Jul
17
2014
Turning an enemy into an advocate: dealing with difficult people
By Susan Croft.
Most managers and administrators in today’s multicultural and diverse workplace, have to deal with a variety of stakeholders: employees, colleagues, bosses, trustees, boards of directors, clients, customers, investors, partners and others.
This requires an ability to get on well with many different people – some of whom have very different behavioural and communication styles to you. Achieving positive outcomes and establishing good working relationships with just about anyone is a truly great skill. It took me many years to acquire this skill myself and a great deal of self-analysis and soul searching. I must admit that in close to 30 years in the workplace I have come across my fair share of ‘difficult’ people. Notice I put the word difficult in inverted commas. This is because I have found that so often someone I termed as difficult was in fact just different from me and on some occasions I had to admit that yes, perhaps it was me who demonstrated the difficult behaviour.
When facing so-called difficult people it is helpful to go beyond the external behaviour and try to see what is behind it. This could be the current working environment, a feeling of being marginalised, problems at home, ill health, feeling unsupported, concerns about personal work performance, worries about not meeting goals, etc. Or perhaps, truth be told, it’s just the way that person reacts to you!
I am not suggesting that as managers we have to be psychoanalysts, but it does help to have some understanding of psychology as well as good intuition into what makes others ‘tick’. I have found that by examining my own behaviour and how I react to those I consider difficult, plus having empathy for the person, I have frequently been able to convert a potential foe into an advocate or friend.
Some key tips:
- understand the effect you have on others
- be empathetic to others who are having problems
- listen well
- be conscious of your own behaviour – warts and all
- be generous to others
- observe when people are behaving well and achieving success – what are the circumstances surrounding that success and how can it be emulated
- don’t speak behind people’s back. If you have something bothering you, say it to their face
I think that working with difficult people is a really interesting area of management and for this reason I am running a two-day workshop on the topic. This might be a great opportunity to reflect on how you work with others, set a new agenda for handling difficult behaviours and give you a chance to prepare for the busy weeks ahead before the UK ramps up after the summer holidays.
You can book our two-day Handling difficult people training course online or call us on 020 7490 3030 for more information.
Susan Croft runs highly interactive workshops which include debate, small group exercises and role playing. She likes to think of her classrooms as learning labs and believes that if people don't have fun, they don't learn very much.
