Engaging and Guiding Difficult People (Part 6 of 6 Dealing with Difficult People)

Over the past five posts, we have discussed how to deal with difficult people in our work. We have looked at four specific personality types - complainers, sour attitudes, responsibility avoiders, and the spokesperson. In these posts, I have offered specific techniques for dealing with each personality.

Check out each of the other 5 parts in this series:

Part 1: A Guide to Dealing with Difficult People - Introduction

Part 2: The Complainer

Part 3: The Sour Attitude

Part 4: The Responsibility Avoider

Part 5: The Spokesperson

Part 6: Engaging and Guiding Difficult People

Wrapping it All Together

In this post, I would like to offer some general suggestions that can help when dealing with any problematic personality, and people in general.

As managers, we always need to approach our people with a willingness to help them succeed and have an interest in what is best for them. We need to keep this first and foremost in our minds.

We also need to take emotion out of our reaction when dealing with difficult people. Remember most people aren’t necessarily trying to be difficult, they lack a level of emotional intelligence that keeps them from navigating the difficulties of life calmly and rationally. It is your job to be that calm and rational center and direct them in a way that gets them where they need to go in a manner that is incongruent with the organization's objectives and values.

20 Tips For Dealing with Problematic People

So, here are some 20 tips for dealing with any problematic personality:

1. Remain in control of your own emotion.
2. Don’t let them get you frustrated.
3. Don’t let them pull you in.
4. Always operate with genuine concern for serving others.
5. Keep things in perspective.
6. Bring a positive emotion to the experience.
7. Keep the conversation focused on facts.
8. Avoid hearsay and innuendo.
9. Bring the discussion back to factual statements.
10. Direct the focus to things that are under the control of the person.
11. Keep the conversation within scope.
12. Keep them focused on what they control - their thoughts and actions.
13. Stay in control of the conversation.
14. Do not let them control the conversation to the point of distraction.
15. Set time limits.
16. Set parameters of the discussion.
17. Identify an acceptable outcome.
18. Allow for disagreement within acceptable discourse.
19. Resist the urge to have to win them over.
20. The critical thing to remember is that even if you don't like each other, you have to respect each other. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, don’t allow difficult people to affect how you react to the rest of your team. Remember that all you control are your thoughts and reactions to the circumstances. Keep cool in the face of challenge and engage people confidently and calmly. Always stay true to your principles and don’t allow a difficult person to make you compromise on those basic principles. If you act consistently with your values and those of your organization, you will maintain a confident and engaged team.