Learning to Work With Difficult Co-Workers
Some people are just hard to work with. No matter what you do or say, they seem to argue with you, ignore you, or in some other way cause trouble for you. I call them difficult co-workers.
While it can be really frustrating to work with difficult co-workers, there is hope. Using assertive communication skills to handle the inevitable confrontations you will have with them, you can often resolve conflicts and find a way to work together.
You may never learn to like each other, but you can learn to work with difficult co-workers.
Photo from www.sxc.hu
Practice Self-Control
Probably the hardest part of working with a difficult co-worker.
I have had my share of difficult co-workers. I have had the person who whines all day about how bad their life is and how bad the company treats them. I have worked with the person on the verge of retirement that simultaneously avoids work and complains about being overworked. I have worked along side people who had body odor, bad breath, loud voices, argumentative spirits, angry outbursts, and pretty much anything else you can imagine. And the hardest lesson I have learned is this: I have to control me so that they don't.I'll offer specific suggestions for working with difficult people in another part of this page. For now, I want to make this one point very clear. I don't like the lesson. It puts much of the burden on me. You may not like it either. I definitely understand. However, whether you or I like it or not does not seem to change its value.
When you lose it in a conversation, gossip about them, argue with them, ignore them, or criticize them; you supply the ammunition they use against you. Your behavior helps them to justify any bad behavior they might take towards you.
Step one - practice self-control.
Image from www.picapp.com
Video on the Power of Controlling Your Emotions
Reminder: Control Your Response
You are the only person that you can control. No matter what they do, control your response. Self-control will give you greater influence with them.
Ideas To Keep In Mind As You Work With Difficult Co-workers
Not a step-by-step guide. Just some guiding thoughts.
- They don't usually have any direct control over you. Don't give it to them. Control your response so that you don't encourage their negative behaviors by giving them any ammunition to use against you or to justify their bad behaviors.
- Treat them with unconditional respect no matter what they do. Sarcasm, verbal attacks, and gossip will seldom help the situation.
- Protect your interests without violating theirs. Assertively confront their bad behaviors.
- Be prepared to listen to them. They may have a perspective or outlook that you have not considered. As Patrick Lencioni says, "people don't have a need to get their way as much as they have a need to be heard and understood." When you listen to them, they just may cease to be a difficult person.
- Focus most of your energy on clear communication skills. Many difficulties with other people stem from misunderstanding. Your effort to understand their perspective and to clearly state yours does not guarantee that they will cease being "difficult." Your efforts in this area will improve the odds of resolving your differences.
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Where To Get Further Insights
- Principle Driven Consulting
- This is my main website.
- Resolving Conflict in Teams Blog
- My blog on this topic.
- Co-Worker From Hell? 5 Ways to Deal
- How YOU deal with a difficult co-worker can make all the difference in the world. You'd be surprised how much you can do to change a difficult co-worker.
- The Impossible Colleague - Tips For Dealing With Difficult Coworkers
- Got a co-worker who is difficult, impossible or hard to get along with? You have to read these tips and reduce stress.
- Dealing with difficult co-workers
- When it comes to dealing with difficult co-workers, however, HR managers may struggle with when and how to intervene. They don't want to over-react every ...
- Ten Tips for Dealing with Difficult Coworkers | Labor & Employment ...
- A good list of things to think about as you work with difficult co-workers.
- Leadership and Management Success Tips: Communication Success Tips ...
- You can become effective at holding difficult conversations. Practice and these steps will help build your comfort level to hold difficult conversations.
- We Have to Talk: A Step-By-Step Checklist for Difficult Conversations
- What you have here is a brief synopsis of best practice strategies: a checklist of action items to think about before going into the conversation.
- Free DISC Profile
- Insights to understand yourself so that you can control your response more effectively.
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byRecommended Reading
Crucial Confrontations: Tools for talking about broken promises, violated expectations, and bad behavior
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Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High
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Courage: The Backbone of Leadership
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Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss what Matters Most
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How to Have That Difficult Conversation You've Been Avoiding: With Your Spouse, Adult Child, Boss, Coworker, Best Friend, Parent, or Someone You're Dating
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What Other Bloggers Have To Say About Working With Difficult Co-Workers
- A Muchness Of Me: The more you can dream, the more you can do <br ...
- One of my coworkers was accused of stealing $1200. Stupidly the accusation took place right in front of me, which is as stupid and as disorienting as it sounds. After a few moments of pretending I was unaware of what was going on my coworker .... difficult. I'm looking forward to seeing them as well. I'm poised to have a broke but excellent Christmas. What could be better. I sort of lost interest in the NFL when the Saints lost tonight. The idea of two undefeated teams ...
- Dealing with Difficult Co-Workers | Reciprocity
- I believe that it is best to deal with 'difficult' co-workers at the very beginning of the relationship so that proper boundaries can be set for each party involved, with any eye to avoiding any further conflicts arising in your efforts to ... give an overview of the situation and express your concerns for the 'team', presenting the problem honestly and objectively, and identify the steps you have taken toward resolving the matter yourself;; With the mediator in place, ...
- Predict Conflict with Employee and Team Assessments | Content for ...
- People find themselves in sticky situations or conflict with coworkers. Some personalities and behaviors are oil and water, and they will never mix. What if there was a way to solve or even proactively stop these conflicts? ... It is difficult enough to introduce a new face into an established team, but it doesn't have to be with the help of employee assessments. The same process is applicable when evaluating established teams. Assessing teams can lead to finding new ways ...
- SLICE OF LIFE: Co-Worker From Hell? 5 Ways To Deal | MyMajicDC ...
- Stage a likely conflict in your mind and work through the various scenarios. First, allow yourself to act immature and listen to how foolish you sound. Does name-calling and performance-bashing make you the better person? No. ... Dealing with Difficult Co-workers Tip #2: Don't Fuel the Fire You're going to be tempted to retaliate ? to lash out at a hostile co-worker with equally low blows. This is the worst thing you can do. People who instigate confrontation and cause ...
What do you think? What's your experience? What have you done that works?
Contribute your thoughts on the subject here.
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Reply
- mulberry mulberry Sep 19, 2008 @ 7:08 pm
- Good tips, we all have to deal with "difficult people" so we might as well learn from the start how to handle it.
by recoveringengineer
Hi, my name is Guy Harris. I am a trainer, speaker, author, and consultant. I am a certified human behavior specialist and a workplace conflict re... (more)
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