Coping with Difficult People DR. JUARINE STEWART
Coping with difficult people
ď ľ
Robert M. Bramson (Author)
Types of Difficult People
Sherman tanks
Snipers
Exploders
The complete complainer
The silent and
unresponsive
person
Superagreeable and other wonderfully nice people
The wet blanket
Bulldozers and balloons
Indecisive stallers
Patterns of Difficult Behavior
Hostile-Aggressives (Sherman Tanks, Snipers, Exploders): These are people who try to bully and overwhelm by bombarding others, making cutting remarks, or throwing tantrums when things don’t go the way they are certain things should go.
Complainers: These are individuals who gripe incessantly but who never try to do anything about what they complain about, either because they feel powerless to do so or because they refuse to bear the responsibility.
Silents and Unresponsives: These are the people who respond to every question you might have, every plea for help you make, with a yep, a no, or a groan.
Patterns of Difficult Behavior
Super-Aggreables: Often very personable, funny, and outgoing individuals, Super-Agreeables are always very reasonable, sincere, and supportive in your presence but don’t produce what they say they will, or act contrary to the way they have led you to expect.
Negativists (Wet Blankets): When a project is proposed, the Negativists are bound to object with “It won’t work” or “It’s impossible.” All too often they effectively deflate any optimism you might have.
Know-It-Alls (Bulldozers and Balloons): These are those “superior” people who believe, and want you to recognize, that they know everything there is to know about anything worth knowing. They’re condescending, imposing (if they really do know what they’re talking about), or pompous (if they don’t), and they will likely make you feel like an idiot.
Indecisives: Those who stall major decisions until the decision is made for them, those who can’t let go of anything until it is perfect – which means never.
The Nature of Coping
Coping means to contend on equal terms.
Individuals behave in a difficult manner because they have learned that doing so keeps others off balance and incapable of effective action.
Difficult people manage to gain control over others.
Effective coping is the sum of those actions that you can take to right the power balance, to minimize the impact of others’ difficult behavior in the immediate situation in which you find yourself.
Coping methods work because they interfere with the “successful” functioning of difficult behavior. When the behavior strategies of the Difficult Person don’t work, when you respond in ways different from those expected, your are able to get about your business and the Difficult Person is provided with an incentive, and an opportunity, to develop other, more constructive behavior.
Understanding Sherman Tanks ď ľ
Sherman Tanks have strong needs to prove to themselves and others that their view of the world is always right.
ď ľ
Sherman Tanks have a strong sense of what others should do.
How to Cope with Sherman Tanks ď ľ
Coping with Sherman Tanks requires that you not fulfill their expectation that, through either fear or rage, you will be put out of commission; at the same time you must avoid an open confrontation with them over who is right or who is to be the winner.
How to Cope with Sherman Tanks
Specific things to do and not to do:
Stand up for yourself.
Give them time to run down.
Don’t worry about being polite, just get in.
Get their attention, carefully.
Get them to sit down.
Speak from your own point of view
Avoid a head-on fight. 1. You may lose the battle. 2. You may win the battle but lose the war
Be ready to be friendly.
The Sniper ď ľ
Snipers do not come crashing down on you. They maintain a cover, if often thin and transparent, from behind which they take pot shots at you.
ď ľ
Their weapons are inuendos, soto voce remarks, not-too-subtle digs, nonplayful teasing, etc.
Snipers
Understanding the behavior:
Snipers have in common with Sherman Tanks a very strong sense of how others ought to think and act.
Coping methods:
The Sniper’s cover is constructed inadvertently by his or her victims, out of their devotion to a mix of social conventions and a common distaste for causing scenes.
Coping with a Sniper 1.
Surface the attack.
2.
Provide a peaceful alternative to open warfare.
3.
Phrase responses as questions rather than assertions. The question format gives the Sniper an alternative to fighting.
Seek group confirmation or denial of the Sniper’s criticism.
4.
Say something that will not let the slight go by unremarked.
Your response should neither directly contradict the Sniper’s allegations nor allow them to pass as objective truth.
Deal with the underlying problems.
When you feel ready, move on to consider whatever problems may be underlying the sniping.
