Difficult Behavior

On 28^th May I attended a “Management Show” at British Council on Handling Difficult People. There were about thirty people. The facilitator divided us into six groups.

She began by asking us to list out as a group various categories of difficult people we meet in the work place. Some of the categories that emerged were Detractors, Deviators, Non-Communicators, Procrastinators and the Manipulative.

(One interesting comment was about a boss who was unfocused. The participant stated t that the boss was focused in many directions!)

We were then asked to answer the following questions:

1. How do you feel when you experience difficult behavior?

It stresses you. It affects your poise. It brings out the negative in you. Sometimes you become a difficult person yourself!

2. Whose problem is the difficult behavior?

It is essentially the other person’s problem but it is ours too if it will affect achievement of the long term goals of the organization or if we have to work with the difficult person to perform our organizational role.

3. Should difficult behavior be confronted?

Yes. But we redefined the word “to confront” and decided that difficult behavior should be addressed suitably through dialogue or counseling. But confrontation should be avoided when it would worsen the situation.

One of the issues we discussed was about the nature of the difficult behavior which could be Cultural, Personilty or Behavioral. The current session dealt only with bwehavioral. We accepted that personality should not be discussed while addressing difficult behavior. What need to be addressed are specific behavioral issues. I added that, ‘we should address what the person is doing, and not what he or she is.’

The trainer thereafter played a brief video prepared by Fenman Management Training. In this video Philip a Management Consultant handles a difficult person, the head of another team who is demanding and incapable of being satisfied.

The video also gave us a four step approach for handling difficult people, which involved assessing, analyzing, asserting and finally formalizing a Deal by assenting.

Due to insufficiency of time and the trainer’s own inability to relate to the essence of the issue, the practicing managers in the audience felt we had not truly got a handle on how to deal with difficult people.