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Tip 19 – First Step in dealing with difficult people
Dealing with difficult people is one of the most challenging aspects for most of us and can make running businesses and teams a nightmare. It's is a very emotional and time consuming issue and can be deeply personal.
Everyone knows a person that seems to be able to press their ‘hot button’ or someone who consistently ignites anger, fear, or another passionate response. It goes round and round with seemingly no change.
Here’s a way of altering the dynamic of the system you are in. You might like to print this off to record your answers to questions below.
This is a self exercise, so first set up a safety line or positive anchor as follows:
If you now think about the most wonderful experience you have ever had in your life and at the same time squeeze a part of your hand you will set up an association. So when you squeeze that part of your hand in the same way you get back some of that wonderful feeling. Lets call this your ‘happy spot’. Now you have a good state resource to utilise when needed.
Now think of the person you have the most difficulty with. It can be anyone, friends, relatives, lovers, spouses. Make it someone who is capable of making you squirm, who can really get your goat, who manages to press your ‘hot’ buttons: they can be irritating/infuriating/saddening or frustrating or any combination. Then think of a particular situation with this person and the behaviours they demonstrate and then stop, shrug off the experience and squeeze your happy spot.
Ok, now can you imagine you are in a plush theatre and sitting as far back in the theatre as you can, in an extremely comfortable chair from where you can see the closed theatre curtains way in the distance? Can you imagine easily and quickly becoming even more comfortable and relaxed as the house lights come down and you see the curtains open?
Then from one side, onto the stage comes that person who is so difficult. Far off in the distance you can see and hear them perform those behaviours that make them so difficult. Pause for a moment and ask yourself:
What label would you have for the behaviour of this person?
What would you believe about this person?
Then, from the other side of the stage comes a person who looks remarkably like you, but isn’t you. You see and hear this person react in the same way as you would react to the difficult person. Again, consider the following:
What label would you have for the behaviour of this person?
What would you believe about this person?
Then the curtain closes, the lights come up and you are reading this text.
Press your happy spot if there are any residual undesirable feelings and then take some time to fill in the answers to the following questions:
1. Who angers, irritates, saddens or frustrates you, and why?
2. How do you want them to change? What do you want them to do?
3. What is it that they should or shouldn’t do, be, think, or feel?
4. What do they need to do in order for you to be happy?
5. What do you think of them? Make a list.
6. What is it that you don’t want to experience with this person again?
7. Write down the main negative belief(s) you have about the difficult person
“I believe ......”
Now imagine that the other person is reading this text and doing this exercise. How would they answer this list of questions?
Now consider this story:
There once was a male doctor who had a female colleague as a superior, who triggered a tremendous amount of annoyance in him. He found her extremely arrogant, smug, and full of herself. She also seemed to have a very condescending and patronising manner that he found extremely offensive. It was bad enough that he had to periodically encounter her in some of his training rotations, but the final straw came when he was assigned to her service for two months. He couldn't imagine how he'd get through the ordeal.
As they started to work together, he found her less abrasive and irritating than he'd expected. Then something amazing happened. She asked him to work with her on a long case and he found himself feeling flattered by the request. During their several hours together he found himself lightening up and chatting a bit. She responded and by the end of the afternoon they had made a real breakthrough. That was a turning point, but it got even better. As he got to know her he enjoyed her company more and more. Most importantly, he realised that she wasn't arrogant or smug at all. In fact, she was extremely shy and softly spoken and what he had taken to be arrogance was a combination of shyness and the way she compensated for her social unease. Her behaviour and mannerisms didn't alter, but his view of them changed totally. In the final ironic twist, she actually became one of his favourite people and they became real friends. It was a lesson in how easy it is for us to misinterpret other people and to react, not to who they are, but to our interpretations and judgements of them.
This next set of questions can require some very deep introspection. So take your time and treat them with respect:
1. Consider now: Is/are the belief(s) from question 7 above true?
2. Can you absolutely know that your belief(s) is/are true?
3. What do you get from holding onto that belief? How do you treat others when you believe that thought? What do you say to them? What do you do? Who does your mind attack and how? Be specific.
4. How have you lived your life because you believed that thought? Be specific. Close your eyes, watch your past. When did that thought first occur to you? How do you treat yourself when you believe that thought? This can be where addictions kick in and you reach for food, alcohol, credit cards, the TV remote? Do thoughts of self-hatred occur? If so, what are they? Where does your mind travel when you believe that thought? (List any other underlying beliefs that surface, and repeat this enquiry later.)
5. Can you find a peaceful reason to keep that thought?
6. Who would you be without the thought/belief? How would you have lived life differently if you didn’t believe that thought? Close your eyes and imagine your past life without it. Imagine you are meeting this person for the very first time with no story. What do you see? Who are you right now, sitting here without that thought?
7. Can you turn the thought/belief around? To consider this, turn that thought into a form like: He/She ....ed me (eg He/She hurt me).
8. What is it like if you take total responsibility? How have you managed to create the situation? Can you turn it around to yourself, eg ‘I’ hurt me? Specifically, how have you hurt yourself? How is this perspective true or useful?
9. What are your behaviours that mean something very different in the other’s model of the world? Can you turn it around to the other, eg I hurt ‘him/her’? How is this perspective true or useful? How have you hurt her/him in this situation?
10. What can you consider is a positive that you got from the situation? Can you turn it around to the opposite, eg she/he did not hurt me. How is this perspective true or useful? How did he/she not hurt you? How has she/he helped you?
Ok, now, lets have a little review. I want you to imagine you are back in that plush theatre, again sitting as far back as you can in that extremely comfortable chair and you can see the closed theatre curtains way in the distance. Again you become even more comfortable and relaxed as the house lights go down and you see the curtains open.
Once more from one side onto the stage comes that person who is so difficult. Far off in the distance you can see and hear them perform those behaviours that make them so difficult.
As in the first theatre trip, what label would you have for the behaviour of this person now? What would you believe about this person?
As before, from the other side of the stage comes a person who looks remarkably like you, but isn’t you. You see and hear this person react, as you would now react to the difficult person.
What label would you have for the behaviour of this person now?
What would you believe about this person now?
Then the curtain closes the lights come up and you are reading this text.
What did you notice was different?
It’s much much easier to have another person to help with this process. A coach can aid you in this respect and in many other ways.
Click here to arrange an introductory session to find out more.
