How can one deal with a difficult person without loosing one’s cool, fighting like a tiger cat, taking out one’s anger on someone else, or retreating from a situation that will only occur again with this person, or someone else like him/her? 

 

 

We all know that we are living in a relationship economy, an arena where relationships  are critical to achieving success. 

 

And, in the personal realm, the relationships that we nurture and grow are critical to our health, well-being, happiness, and also appear to impact longevity.

 

What is the definition of a difficult person?  This definition is different for each one of us.  For some people difficulty occurs with a certain personality type.  For others difficulty starts with certain phrases, physical characteristics or postures, voice tones, inferences or modes of talking like irony or sarcasm yank our emotional chain with the force of a Mac truck pulling at our head and heart.

 

Here are six handy tips for dealing effectively with difficult people!

 

1.  Understand how the human mind works.  When a healthy, well adjusted human being is faced with a situation that evokes a fear based emotion, our reptilian brain automatically creates a hormonal and electrical reaction that causes a fight or flight response.  While this fight or flight response was tremendous when we were living in caves and had to be on constant alert for predators who could take our lives; today, most circumstances are not life threatening and this automatic response frustrates our true power, thwarts our true intentions, and makes resolving conflict and building rapport difficult if not impossible.

2.   Know that you will get triggered and automatically go into fight or flight response, but you can learn to build a competency I call constructive discontent that can help you circumvent this reaction.  Constructive discontent is what I call learning to not resist the emotion you are feeling (which only makes it stronger), but learning techniques that can help you build your ability to feel a difficult emotion but not be held hostage by it. 

3.  De-personalize, and start to build enhanced EQ/EI-emotional intelligence.  Our first reaction is more often than not, a presumption that the person we are communicating with is attacking us; in most cases the way they communicate has more to do with their life, their belief or cultural system, their focus on themselves and their agenda. Do not fight fire with fire unless you intention is to start a blaze, an inferno that will either grow or smolder. 

4.  Confirm, do not presume or assume meaning, confirm meaning. Mirror back to the speaker what he/she has said, and what you understand the meaning of this to be.  Do not react, wait for them to confirm the meaning they want to share-This step serves two critical purposes:  1. To make sure that there are NO miscommunications, misunderstandings   2.  To validate to the other person that you have heard what he/she has said.  You cannot build communication without validating that you have heard what the other person said.  Validating is not necessarily agreeing with them, it is simply opening up communication by acknowledging that they are heard, in the same way that you want to be heard. 

5. Re-focus on your true objective .What is your intention, what did you want to achieve before your emotional hot buttons were set off?  Keep your eye on the ball, and the ball is your true objective. If the speaker has violated your personal boundaries, you need to deal with this in a way that makes your boundaries crystal clear. If you need space to think, to develop a strategy to handle the situation, ask for space.  Do not engage in a battle.  Lead by choosing to either deal with the situation head on, or take a break to determine your next move.

6. Remain calm while respecting your own personal boundaries. If the speaker confirms a meaning that is outside your personal boundaries, you need to remain calm and make sure that you make your personal boundaries crystal clear and you can do this in a way that will start a war, or by refusing to fight.  If there was a miscommunication, you can address it and move forward.  if there is a difference of opinion, you need to validate the other person's point of view and search for the common ground, the objective you share that will allow you to build a win win solution together. 

How have you dealt most effectively with difficult people?  Do you need more help in dealing with a difficult person?  Share with us, or write directly to me at irene@justcoachit.com