Career Development: Understanding Difficult People

You’re in the workplace and you encounter a really nasty person.

Wow! What did you do to deserve such a person, you think! Almost immediately, you might have vindictive thoughts or possibly think of a therapist (such as me haha) to refer him or her to for anger management therapy!

Actually, wouldn’t you be jumping the gun if you did that? You won’t know what’s happening in the mind of the other person, and maybe what’s worse is that you don’t really care. Perhaps, when you want to learn to deal with difficult people, you need to first understand them first. That would be, in my mind, the best first step.

Why should you “understand” the other person?

Well, let’s do a quick experiment.

Think of the last time you burst out in anger. Was it solely because of the person that you blew your top, or because of an associated series of events?

Chances are, if you think properly, most of the time when you blow your top, you’re really reacting to the straw that broke the camel’s back. However, you did have a series of things that were bugging you and that really affected you. Here’s an example.

Jim is angrily shouting at his subordinate for not getting his job done on time.

Now, logically, there’s really no explanation for Jim’s behavior. You could think he was a really unreasonable person. However, let’s review some build-up mechanisms.

• his grandmother, who was his primary caretaker in his younger years, passed away a few weeks ago;
• he is in the middle of handling a bad tiling job by his contractor for his new house;
• his 15 year old daughter has just been bullied by a classmate with bruises on her arms to prove it.

Well I don’t quite care how much EQ you’ve got, sometimes a series of these events can trip people up mainly because they’re human.

As a team member, you can easily shirk your responsibility by believing that understanding others is not your job. But do remember that team dynamics begins with the relationship that team members have with one another. Difficult people sometimes appear that way because you’ve uncovered a minefield of past memories that affected them. Just because they got upset with you doesn’t mean that they are against you. It may simply mean that your ability to connect with them is not good enough.

Perhaps you might think that it is the other person’s responsibility to take charge of the feelings, right? Heh… so you tell me – when you are angry, what level of logic do you have control of, and how well can you “take charge” of these feelings? In short, be realistic of what you expect others to be able to do. Since you’re the one who’s more emotionally grounded, it should fall on you to be able to pick it up and connect with that team member. Mind you if you did that, they will look out for you next time as well!

Here are some simple tricks to empathy:

photo credit: lumaxart:

• Be patient. Not everyone opens up to a question like “why are you so angry”. Offer an open door, or a listening ear if they find it tough to speak up, and any other form of emotional support where possible.
• Stand in their shoes and reflect on the feelings you feel before you communicate with them. It can be difficult to stand in another’s shoes because you’ve never really had training in that (of course you can attend my Life Coaching training and you’ll get there!) but nonetheless it will be good for you to be able to give it a shot to understand where they are coming from.
• Don’t judge or add further expectations. This would probably destroy the relationship because it simply doesn’t show your support for such a person. Don’t even provide “feedback” unless you have investigated and understood the other person’s input first, lest they think you are simply jumping to conclusions based on what others say.