The Exploder
The behavioral peculiarity of the Exploder is the “adult tantrum.”
An adult tantrum is a sudden, almost automatic response to a situation in which a person feels both thwarted and psychologically threatened.
When sparked in some way, the Exploder feels first angry and then blaming or suspicious. Meanwhile, the object of the tantrum, being quite unaware of having said anything wrong, is likely to feel surprised and bewildered at the abrupt and horrifying change in the situation.
Coping with Exploders
Coping with a person having a tantrum is chiefly a matter of helping him or her regain self-control.
Give them time to run down.
Show your serious intentions.
Interrupt the interaction.
Other suggestions for coping with hostile-aggressive behavior
Cope with less extreme forms of difficult behavior first.
Sherman Tanks are at times polite while running over others; Snipers are often so witty that even their targets are not sure that they’ve been attacked; and the tantrums of an Exploder are sometimes confined to a few tears or a little swearing.
Hostility may be in the eye of the beholder.
Observe the responses of others in the same situation.
Ask yourself these questions:
Is this aggressive behavior appropriate to the situation?
Am I seeing a useful venting of relevant, pent-up feelings?
Am I hearing active and unvarnished disagreement, the purpose of which is to get at the facts?
The Compleat Complainer The behavior:
Complainers are those Difficult People who manage to find fault with everything, malcontents who gripe ad nauseum about everything. The disguised message is that “someone,” usually meaning you, should be doing something about their complaints.
These complainers should not be confused with people who have a legitimate complaint and are simply trying to bring it to someone’s attention, or with those individuals who just need to get something off their chests.
Understanding complainers
To cope successfully with Complainers you need to know what lies behind their actions.
Three factors in the Complainer’s world view combine to convert useful problem solving into complaining: they find themselves powerless, prescriptive, and perfect.
Powerless: Complainers fall into the group that feel powerless in the management of their own lives, as if the causes of all that happens to them lie outside their grasp.
Prescriptive: To feel put upon, one must have an image of the way things ought to be and a galling sense of injustice that they are not that way. This prescriptive quality permeates almost everything that Complainers say.
Perfect: Complainers persist in their ritual behavior because complaining keeps them appearing blameless, innocent, and morally perfect.
Coping with Complainers
The key to successfully coping with Complainers is to break their selfconfirming cycle of passivity, blaming others, and powerlessness, and to insist that a problem-solving perspective be taken toward their complaints.
Listen attentively.
It provides an opportunity for the Complainer to let off steam.
Being heard can lessen that sense of being “dismissed” and powerlessness that will trigger an even greater outpouring of complaints.
Listening provides information that you’ll need in order to carry out the next coping step.
By listening attentively you may discover that the person who is complaining to you is merely looking for a sympathetic ear and is not a Complainer at all.
Coping with Complainers
Acknowledge.
Be prepared to interrupt.
The simplest way to do this is to paraphrase what you think their main points have been, ending with your best guess about how the Complainer must feel about the terrible situation being described. Once you have discovered the gist of their complaints, stop them, as politely as you can, but firmly. By taking control of the structure of the conversation you immediately lessen the “value” of complaints to the Complainer.
Use limiting responses.
Make your acknowledgements in a way that pins down the complaint to specific times, places, or facts.
Coping with Complainers
Don’t agree.
Avoid the accusation-defense-reaccusation sequence.
Your admission to Complainers that you are at fault is not only likely to be taken as a sign of submission, but, more importantly, you are just confirming their belief that the power to solve the problems that they are pointing out is, in truth, yours. You validate for them the fact that indeed it’s all your fault and they are blameless.
After acknowledging, but not agreeing with, the Complainer’s gripes, it is important to move as quickly as you can into problem solving.
State facts without comment and apology.
Coping with Complainers
Switch to problem solving.
Problem solving focuses on what’s to be done to make things better in the future. Complaining, on the other hand, reminisces about the history of a problem and assigns blame.
Problem solving needs to be preceded by a particularly thorough effort of acknowledging or airing background issues and feelings.
Pose specific problem-solving questions.
Expect some frustration.
Assign limited tasks.
