict over important issues.

The premise is that teamwork and cooperation help all parties to achieve their goals while also maintaining the relationships. Collaboration works best when: The downside is that the process requires a lot of time and energy. If time is precious, compete or compromise might be a better solution.

Compete is a useful strategy when the outcome is extremely important and an immediate decision needs to be taken. It is efficient and effective when you need to take a stand. In that case, one must sometimes use power to win. However, when used too often, compete can escalate the conflict, breed resentment among others and damage relationships. How to Use Conflict Management Strategies The first step in managing your conflicts is to be aware of your default style. Where has it worked for you? Where did it let you down? What were the consequences? Once you know about the other styles and strategies, you can begin to apply them in the appropriate situation.

The good news is that this is a skill that you can practice and eventually master. In addition, once you know the different styles, you can identify them in the people with whom you are in conflict. This can help you to understand their perspective and frame the appropriate response. By knowing the styles and how to use them effectively, you can begin to take charge of those uncomfortable conflict situations.

With these principles in mind, you are now ready for action. She is the author of numerous articles on the various aspects of how to achieve and live authentic success and blogs on career development and personal development for musicians creative professionals at www. Travis Bradberry Award-winning co-author of the best-selling book, Emotional Intelligence 2. His bestselling books have been translated into 25 languages and are available in more than countries. The answer is anyone who tolerates them. Every time you give in to a difficult person, every time you choose not to confront him or her, you allow a difficult person to continue this rude behavior.

What does a difficult person in your office look like? Often, he is the one who gets the better schedule. He may come in late or leave the office early, leaving his or her work for others to finish. The individual might take a longer lunch, hold long personal calls during work hours, or refuse to lend a co-worker a hand. So, how can you change this situation? Confrontation is one answer. Unfortunately, it can be hard for anyone to address this issue. Here are some tips, whether you are an employee dealing with a difficult supervisor, a worker dealing with a co-worker, or a manager dealing with a challenging employee:.

Owner or Manager to Employee: Have you ever had an employee who was demanding, condescending, abrupt, tearful, insecure, and high maintenance—yet he or she did an excellent job? Were you worried about losing the person because of the great work?

The employee should be given a copy of the corrective review; a signed copy is placed in his or her employee file. Let the employee know the specific behavior you need to have changed, your clearly defined expectations, and a time frame to work within. Have a follow-up meeting within a designated time period to give the employee the feedback needed. Be sure to provide clear oversight. What if the difficult person is your boss or manager? Approach your employer or supervisor first by asking: Is now a good time? Begin by expressing your intention and your motives.

Explain your concern about a loss of business and unhappy clients, and that your intentions are to help make the workplace not only productive but also satisfactory to clients. Another approach is to talk about how certain behaviors in the office are decreasing efficiency. Always be tactful, professional, calm, and polite. Ask your employer or manager for his or her goals and offer to give suggestions to help meet those goals. If you have a problem with a co-worker, the best course of action is to go to that person directly. Go to the person privately and tell them about it.

Describe the behavior with dates, names, and times. This is how I felt when…. Describe what you would like to see changed. Try to resolve the issue first personally and privately. If the situation does not change, request a meeting between yourself, the other person and your employer. Everyone can choose his or her attitude. Each day, when someone walks out the front door to go to work, that person has a choice in how his or her day will play out.

If you have a difficult person in your life, set the boundaries, explain your expectations, and then hold that person accountable. The person who is calm and asks the questions is the one in control. It seemed like a simple task. Please switch my gym membership from gold to silver level. That was now the third time I repeated my request, each time a little more calmly and a little more slowly, despite the beginnings of blood boiling feelings. The person on the other end of the phone could not have been ruder. It was as if I was asking for a kidney instead of a membership change.

A harsh tone and harsher words ensued. Why, I still have no idea. Why are some people continually difficult to deal wit h? What makes Joe easy to get along with and John such a struggle? Here are the major reasons and what can be done about it. We love it when we are acknowledged. We may not be crazy about when we are criticized , but it beats Option 3: Being ignored is a terrible feeling for humans and one that we avoid like the plague. These are the set of behavioral responses that are so ingrained that it is a reflexive series of actions. It is the default mode.

When you find yourself in such a situation, ask the big question: What is my positive intention here? What am I trying to accomplish? What is the other person trying to accomplish? If you can leave enough of the heated emotions aside, clearing enough space for some patience and I dare say, compassion, the root cause of the behavior often becomes crystal clear. What are you trying to accomplish? Fear causes more complications and melodramatic dilemmas than all other emotions combined. Fear is typically at the root when dealing with difficult people. They want something and fear it is either not being heard and will never be heard, or they are not deserving of having their voices heard in the first place.

They are stories we tell ourselves and believe as fact. Our bodies react with—you guessed it—fear. Fear is a root emotion that originates from the kidney energy. The kidney energy is the source of all energy. Knowingly or unknowingly, we try to protect this at all times. Fear is the prime, albeit most ineffective method.

