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A Guide To Dealing With Difficult People
Mitigating These Situations
Separate the facts from your assumptions.
Separate yourself and your reactions from the negative emotions you may be feeling in the moment.
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Identifying Difficult People
- The Perfectionist. If you are looking for quick results, perfectionists can be a source of frustration.
- Control freaks. When you want to do things your way, overly controlling types can be a source of irritation as well.
- Creative people. They’re essential if generating ideas is the plan but can cause frustration when you just want to get to delivering a simple result.
- Shapers: Although shapers may seek to take over as and when they see fit, they can really help drive action.
- Aggressive or defensive people. Assertion can help move a group forward. Aggression or defensiveness can have the opposite effect on a group’s dynamic.
- Submissive people. The lack of confidence and fear of failure that many submissive types display can be a source of frustration as well.
Identifying the Issue
Turn the situation inward and analyze your triggers and reactions to these situations.
- How do you react to a difficult person in your life?
- How does your difficult person react to your reactions?
- If the other person is the problem, are you growing unhealthy actions and reactions in response to him or her?
- Are you the difficult person driving others to reactive behavior?
- How do others react to your actions and responses?
Realistic optimism
Ask yourself two simple questions when you feel you’re being treated badly or unfairly.
- What are the facts in this situation?
- What’s the story I’m telling myself about those facts? What do I really want as an outcome?
The reverse lens
Viewing the world through the lens of the person who triggered you. It doesn’t mean sacrificing your own point of view but rather widening your perspective.
Ask yourself:
- What is this person feeling, and in what ways does that make sense?
- Where’s my responsibility in all this?
The long lens
Sometimes your worst fears about another person turn out to be true. She invariably takes credit for your work. When this occurs, begin with this question:
- Regardless of how I feel about what’s happening right now, how can I grow and learn from this experience?
Managing your reactions
It is all about breathing. Slow, deep breathing actually triggers something at the bottom of your spine called the Vegus nerve, which sends neurotransmitters to the brain that actually calm you down.
Take a moment to reflect on how you feel. Ask yourself questions about how you can respond to a difficult person, or how you can create a good outcome from the situation.
Leveraging self-control
Have a clear sense of self, what causes you tension and where your limits are.
- Seek to understand the situation. Gain some clarity by asking questions while managing your own reactions.
- Stick to the facts and acknowledge emotions.
- Paraphrase and check for accurate understanding.
- Stating your emotions or the impact that the person is having on you based on their behavior, if delivered correctly, can sometimes be the nudge that someone needs to realize that they are rubbing you the wrong way.
- Seek the advice of others. You are not the only person who has ever had to productively interact with a difficult person.
- Keep records, if necessary. If things go south, at least you have a good record of what led to that place.
When Nothing Works
Take care of yourself.
By modeling well-being practices, you not only do good for your own mind and body, but you eliminate second-hand stress for all those around you.
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Defining difficult people
We are social creatures who desire validation. We feel good when others share our belief system. But we feel dejected when others do not value our inputs, crush our ideas, or ignore what we have to...
Influences that define difficult people
We view the world and the people in it from a specific paradigm.
How we relate to someone is driven by our personality, expectations, background, and experience. Why we find someone difficult is then a very personal affair.
The TRICK framework that drives us
- T - Tagging. We are quick to label others as needy, manipulative, fake, arrogant, but explain away our own selfish acts and believe we are better than others.
- R - Righteous. When we find someone difficult, we start believing in the righteousness of how we feel, what we want, and why the other person deserves to be treated in a certain way. We reject them as a person, as well as their ideas.
- I - Intention. Once we know we are right, it's easy to assume they act out of bad intent.
- C - Confirmation. Once we think someone is difficult, every interaction serves as a validation of our beliefs. We will reject the evidence that contradicts our beliefs and seek information that strengthens our views.
- K - Keenness to fix others. Without changing our own behavior, we assume the other person is at fault and then desire to fix them.
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Be Direct
During a difficult conversation, be quick and direct. This is not the time for feedback techniques, as they will mask the point of the conversation and lessen its impact making it more difficult.
Often, the person knows that a critique is coming, so rather than dancing around the subject, just get to it. It’s better for both parts.
Be Specific
Be honest and thorough with your feedback, give examples and fully clarify why you're having the conversation.
The more clarity you can provide, the better the critique will be received.
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4 different types of difficult people
- The Downers (the Negative Nancys): almost impossible to please, they always have something bad to say. They complain, critique and judge.
- The Know It Alls: The...
Disengaging difficult personalities
Don't try changing people, try understanding them.
When you try to change someone they tend to resent you, dig in their heels, and get worse. The way to disengage a difficult person is to try understanding where they are coming from.
Finding The Value Language
When trying to understand difficult people, search for their value language.
A value language is what someone values most. It is what drives their decisions. For some people it is money; for others, it is power or knowledge.