Dealing With Difficult People

Had a really interesting coaching session with a client last week, when I asked “What would you like to get out of today’s session” the reply I got was “How do I deal with difficult people?” That’s a big subject, and I could write a book or two about it.

For the purposes of this blog we will define difficult people as people who behave in a way we would rather they didn’t and who say and do things that we deem are unacceptable.

Sometimes it is worth considering are these people really being difficult or are they just being different?

It is also worth holding the mirror up and asking “How are we contributing to making this situation difficult?” which leads us nicely into one of the first keys to dealing with difficult people:-

Recruiting the behaviours you want to see…This maybe a little late if you have already recruited but is still a worthwhile exercise going forward to prevent making the same mistake again. How clearly defined are the roles and responsibilities for each and every position in your business. Blurred lines around who does what by when can lead to what is perceived as difficult behaviours when the challenge is really a case of a bad hire due to a poor understanding of what is really required to fulfil the role.

What are the key behaviours you want to see from the person whose role this will be? Once you understand this you can gear your recruitment ads and process towards asking the focused questions that will help you hire not just on skills but attitude as well.

Define clear behaviour goals…Not only behaviours you want to see but also behaviours you want changed. Define clearly what you expect to see in people, and how you expect them to behave. In business it is normal to set goals for things that we want people to DO. A change in thinking may be needed here how about defining who you want people to BE. By having clear goals and objectives you can measure what those correct behaviours are and manage the performance and build that into a plan

Hold regular one to ones…It is okay setting goals and measures to achieving those goals or what is better known as  KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) I believe this description can be changed to Keeping People Informed. The way to do that is through having clear communication channels and giving regular performance updates.

In most businesses, employees get a once year review or appraisal, challenge is these tend to be held towards the end of the financial year and are a way of determining how much bonus the employee is to receive for their performance over the previous 11 months. If the employee has met all their targets brilliant life’s good but if they haven’t performed it’s too late to do anything about it, the business has already suffered because of this person’s performance.

Every business owner should be thinking in terms of building a meeting rhythm within their business. Meetings can be daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annually depending on the message and agenda. They need to be designed to meet the needs of the business.

One of the biggest excuses I get for not holding meetings is “I/we haven’t got time” to which I normally reply “You have as much time as you’re ever going to get, what is it costing you and your business not finding the time to hold these meetings?”

Give specific feedback…There is a perception that we only give feedback when there is a problem with performance in other words leave people alone until they do something wrong and then zap them!

I sometimes get asked “What can I do to motivate my staff?” it may be that the question is wrong and a better question might be “What am I doing to de-motivate my staff?”

Instead of catching people doing things wrong and giving negative feedback how about flipping that and catching people doing things right and giving encouraging feedback? 

Instead of knocking people down build them up. As humans if we are getting recognition for a certain type of behaviour we are more likely to repeat it.

Understand why the person is doing what they are doing…By asking a better question you can effectively get inside the other persons head and have a greater understanding of what is driving the difficult behaviour. Once they have explained it they may also become aware of how the behaviour is affecting other people and other areas of the business. 

Feedback will have a similar outcome.

We spend most of our time doing things unconsciously we go through life in a state of hypnosis and let our sub conscious minds run the show. This can sometimes lead to us not knowing how we are behaving and the effect it has on other people.

Actions you can take to move this forward:

Look at your present team and in particular the people who you feel are behaving in less than useful ways.

Define the behaviours that are causing the issue.

Imagine giving those people effective feedback:

·         Describe the behaviour

·         Explain the impact that behaviour is having both good and bad.

·         Specify the behaviours you would prefer to see or the behaviours you would like continued in the event of giving positive feedback.

·         Spell out the consequences of not changing the behaviour. In the case of a great performance the consequences are obviously going to be great so please carry on.

Let me know how you get on with this process and I look forward to hearing all about your success.