Managing Difficult People: Pamela Cournoyer Offers Solutions

Our guest on Thursday, March 19th was Pamela Cournoyer, CEO of Communicate with CLASS, who talked about managing difficult people.

The lively and very awake group started by listing their top difficult people concerns, the winners were:

• People who cannot get to the point
• People who cannot explain things so we get it
• People who are not up front
• People who are rude and Impatient with us while serving us

The group approved the following strategies to deal with their top two selections:
1. People who are not up front

• Ask them Questions to clarify what they mean
• Ask open ended questions to walk them through the clarification process

Open ended – What did you mean by it’s due next week? an open ended question requires more details in the response.  Open ended questions are best used when working with people who are too succinct and not clear.

vs closed ended questions – “Is it due on Friday?”: a closed ended question usually has a yes or no answer or a one word response, Closed ended questions work very well for run-on people who don’t know where the stop signs are in conversations – it helps them shorten their response

• Be clear and direct with them, letting them know what you need in order to work with them.  “What day and what time is this due?” “Are you telling me that I cannot have Monday off?”
• Summarize what you heard    “Just to make sure we are both on the same page and I heard you correctly, you want me to fly to Chicago next week and give your presentation, and I need to come up with the presentation on my own because you have not had a chance to get to it, did I get that right?”  If you are wrong, no problem, they will re-explain – no harm, no foul.  If you are right, they will nod their head and be very happy.

2.  Rude, and  Impatient people

• Inquire about them – sincerely (It’s usually not about you, it is about them and what just happened to them) “It feels to me like something happened to you, is there something I can offer you?”
• Avictim – become the opposite of a victim, take ownership of your situation and what is happening.  Don’t let it happen to you, make sure you are always in control of what happens to you, because you can be.
• Boundaries – Be firm and friendly.  Remembering what happened in the the past, focus on the future by asking for a specific change in behavior.  Point out what they have to gain from changing, and what they have to lose by carrying on as they are. “In the past, this never worked between us, from now on, if I’m going to be involved, this is how it needs to be for me…, thank you for understanding.”
• Clear – Ask yourself “What do I want them to do?”  Be specific about what you want them to do.  Remember, you don’t need to rebuild their personality, you just want to influence their behavior about how they are acting toward you right now.  “You are acting like I am the enemy, I’m not, please treat me like I am on your side, because I can be”  or “I thank you for smiling, it will make both of our days go better (and then smile, sincerely)”

The tricky part in dealing with difficult behaviors is to first ask yourself “How do we both get what we want?”  If you can give them a good reason, from their point of view, they will do it – for me.

Pamela closed with a rendition of this quote:

“Eventually we will find (mostly in retrospect, of course) that we can be very grateful to those people who have made life most difficult for us.”  Ayya Khema

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Communication workshop coming up right away: Learn to Successfully Communicate with Just About Anyone workshop series