{"id":7376,"date":"2011-09-07T20:48:57","date_gmt":"2011-09-08T03:48:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=7376"},"modified":"2011-09-07T20:48:58","modified_gmt":"2011-09-08T03:48:58","slug":"difficult-people-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=7376","title":{"rendered":"Difficult People – not!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"yinyang\"<\/a>Difficult people. I really don\u2019t like that term.<\/p>\n

Think back\u2026 haven\u2019t all of us been perceived as \u201cdifficult\u201d at least once or twice (or, like me, often)? Were we really being difficult? From our own perspective, did we not have important reasons for taking our position? Perhaps it was because our team was moving too fast and was increasing the chance of a serious oversight. Or, perhaps we had experience that was being ignored in favor of an untried methodology. Or\u2026 well, we all have our stories.<\/p>\n

My point is that the vast majority of \u201cdifficult people,\u201d in my experience, were doing something they felt was quite reasonable \u2013 in just the same way I sometimes had to go against the stream.<\/p>\n

For me, it\u2019s been useful to think in terms of difficult situations involving people rather than difficult people. Maybe that seems overly semantic, but I don\u2019t believe so. Language can be tightly related to perception \u2013 and perception is our reality. I believe it\u2019s easy to demonize a difficult person; maybe even justify a less than ethical behavior on our part. Also, the difficult label might lead us to try to \u201cfix\u201d the person. Anyone remember how it feels to be \u201cfixed?\u201d<\/p>\n

So, let\u2019s think about the difficult situation instead. What\u2019s actually happening? Describe the behavior, not our reaction to it. Sometimes, just going through this process allows us to see something different.<\/p>\n

I remember an engineer that was always challenging me in meetings. GRRR! He was so difficult! I talked about killing this guy with a buddy. She asked me what exactly was happening. \u201cI was talking about the proposal. He interrupts me and says, \u2018So, your first two points are\u2026\u2019 \u201c Then, she asks, \u201cwhat was it about what he did that bugged you so much?\u201d I had to stop and think. Looking back, I just hated the interruption \u2013 I had prepared and was on a roll and this guy butts in! Oh-oh\u2026 this guy was actually slowing me down when I was on a roll (in my mind) and I was probably going too fast. Ah. I still didn\u2019t like it. When I talked to him about it (calmly, of course), he laughed (I nearly smacked him then). He explained that he just assumed I understood the importance of emphasizing important points. We eventually became good colleagues (one technique was for him to hold a pen in both hands, which was a signal for me to slow down\u2026 and sometimes he would still have to interrupt me!).<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what works often for me with a \u201cdifficult\u201d person:
\n1) Mantra: \u201cHe\/she is not a difficult person\u2026\u201d \u2013 repeat until calm.
\n2) Describe what happened \u2013 the behavior, not the reaction.
\n3) What, specifically, rubs the wrong way.
\n4) Why?
\n5) Imagine what the \u201cdifficult\u201d person saw\/experienced.
\n6) Reconstruct the difficult events with an alternative explanation.
\n7) Based on (6), devise solutions (or accept the situation).
\n8) Test the solutions, revise as needed.<\/p>\n

OK, I do realize that it\u2019s not always so simple. On the other hand, it may be easier than dealing with demons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Difficult people. I really don\u2019t like that term. Think back\u2026 haven\u2019t all of us been perceived as \u201cdifficult\u201d at least […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,849],"tags":[52,97,84,131,67,54,193],"class_list":["post-7376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leadership","category-team-leadership","tag-conflict","tag-leaderhip","tag-management","tag-people","tag-program-management","tag-soft-skills","tag-teams"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7376\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}