How to Deal with Difficult People
Ursula Markham
To my family – with all my love
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE Understanding Yourself and Others
CHAPTER TWO Styles of Behaviour
CHAPTER THREE Types of Problem People
CHAPTER FOUR Handling Conflict
CHAPTER FIVE Communicating Effectively
CHAPTER SEVEN Dealing with Complaints
CHAPTER EIGHT Coping with Authority
CHAPTER NINE Being in Authority
CHAPTER TEN Step-by-Step Guide to Dealing with Difficult People
Difficult people exist in all areas of our lives. They cause problems for anyone who comes into contact with them. This book is designed to help you understand and handle such people effectively and to get the best possible result out of any involvement with them.
As a counsellor I spend a great deal of my time helping those who consult me on how to cope with and improve the situations that come about because of other people’s difficult attitudes and behaviour. As a business training provider I run seminars on dealing with difficult co-workers, superiors or subordinates. The ideas and techniques suggested in this book are based on the experience I have had in both these fields. They make a good starting-point if you find yourself having to cope with difficult people; you can then adapt these techniques to suit both your own personality and the particular problems you have to face – after all, no two situations are identical.
Of one thing you can be confident: understanding what makes difficult people tick and learning how best to handle them will reduce your stress and make your life a great deal easier.
All things are difficult before they are easy
Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia no. 560
CHAPTER ONE Understanding Yourself and Others
There is no way you can make difficult people change and suddenly become sweet and amenable. Such change can only take place when the individuals concerned desire it and work towards it. So, if you can’t change them, the only thing to do is to change your own reaction to them. After all, you are the one who gets hurt and upset while they themselves simply blunder on in their own way.
All communication consists of reaction and counter-reaction. So, by changing your reactions – both inwardly and on the surface – you will in fact make these difficult people counter-react differently (even if only temporarily). Even if this does not help you to eliminate completely any problems that arise, it will diffuse most situations and therefore make them far easier to deal with.
Sometimes you will have to be quite skilful in the way you handle difficult people. While you can let yourself go and shout at a brother or sister, you are likely to get into trouble if you react in the same way to your boss. Even with members of your family, however, shouting is not a very good way to handle trying situations – but at least you won’t lose your job!
Each of us reacts in a different way to such awkward people because each of us has a different starting point. No two individuals have the same view of themselves; one may be calm and composed, another over-confident, while a third may have very low self-esteem. It is so easy to be hurt, deflated and demoralized by the words and actions of others; indeed, this is what they rely on and what gives them their power. But if you allow them to get to you, all you are doing is letting them win – and that is not good for you nor for their next unfortunate victim. The way to overcome the difficulties that arise is to be more clever than they are and to influence their responses – and often you can do this without them even realizing what you are doing.
How Do You React?
Perhaps it would be a good idea to look first at your own reactions to people. The instinctive retort, while often an understandable reaction is not always the best one from any point of view. Difficult people are so used to employing a particular set of tactics that you are likely to fall right into their trap and enable them to play their final trump card. As far as you are concerned, you are likely to end up feeling angry, frustrated and disappointed in yourself. Better by far to take time to think before you react – and better still if you have worked out your strategy in advance.
If you know that you are dealing with someone who is always difficult and who treats everyone in the same way, do try not to take personally the way he speaks to you. It is not really you who is being attacked; this person’s attitude would be the same whoever was at the receiving end. This does not excuse the behaviour in any way – but it might help to reduce your own feelings of inadequacy.
Ask yourself what sort of reaction you have to a difficult person you know. Do you respond extremely negatively? If so, for what reason? Stop and think rationally of what your course of action should be. Simply blowing up and having a fierce verbal battle achieves nothing; all it does is bring you down to the level of the person causing all the difficulties.
You can choose how to react and respond to people. Working through this book will help you understand the choices available to you and to decide which one is best and most appropriate in a particular case. You will be able to build on your inherent strengths (and hopefully minimize your weaknesses) so that you do not allow yourself to be triggered