Steering the person away from this base emotion is the key here. By choosing your words carefully and speaking them kindly, you can help divert a person from fear into the more advantageous and effective emotions. Once this occurs, the rest is easy. One of the most misquoted and misunderstood martial arts is the popular art of Aikido. Morihei Ueshiba Sensei, founder of Aikido stated something much differently.

When there is a feeling of powerlessness—real or imagined—there is a tendency to go on the attack, so to speak. If one engages, things begin to escalate. That feeling of lacking personal power is the underlying reason. We cannot take power from anyone without their consent. The late self-improvement master Alexander Everett used to set up situations in schools that were based on cooperation, not competition. For example, track events were not Person A running against Person B; rather, they were about whether or not the team had an improved total time this month versus last month.

How can the situation be set up so that both people receive what they desire? Note that this is much different than compromise. Compromise is a situation where a third option is agreed upon and neither party is happy with it. At the end of the day, people are people. There are no truly difficult people, only those who have unrefined communication skills. Given the opportunity, everyone eventually finds their pure voice. But the good news is, you do not have to let them get the better of you! Everyone has met these people.

No matter what kind of difficult behavior these people subscribe to, the air can be sucked right out of the room, and productivity screeches to a halt. Not matter what technique you may engage to deal with a difficult person, the situation may not be able to be diffused. In this case remember, only address the unwanted behavior, and not the person.

No one benefits when it crosses the line and becomes personal. I recently encountered a know-it-all when I was presenting to a group of about 35 individuals. She constantly interrupted and tried to correct me. It could have really rattled me, but I did not personalize it. I found out later that she does this to compensate for her own lack of self-esteem. It took me back — I realized then that she was not the person who I thought she was. Yes, Don Corleone knew a thing or two about leadership. While many of us dream of leadership being that easy, we all realize, sooner or later, motivating others to comply with our requests is more complicated than Brando makes it look.

Like it or not, dealing and communicating with difficult people comes with being a leader. Often, the fight is a battle with our own egos. Many times, as entrepreneurs, we feel we are the best, most competent person to get the job done, which makes us more likely to criticize others. Keynote speaker and best-selling author Garrison Wynn says this need to condemn others is a major downfall of most leaders.

The key is to practice ego-management. Most executives go into confrontations hoping to teach people about the grave error of their ways. Instead, Wynn recommends using this approach:. This works for a few reasons. Two, this method levels the playing field and makes difficult people feel more powerful, thereby making them more compliant. If you can get past it, you can master the worst type of personalities brilliantly. According to a survey done by Psychology Today , 55 percent of people feel their self-worth is, more often than not, tied to what other people think of them.

Do you see me? Does what I say mean anything to you? To motivate people to change, validate their existing knowledge and demonstrate how it matches up with the new behavior you want them to embrace. Peter Shankman, a serial entrepreneur, speaker and founder of Shankminds. Recognizing insecurities, in yourself and in others, is a skill developed over time. It takes patience, understanding and a little creative problem solving. Master it, and you will hold all the secrets for dealing with difficult people.

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Either way, they create unnecessary complexity, strife, and worst of all stress. Exposure to even a few days of stress compromises the effectiveness of neurons in the hippocampus—an important brain area responsible for reasoning and memory. Stress is a formidable threat to your success—when stress gets out of control, your brain and your performance suffer. They stay aware of their emotions. Maintaining an emotional distance requires awareness. They squash negative self-talk. Negative self-talk is unrealistic, unnecessary, and self-defeating.

They get some sleep. They use their support system. To deal with toxic people, you need to recognize the weaknesses in your approach to them. Travis Bradberry , President, TalentSmart. This is what Hell feels like: Heaven is to have forgiven — or to have forgiven-ish, the best you can, for now. Grace is spiritual WD It eases our way out of grippy, self-righteous stuckness. The question is, how do we avail ourselves of it? We take an action and the insight follows.

Any friendly action will do; intention is everything. We show up somewhere knowing the person who aggrieved us will be there, and we go up and say hi. If the person is a relative, we ask for help with the dishes. This is very subversive.

2. It's OK to say no to duties not in your job description – but be respectful

All of my resentments have been healed. One person still judges me, and bears false witness against me, but thankfully, that is not my business or my problem, because I have chosen freedom. Nothing is more wonderful. Anne Lamott is the author of Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair.

When I became a political commentator, I looked for a refresher course in persuasion. Unfortunately, Thank You for Arguing: I highly recommend it. Powerful speech can come in at around words per minute—angry or nervous speech can be about twice that. When all else fails, make a joke. A little pun, even a bad one, goes a long way. They are the authors of Modern Manners: Get Results with NLP: Decoding the World of Work. Effective Time Management skills for Doctors. A Practical Guide to Management. Maslow and Motivation for Residential Care Managers. Keeping Stress at Bay. The Secret Life Of Teams.

Cope with Change at Work: Teach Yourself Ebook Epub. The Leadership of Teams. Create a Winning Team. Seven Secrets to Your Dream Job. Interviewing People Successfully in a Week: Performance Management for the 21st Century. The Essentials of Management. How to be a successful Change Leader. Positive Working Relationships Revised Edition. Managing Relationships at Work. Why do you frown, Daddy? Essential Creativity in the Classroom.

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