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Thinking of “Difficult” People Diffferently

Posted on Nov 15 2012 under Blog Posts

I am sure that many of us have said why is he so difficult? What is really her problem? The reality is that every organization has some employee(s) that make work life difficult for us. Maybe you currently work with a few of them. This is also true for life in general; you may have or eventually will encounter someone that just seems to make your world a bit more stressful than you think it has to be. So what do we do? In my experience I have realized that screaming, yelling, talking about or shutting down will not make the problem go away. However, cultivating positive attitudes and trying to understand why a person may act the way they do may help. It is very easy to place a label on someone, but what if the person is having a bad day or something at home is triggering their behavior. Sometimes, the behavior isn’t targeted at you. You may just be the person that gets caught in the crossfire.

In the book “Make Difficult People Disappear”, the author Monica Wofford shows us how to change our mindset. She describes how through understanding our behavioral differences and natural reactions to stress that utilizing a plan based on these differences the difficulty simply seems to disappear. Monica outlines four main personality types that can be found in the workplace; Commander, Organizer, Realtor and Entertainer. There are different strategies for each personality type; however the first step is trying to understand the personality. Though difficult to do, trying to understand the person and their personality can prove to be very beneficial to the relationship. When we understand people and their background it provides the base for all communication between you and that person. One thing to keep in mind is that people may also see you as difficult. Therefore it is sometimes best “not to think of the person as difficult but different”.

If you would like to know more about strategies to dealing with difficult people listen to Making Difficult People Disappear with Monica Wofford author of Contagious Leadership and Make Difficult People Disappear.

Authored by Mia Brooms
Graduate Student Intern


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