Dealing with Difficult People at Work – Part 2 (ep.206)

You know the person: they derail meetings, push back on everything, and somehow make simple projects complicated. So how do you actually handle it without losing your mind?

In this Talk About Talk episode, Dr. Andrea Wojnicki walks you through exactly what to do when you’re dealing with difficult people at work, whether that’s a customer, a direct report, a peer, or even your boss.

If you’re wondering when and how to escalate the situation, Andrea’s five-step escalation sequence provides you with a step-by-step playbook. You’ll also learn the two-word principle that keeps you from getting pulled into drama with difficult people.

This is Part 2 of a two-part series. If you haven’t listened to Part 1 yet, start there to get the foundational framework. Then come back here for the specific tactics.

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TRANSCRIPTION

How to Respond When Difficult Behavior Continues

Focus on the issue, not on the person. Refuse to get pulled into the, you always do this, you’ve done this, you shouldn’t do that. You can’t do this. It’s not about you and me. It’s actually about the issue or the challenge.

Welcome to the Talk About Talk podcast. This is part two of a two part mini series on how to deal with difficult people.

So here’s the question. Have you noticed someone at work who’s being chronically difficult, confrontational, or nasty? Either to you or maybe to everyone. Have you tried to diagnose what’s going on based on the Dr. David rock scarf framework and still nothing has changed? Well, I hope what you’re about to learn in this episode will have a positive impact.

Let’s do this. Let’s talk about talk. We’re going to. Strategies for how you can respond to these difficult people depending on who they are. And I’m also gonna share a sequence of steps that you can follow, steps that you should follow if things aren’t changing or perhaps if they’re getting worse.

Let me start with strategies for how to respond to different people. How you respond, what you do can and should vary depending on who it is that’s being difficult.

How to Respond Based on Who’s Being Difficult

So I’m gonna run through this list of five different types of people or categories of people and what you should and shouldn’t do depending on who they are.

That’s being difficult. You’ll see what I mean in a minute. So the first one. Is no one. So it’s not that the person is being difficult, it’s actually that you are in a difficult or a challenging situation. In this case, I say, great, the opportunity here is for you to pull the team together and go for a win.

Corral the group and focus on what you can do to overcome this difficult situation. Okay, that was a little bit of a cheater. Now let’s get into the actual people. So imagine you have this scenario where it’s either a one-off situation or a customer or a client who is chronically difficult. The first thing I suggest you do is pause.

Don’t get caught up. Getting emotional and responding in a reactionary way to how this difficult client or customer is acting. The second thing that I do, and this one is magic, focus on the issue, not on the person. Refuse to get. Pulled into the, you always do this. You’ve done this. You shouldn’t do that.

You can’t do this. It’s not about you and me. It’s actually about the issue or the challenge, and it’s the issue or the challenge that they are probably experiencing. So you could say, Hmm, I understand how this would be very frustrating, or, let’s work on this together. I think we can solve this. You’re focusing on.

The issue or the challenge, not the person, it’s the situation, not the person. And then the third thing, I alluded to this a little bit here in the example that I gave. Use the pronoun, we make the default that you are working with this client or this customer in solving the challenge. Okay? So again, if it’s a client or a customer, pause.

Don’t react before thinking and remind yourself, focus on the issue or the situation, not on the person, and use the term we be inclusive and encourage you to work together to solve the problem. So that’s the first one. The next one is if it’s a peer. In the previous episode, I shared a scenario where a newly promoted partner named Leanne was being challenged on a daily basis by her peer named Mike, who is also a partner at the same consulting firm where she worked.

Here’s what you do with a peer. You have the opportunity to get personal. I don’t mean necessarily that you’re sharing your private thoughts and your personal life with the person, but I just mean get them into a one-on-one situation and share how you’re feeling. I actually shared this advice with Leanne when I was coaching her.

I suggested that she invite Mike. To go out for lunch or for coffee and then talk to him. Say like, I noticed our relationship has really changed since we started working together as partners, and we used to confide in each other and help each other and celebrate each other. And I’d really love to go back to that because I think we can make each other look really good.

We could be a team. You don’t need to necessarily need to go that far, but getting personal is a suggestion that works really well if the difficult person is your peer, someone who’s at your level. Moving on. What if they’re not at your level, but they’re actually below your level? It might be someone that you are managing that’s reporting to you, or it could be someone in a different department, but they are at a lower level in the organization, in the hierarchy.

From where you are in this case, this is your opportunity. If they’re being chronically difficult to highlight the values, the expectations, and even the resources that the organization provides. People are being difficult. So I’m imagining someone here who you know is disrupting meetings, is disrupting progress and productivity in the projects that you’re working on.

And so you pull them aside and you say, listen, it seems like things aren’t as productive and positive. As I was hoping they would be. And I wanna share with you that this is not consistent with the values of the organization in this organization. We pride ourselves on being collaborative and on and on and on.

So you talk, highlight the firm’s values, the expectations of the organization, and even potentially, as I said, resources that you can share. It could be learning opportunities or other things, coaching to, uh, help the person. Whatever the challenges that they’re experiencing. Okay, so that’s if it’s a subordinate.

The next one gets really interesting, and I have two suggestions. If it’s your boss, things can get pretty tricky. So I have two suggestions. The first is a quick one. The second one requires a little bit of an explanation. So the first one, the quick one is if you are reporting to someone who is chronically difficult, you can ask yourself.

What can I learn from the situation? What can I learn about what I do not want to do if and when I get promoted to this level? I remember coaching a very impressive woman who was working in not-for-profit, and she was reporting to the executive director who was basically responsible for the not-for-profit and who reported into the board of directors, and she said, this woman was an absolute.

