Business Professionals: Discover Key Strategies To Deal With Difficult People and Situations at Work

April 25, 2012 - PRLog -- Falls Church, Va. — Working with difficult people can be, well ... difficult. Staff productivity, team dynamics and morale can ultimately suffer because Subordinate A is an underachiever and Subordinate B is a bit of a bully. Colleague X keeps putting staff down at meetings, and Colleague Y grabs credit for other people’s ideas. To top it all off, the boss is a control freak. This may be enough to drive some employees to quit. Finally, an essential book by Business Management Daily, ‘Difficult People at Work: How to deal with credit grabbers, tyrants, space cadets, saboteurs and 20 other challenging personality types’ helps employees at all levels (even management!) deal with, and overcome, difficult people and situations in the workplace.

According to Business Management Daily Editorial Director Pat DiDomenico, “Knowing how to work with difficult people is not a skill that comes naturally. However, if there’s no escape from difficult people, there is a way to lessen the pain.”

DiDomenico adds, “If you’re willing to make the effort, you can master the skills that will help you cope with troublesome personalities.”

Here are some difficult situations that may be encountered in the workplace—whether as bosses, subordinates or peers:

1.   The art of productive confrontation. Most executives don’t know how to confront people effectively. They either blow up, don’t say anything (and eat themselves up inside) or act out their anger in manipulative ways. It takes skill and finesse to master the art of productive communication and confrontation.

2.   How to make an obstructive employee productive. Today, it is difficult to fire subordinates unless they’re dishonest or blatantly out of line. In many companies, it can take years of document gathering before you can get rid of someone. Managers and supervisors should learn how to make the difficult person a productive team member.

3.   How to resist intimidation. The biggest problem managers have is that they’re too easily intimidated. It’s important for employees to learn how to resist intimidation without antagonizing would-be intimidators. They also need to realize they have more power than realized, as a subordinate.

4.   How to meet staff needs. Effective management comes from working with people and meeting their needs, not through confrontation. Too often, managers wind up doing too much of the work themselves because they can’t manage difficult people. Then they’re so busy that they don’t have the time to manage anyone. Managers and supervisors need to discover how to analyze and work with difficult people in ways that benefit the team as a whole.

DiDomenico concludes, “Once you make the effort, you’ll begin to notice what makes people tick. You’ll get flashes of insight into why people act differently depending on the situation and the people involved. Your people skills will snowball. Personal growth is important in all of life’s stages. You need to keep growing to deal effectively with others.”

For more information on the book, ‘Difficult People at Work: How to deal with credit grabbers, tyrants, space cadets, saboteurs and 20 other challenging personality types’, visit  http://www.amazon.com/Difficult-People-Business-Managemen....

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