Handling Difficult People

“If you don't like something change it; if you can't change it, change the way you think about it.”

Mary Engelbreit

We often have to deal with difficult people in our professional environment and sometimes even in our personal everyday life. Any interaction or communication with such people can prove challenging and consumes a lot of our time and energy. Such situations can easily turn emotional and unproductive with long term effects on relationships.

Fortunately difficult people are well studied and psychologists have found a great deal on the origin of their behaviour and subsequently on how best to deal with them based on their inherent weaknesses. This course relies heavily on the latest psychological research and provides several concise easy-to-use formulas that delegates can use to deal with challenging situations promptly.

The course is packed with exercises, relevant case studies and role plays that enables delegates to understand the methods better and practice them immediately after introduction. Optional activities and exercises are also provided to easily extend the course and adjust the pace for different needs.

In this highly practical course you will learn:

What is the Ideal Strategy?

• What is the best mental attitude when confronted with challenging people?
• What is an ideal long term strategy?
• Why self-examination is important and how best to do it?
• How to deal with conflicts, physically and emotionally
• What is “ironic processes of mental control” and how can it help in optimising the delivery of your demands?
• How to commit to action and get optimum results next time you are challenged by a difficult person

How to Repond to People

• What are the four responding styles, when to use them and where should you avoid using them?
• How to avoid unpredictable reactions to your comments by observing and analysing the other person for specific signs
• How to listen and respond emphatically and connect when needed

How to Engage in a Conversation

• What to do to stay focused on a conversation and avoid drifting away?
• What is ‘click-wirr’ and how to use it in a conversation?
• How to ask good questions based on your encounter
• What non-verbal signals you should be aware of and use?

How to Handle Conflicts

• What is the optimum process of conflict resolution?
• What are conflict resolutions styles?
• How to use the styles in sequence to get maximum results

How to Deal with Confrontations

• What is APA communication model and how can you use it to manage difficult people?
• How to use the 5-Step Guide to Confrontations
• What can be learned from confrontation examples?

How to Deal with Reactive and Toxic Words

• How to prevent a challenging conversation by choosing the right words
• What are the toxic statements, phrases, gestures and attitudes that can significantly affect your conversation and relationship with the other person?
• How to avoid using them and handle people who use them on you

How to Look for Patterns

• What are the characteristics of difficult people and how to deal with them?
• What are the example behaviours?
• What are the origins of theirs behaviour?
• How to use these patterns to handle difficult people

Audience: Anyone

Prerequisites: None

Course Duration: 1 day.

Course Level: Beginners & Intermediate

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Use the right mental attitude when confronting others to minimise the effect of difficult encounters
• Choose the right responding style when dealing with others
• Make constructive conversations by staying focused and in control
• Select an appropriate conflict resolution style to get maximum results
• React to confrontations quickly and efficiently while maintaining your emotional balance
• Identify toxic words and handle them while maintaining the efficiency of your conversation
• Identify the type of difficult people you are dealing with and respond accordingly

Dealing with difficult people is one of the most demanding parts of people’s professional and sometimes personal life. The simplest interactions with these types of people, consumes a lot of time and energy and can leave people feeling tired and emotionally drained. Understanding the characteristics of difficult people, why they do what they do and the origin of their behaviour will enable delegates to deal with them more effectively.

This course aims to introduce simple yet effective techniques that can be used in dealing with different challenging people or situations. Delegates are encouraged to look at difficult behaviours from different angles and use a suitable style of responding in each case. The exercises in this course are designed to familiarise delegates to common challenging situations and enable them to use their newly acquired skills in dealing effectively with these people.

Unfortunately, many guidelines are all too easy on paper. For example, most people know that they should not be emotional when in a conversation. However, telling delegates, “Please don’t be emotional” doesn’t really help. Instead, the course provides easy to follow formulas that can be remembered and used assertively in order to achieve the overall objective.

The following example is well known in coaching circles; don’t tell a tennis player to “watch the ball”, because this simply puts them under a lot of pressure and distracts them from actually hitting the ball. Instead, instruct them to say ‘Bounce’ every time the ball bounces. This simple command makes the player look at the ball in order to say ‘bounce’ at the right time which means you achieve your objective of getting them to look at the ball.

Using this fundamental principle of coaching, the course guides the delegates to use various techniques when confronting challenging people without distracting them so they can receive optimum results indirectly.

Here at Skills Converged, we respect and value each trainer’s personal choice on highlighting different aspects of Dealing with Difficult People and therefore as with all the other courses on offer from Skills Converged, trainers have unlimited rights to customise, edit or modify the contents. The specific design on the course also enables trainers to use slides, handouts and exercises in combinations with their own materials.