Coping with Difficult People - Part 2

In the last newsletter, I talked about the first 5 of 10 identified “Difficult Behaviour” types, how to recognize them and more importantly, how to deal with them to achieve a desired outcome.

 

Today, in Part 2, we will take a look at the final 5 Behaviour types, along with the coping techniques you will need to learn and use to keep you in control of your business.

 

If you didn’t identify with any of the behaviour types in Part 1 of this article, see if you can spot your "Difficult Behaviour" type with any of these!

SUPER AGREEABLES

Characteristics:

Strong needs to be liked and accepted. Because it is a useful method for gaining acceptance, they make others feel liked and approved of. They are difficult people only when their needs to give and receive friendship conflict with negative aspects of reality. Rather than risk losing friendship or approval, super agreeables will commit themselves to actions on which they cannot or will not follow through.

Coping With Super Agreeables:

1. Work hard to surface the underlying facts and issues that prevent them from taking action.

2. Let them know you value them as people by:

a. telling them directly.

b. asking or commenting about family, hobbies, clothes. Do this only if you mean it, at least a little.

3. Ask them to talk about those things that might interfere with your good relationship.

4. Ask them to talk about any aspect of your report, service or self that is not as good as the best.

5. Be ready to compromise and negotiate if open conflict is in the offing.

6. Listen to a super agreeable's humour. There may be hidden messages in those quips or teasing remarks.

NEGATIVISTS

Characteristics:

Negativists are people who, while at times personally capable, have a deep seated conviction that any task not in their own hands will fail. Their negativism is elicited by other's attempts to solve a problem or improve a procedure or plan. Because they believe that others in power don't care or are self serving, their negative statements are made with conviction.

Coping with Negativists:

1. Be alert to the potential, in yourself and in others in your group, for being dragged down into despair.

2. Make optimistic but realistic statements about past successes in solving similar problems.

3. Don't try to argue Negativists out of their pessimism.

4. Do not offer alternative solutions yourself until the problem has been thoroughly discussed.

5. When an alternative solution is being seriously considered, quickly raise the question yourself of negative events that might occur if the alternative were implemented.

6. See the doom sayings of the negativists in perspective as potential problems to be overcome.

7. At length, be ready to take action on your own. Announce your plans to do this without equivocation.

8. Beware of eliciting negativistic responses from highly analytical people by asking them to act before they feel ready.

BULLDOZERS

Characteristics:

Bulldozers have in common with non-difficult experts, a strong sense that the accumulation and ordering of facts and knowledge can provide stability in a relative whimsical world. Because bulldozers believe that most of the power to affect their own lives resides in them, they tend to see the ideas and formulations of others as irrelevant to their own purposes. The "know-it-all" quality that seemed appropriate and equated with strength in their parents has become associated with both superiority and certainty of knowledge.

Coping with Bulldozers:

1. Make sure you have done a thorough job of preparing yourself; carefully review all pertinent materials and check them for accuracy.

2. Listen carefully and paraphrase back the main points of the bulldozers' proposals, thus avoiding over explanation.

3. Avoid dogmatic statements.

4. To disagree, be tentative and diplomatic, yet don't equivocate; use the questioning form to raise questions.

5. Watch your own bulldozing tendencies by:

a. Listening for "know-it-all" behavior in yourself.

b. Conveying your appreciation of the bulldozer's knowledge.

c. Proposing delays in action to gain time for each to review the other's proposals.

6. As a last resort, choose to subordinate yourself to avoid static and perhaps to build a relationship of equality in the future.

BALLOONS

Characteristics:

Balloons seek the admiration and respect of others by acting like experts when they are not. They often are only partially aware that they are speaking beyond their knowledge. Balloons are often curious and alert to information. This useful quality leads to trouble only when sketchy or abbreviated information is asserted as a full and accurate picture of the situation.

Coping with Balloons:

1. State correct facts or alternative opinions as descriptively as possible and as your own perceptions of reality.

2. Provide a means for a balloon to save face.

3. Be ready to fill the conversation gap yourself.

4. Cope with a balloon when he or she is alone, when possible.

INDECISIVE STALLERS

Characteristics:

Stallers are super-helpful, indecisive people who postpone decisions that might distress someone. This "works," because as life proceeds, most decisions, if unmade, quickly become irrelevant. Stallers hint and beat around the bush as a compromise between being honest and not hurting anyone.

Coping with Stallers:

1. Make it easy for them to tell you about conflicts or reservations that prevent the decision.

2. Listen for indirect words, hesitations, and omissions that may provide clues to problem areas.

3. When you have surfaced the issues, help them solve their problems with the decision.

4. At times the stallers reservation will be about you. In those instances:

a. Acknowledge any past problems.

b. State relevant data non-defensively.

c. Propose a plan.

d. Ask for help.

5. If you are not part of the problem, concentrate on helping the staller examine the facts. Use the facts to place alternative solutions in priority order. This makes it easy for him if he has to turn someone down.

6. If real, emphasize the quality and service aspects of your proposal.

7. Give support after the decision has been made.

8. If possible, keep the action steps in your hands.

9. Watch for signs of abrupt anger or withdrawal from the conversation. If you see them, try to remove the staller from the decision situation.

When you have time to think about and consider a person’s difficult behaviour, here are the steps to follow:

 

      Describe the behaviour in detail

•          Write down your understanding of the behaviour

•          Review your interaction with this person (what worked and didn’t work)

•          Choose the proper coping behaviour

•          What do you need to learn and practice

•          Create an action plan and follow through

 

When you don’t have the luxury of time to think it over and you have to deal with difficult behaviour on the spot:

 

Determine positive intent/valued criteria

•          Listen (but stop the destructive behaviour)

•          Summarise (length depends on the behaviour)

•          Clarify questions to collect details 

Speak to be heard

•            State your positive intent

•            Tell your story from your point of view

•            Don’t damage the relationship

 

Why are people difficult?:

•          They could be feeling thwarted or threatened or

•          Under exceptional levels of stress

•          Your reactions to their difficult behaviour could be reinforcing the behaviour by increasing the stress they already feel

•          It could be learned behaviour (used to getting their own way)

•          Inflexibility (on both sides)

 

What can you do about it?

• Remember - you can't change other people

• Learn to appreciate and draw upon the different strengths of people exhibiting difficult behaviours

• Focus on coping with difficult behaviour (adapting yourself to other communication styles)