Get it in writing.
The move of last resort.
Try commenting on the nature of this strange interaction between you and the Complainer.
The Silent and Unresponsive Person
Clams are silent, unresponsive people who won’t or can’t talk when you need conversation from them.
It is often difficult to understand what the silence or lack of response means.
Your major coping task is to get them to talk.
Coping with clams
Ask open-ended questions.
Use the friendly, silent stare.
It provides a quiet time for collecting thoughts.
It gives you something to do and think about while you are waiting for the Clam to open up.
It sets the stage for using the leverage that your silence provides.
Don’t fill the space.
Comment on what’s happening.
Recycle if necessary.
Coping with clams
Help break the tension.
Set time limits.
What if the clam opens?
Be attentive when clams talk.
Let them be oblique.
When the clam stays closed.
Avoid the polite ending.
Follow through.
At length, proceed on your own.
Super-agreeables and other wonderfully nice people
The behavior:
Super-agreeables always tell you things that are satisfying to hear.
They are difficult people precisely because they leave you believing they are in agreement with your plans, only to let you down.
Understanding the behavior:
The burden of the super-agreeables is that they need to be liked or at least accepted by every single person all of the time.
Coping with super-agreeables
Make honesty non-threatening.
Be personal – when you can.
Don’t allow super-aggreeables to make unrealistic commitments.
Be prepared to compromise.
Listen to their humor.
Wet blanket power: The negativist at work
The behavior:
Negativists are people who, while at times personally capable, have a deepseated conviction that any task not in their own hands will fail.
Their negativism is elicited by others’ attempts to solve a problem or improve a procedure.
Understanding the behavior:
Because they believe that others in power don’t care or are self-serving, their negative statements are made with conviction.
Coping with negativists
Avoid getting drawn in.
State your own realistic optimism.
Don’t argue.
Don’t rush into proposing solutions.
Set a horror floor.
Use negativism constructively.
Be prepared to go it alone.
Beware of creating negativism.
Bulldozers and balloons: The Know-itall Experts
Know-it-alls convey a belief in their own superiority.
They come in two main variations, Bulldozers and Balloons.
Both communicate with others as if they know everything there is to know.
The difference is that Bulldozers do while Balloons don’t.
Bulldozers
The behavior:
Bulldozers are highly productive people, thorough and accurate thinkers who make competent, careful plans and then carry them through, even when the obstacles are great.
They exude a feeling of power and personal authority and a self-sustaining quality that bespeaks the fact that they need others very little, if at all.
Understanding the behavior:
Because Bulldozers believe that most of the power to affect their own lives resides in them, they tend to see the ideas and formulations of others as irrelevant to their own purposes.
The “know-it-all” quality that seemed appropriate and equated with strength in their parents has become associated with both superiority and certainty of knowledge.
Coping with Bulldozers
Do your homework.
Listen and acknowledge.
Question firmly – but don’t confront.
Avoid being a counter-expert.
A last resort: Let them be the experts.
Balloons
The behavior:
Balloons seek the admiration and respect of others by acting like experts when they are not.
They often are only partially aware that they are speaking beyond their knowledge.
Understanding the behavior:
Balloons are often curious and alert to information. This useful quality leads to trouble only when sketchy or abbreviated information is asserted as a full and accurate picture of the situation.
Coping with Balloons
State correct facts or alternative opinions as descriptively as possible and your own perceptions of reality.
Provide a means for the Balloon to save face.
Be ready to fill the conversation gap yourself.
Cope with a Balloon when he or she is alone, when possible.
Indecisive Stallers
The behavior:
Stallers are super-helpful, indecisive people who postpone decisions that might distress someone.
Understanding the behavior:
This “works” because, as life proceeds, most decisions, if unmade, quickly become irrelevant.
Stallers hint and beat around the bush as a compromise between being honest and not hurting anyone.
Coping with stallers
Surface the issues.
Make it easy for them to be direct.
Pursue signs of indirection.
Consider that it might be you.
Help them to problem solve.
Rank-order alternatives.
Link your plan to values of quality and service.
Give support after the decision is made.
If possible, keep control.
Watch for stall overloads.