Dealing with difficult people.

"Dan, you are an acquired taste."

Those words, spoken by the CEO of a large U.S. corporation to one of his senior leaders were an acknowledgement that Dan was indeed not only difficult to deal with but required that others adjust to him.

I was called in to coach Dan around one key issue: people found Dan difficult to deal with but they learned to tolerate his behavior because he consistently delivered the results. Feedback indicated he was too direct, didn't listen and was condescending and opinionated. But his results shielded him from demotion or even termination.

I provided Dan with 360-degree feedback (i.e., from his boss, peers and direct reports) and heard story after story about his approach. He did not see it that way at first and said "if these were such serious problems, how come I keep getting promoted?"

Sound familiar? I hear this all the time.

What makes people difficult?

In my experience several characteristics keep coming up that cause people to label someone "difficult": they see them as arrogant or argumentative or passive aggressive or negative or incompetent or some combination of these characteristics.

It's not unusual for some people we call difficult to have more than one characteristic. For example, often arrogant people are also argumentative. Passive-aggressive people often can be negative.

Difficult people impact organizations in significant ways. In clinical health care, for example, the inability of people to relate comfortably with one another because of these characteristics can lead to inadequate care for patients.

To avoid a possible confrontation, information may not be passed along in a timely manner. Arrogant and argumentative people tend to be poor listeners, which can be deadly when important information needs to be shared and understood.

Why do we struggle in such situations? The same three reasons keep coming up:

1. Fear of escalating the situation

2. Uncertainty about how best to handle the situation

3. Discomfort with conflict

The fear of escalating the situation is very closely tied to uncertainty about how best to handle the situation. If we had the tools and experience, we might be more inclined to take initiative. Overall, however, I find the most common reason that people struggle is fear of conflict.

Managing the fear of conflict is a challenge for most people. Whole books and seminars are devoted to this topic. You can gain significant insight about dealing with conflict by understanding your communication style-which is a function of personality.

If you are more accommodating and sensitive, for example, you will likely find conflict more difficult than people who are more direct and assertive. For a more in-depth study of dealing with conflict check out one or two excellent resources for handling such situations: Crucial Confrontations: Tools for talking about broken promises, violated expectations, and bad behavior by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler and Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and in Life One Conversation at a Time by Susan Scott.

Strategies

So, how does one deal with difficult people? There are three strategies that I have found most helpful. Any or all of these strategies can work with some practice, a willingness to step outside your comfort zone and a commitment to the concept that being proactive and honest is preferable to doing nothing.

1. Analyze the situation

Facts: What is really going on? Ask yourself this question before engaging the person initially. Try to put yourself in their shoes. Once you are in dialog with them, ask probing questions and carefully listen to fully understand. As Stephen Covey suggests, "seek first to understand before trying to be understood." This is the fact-finding stage.

Feelings: What reactions are involved? You need to understand and reflect back to the other person how their behavior impacted you, how you reacted to what they did, how you felt about it, and find out what they were feeling and thinking when they acted that way. Active listening skills will help here and we'll discuss them later. This stage involves sorting out emotions from the facts.

Impact: What is your stake in this? Ask yourself "what's in it for me and the other person?" when discussing the situation that precipitated the poor behavior. This is important background. Here we're focusing on the impact on both of us and possibly other people. It can be helpful to ask the question, "How's that working for you?" If they're honest, they will admit it really isn't working well for them.

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2. Leverage communication style

This strategy involves understanding your communication style and that of the other person and how those styles conflict and/or complement one another. Various tools can be helpful in getting up to speed on your own style such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator[R] and the DISC[R] self-assessment. Both will give you rich insights and also provide you with perspective on the styles of others and how to identify and manage them.

Using this information can be invaluable. When talking with someone who is direct, stick to the point and don't beat around the bush. That's the "language" they're comfortable with. If they are very logical and process-oriented, you will gain their attention by presenting your view logically and systematically.

Over time learning how to manage one's communication style and identify the styles of others can speed up problem solving and move both of you to a clearer understanding more quickly.

3. Five-step engagement model

Finally we come to the actual meeting with the individual. Giving careful thought to this meeting ahead of time will yield better results than simply charging in and confronting the person.

1. State the problem: Be clear, be brief, be honest--focus on the problem and its impact and not on the person.

2. Analyze the situation: Using the steps in Strategy 1 above, facilitate a discussion between the two of you so you both can understand the situation from each other's perspective.

3. Explore options: Generate options as well, keeping an open mind and allowing for genuine two-way communication.

4. Reach agreement: Summarize what you both have agreed to--both your mutual understanding and your commitment to a plan of action. This plan is simply how you both choose to work together going forward based on your new understanding of the issues.

5. Follow-up: Sometime later be sure to check back with the person to see how things are going. Over time it is good to affirm the benefits you both are experiencing as a result of forging a better working relationship. If more work needs to be done, you can take the necessary steps to do so.

Skills

If you've ever been in a well-facilitated meeting, you know how effective they can be compared with the mind-numbing meetings where little is accomplished. Meeting facilitators use the same skills you need for dealing with difficult people. They use good questions and reflective listening to keep everyone on track and clarify the meaning of what is said. So in more emotionally charged conversations, you will make greater progress faster if you can develop your active listening skills. Active listening is listening in combination with questioning to stay engaged with others and better understand the issues they are raising. Some components of active listening include:

* Restating or paraphrasing:

Responding to the person's basic verbal message by feeding it back to them in different words--e.g. "or putting it another way, you want--to occur, is that correct?"

* Reflecting: Reflecting feelings, experiences, or content that have been heard or perceived through cues--e.g. "you appear to be frustrated by this decision, probably angry about this situation"

* Interpreting: Offering a tentative interpretation about the other's feelings, desires, or meanings--e.g. "if I understand you correctly, by saying--you mean

* Summarizing, synthesizing: Bringing together feelings and content; providing a focus--e.g. "OK, so far I believe we're agreed that we need to do X, Y and Z before we can go further. Is that your understanding?"

Learning active listening skills will enable you to get to the core issues and resolve problems more quickly than reacting with advice to what the other person has to say. What you heard may not be what they meant. The only way you will know for sure is to ask clarifying questions and receive feedback.

Benefits

Learning to use active listening in emotional situations is a critical skill set that can be applied across the board in personal as well as professional situations. Interpersonal skills are at the top of the list of deficits many professionals have because they focus so much on honing their technical skills.

Of all professions, health care requires effective interpersonal skills to appropriately engage and problem solve, not only with colleagues but with patients and families as well. Lest we forget, patients and family members themselves can often be the most difficult people with whom we must deal.

In effect you are helping others listen to themselves and reflect on what they are really saying and thinking. Ask any therapist--their patients thank them for their advice only to hear the therapist say "you helped yourself; I just listened and reflected back what you told me."

Effectively managing these conversations increases the likelihood that substantive communication will occur. Simply reacting only adds fuel to the fire. Good questions and active listening have a calming effect and buy time for problem solving to take place.

Who knows, by implementing some of these strategics you will not only be better equipped to deal with difficult people but you also might become less difficult to deal with yourself!

Bill Tiffan

Principal at T2 Management Consultants in Sarasota, Fl.

[e-mail]

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