Dealing with a chronic complainer: Validate, sympathize, deflect, redirect
- Validate: Now that you've shown them you're listening, you can deploy the ultimate weapons for shutting chronic complainers down.
- Next, it's time to sympathize. Try to make it as authentic as possible. Avoid all sarcasm as they will notice it, and it will cause more problems.
- Validation and sympathy are usually enough, but for the really tough cases, respond with deflection without shutting them down or telling them they're wrong. For example, if they're complaining about a person, say "It sounds like you two have something to talk about."
- Redirect is similar to deflect. You're changing the subject of the conversation without making it obvious. For example, "The printer jammed on you again? That's so annoying! I know it's hard to shrug off these things, but I hope you can be a trooper because we have to get back to ...."
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