Tyrant, of course not with the board, but with her direct reports, including my client. And so I said, if nothing else, you can learn from this situation. What not to do when you someday become an executive director of a not-for-profit and you’ll know exactly what not to do. And in fact, fast forward a couple years, she now is an executive director of a different not-for-profit.

And she said, I have a playbook of what not to do, how not to treat my staff. So that’s one way of kind of it. It’s not overcoming the situation, but it’s reconciling it in your mind, how you can maintain a sense of productivity and maybe even job satisfaction. You’re learning what not to do. The second one here, I’m gonna say this is a little bit personal because this is advice that I received from my father when I had the experience of reporting to a boss who was being very difficult and chronically so.

So I have this distinct memory of. Presenting something to, it was my boss’s boss at the time, at a meeting where he had challenged me and the team that I was leading to meet certain challenges. And if we did, we were gonna be given permission to launch a new product. My team had gone away under my direction, established what the criteria that we were gonna achieve.

And we had worked together really hard to achieve this criteria, these benchmarks. And I went back with great pride in anticipation and presented our results and our recommendations for the new product launch to my boss’s boss. And he was like, eh, I don’t know, Andrea, I mean, whatever. And I was like, what?

I remember I was so upset. I eventually did convince him that we should launch the product that we had worked so hard on. But I remember being so upset and I actually went. I left the building. I went down to my car and I called my dad and I was commiserating. I said, dad, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how much longer I can handle this.

I’m asking my team to jump through hoops, and they’re doing so and they’re exceeding my expectations. And then when I go to this guy, he’s constantly changing his mind. He’s a horrible boss. And my dad asked me this question that I’m now sharing with you. He said, does your boss’s boss do his values reflect.

The values of the organization, or is he an anomaly? And I said, why do you ask? He said, very simple, Andrea, if his values reflect the values of the organization and you are misaligned, you need to get outta there. However, if he’s the anomaly, if your boss’s boss is the one whose values contradict, not only yours, but also the values of the organization, things typically have a way of working out.

I was like, Hmm, that kind of makes sense. I would say in this case, it’s the latter. My boss’s boss is an anomaly. I know a lot of people get frustrated with him and his values are not aligned with those of the organization, and he said, well, my suggestion is not forever, Andrea. That would be ridiculous, but.

You could probably wait this out and things have a way of working out. And you know what? My dad was right within a couple months. This guy, he was a vice president at the time. He got moved into a different department and then he got let go and I thanked my father and I have shared that advice with plenty of people who say, this is very sage advice.

So if it’s your boss. First of all, ask yourself, what can I learn about how not to manage people from this person? And secondly, ask yourself whether their values and their behavior are aligned with the values of the organization. If they are not, you can wait it out. If they are, you probably need to make a move.

So we’ve covered now a couple of different scenarios, maybe. No one is being difficult, and it’s the situation that’s your opportunity to pull your team together. Perhaps it’s your client or your customer who’s being difficult, in which case I shared three suggestions. Pause, focus on the issue and use the term we, if it’s your peer, get personal.

If it’s your subordinate. Highlight the values, expectations, and resources of the organization. If it’s your boss, as I just said, ask yourself, what can I learn about what not to do? And ask yourself whether their values are aligned with the organization. There’s one other person that it might be that’s being difficult.

If it’s everyone, if everyone around you, all of your clients. Your peers, your subordinates, your boss, your family, your friends. If everyone is around you is being difficult, then I have to say it’s probably you. I’m just kidding. That never happens. So that’s my summary of the differential advice that I have for you for dealing with difficult people depending on who it is.

A Step-by-Step Sequence for When Things Don’t Improve

Now, this is critically important. What’s the sequence to follow when things. Aren’t getting better or maybe they’re even getting worse. Well, I have a list. This is a sequence, a step-by-step sequence of things that you should do. I distinctly remember sharing this with a senior leader whom I coached last year.

She was on the senior leadership team at her corporate law firm, and she hired me to help her communicate with more credibility and authority. She also specifically asked me how to respond to one of her peers. Another corporate lawyer who constantly interrupted her in their leadership team meetings. I shared the sequence with her then that I’m gonna take you through right now.

Are you ready? So the first thing is to casually reference whatever it is, secondly, publicly and directly reference it. Three, check in with others and get an ally. Four, ask the person directly and emphatically. And the fifth and last step. Is to escalate to HR or senior leadership. A lot of folks, including this woman, this corporate lawyer that I was coaching, they find themselves in these scenarios where they’ve, they really don’t have a strategy or a sequence to follow.

And having this sequence will make you feel like you’re in a little bit more control, and it’ll make sure that you are not wasting any opportunities to try to correct the situation. The idea here is that hopefully after step one or after step two or after step three, the sooner the better. The behavior is gonna change with a difficult person, so.

After you’ve started to notice what’s going on, and maybe you’ve even jotted down, I remembered it started on such and such date, you could put it in a journal or in an email to yourself or something. The first thing you should do is casually reference it. So I told this woman, this corporate lawyer, and I’m telling you, you could almost make a joke out of it.

You’re in a meeting, the guy interrupts you. You say, Hey, you keep interrupting me. No, go ahead. Go ahead. Right. You’re casually referencing it sometimes. Calling it out. Labeling the behavior will encourage the person to stop. Often not, but sometimes step two is much more direct. This is where you publicly and directly referenced the behavior.

So in the case of this corporate lawyer and this peer of hers that kept interrupting her, she said to him when he interrupted her twice in a meeting, she said, that is the second time. In the last 10 minutes that you’ve interrupted me, I’m gonna finish my sentence and then I’d love to hear what you have to say.

She said, I’m gonna finish my point here and then I’m gonna pass it over to you. And then she didn’t even pause. She just kept talking and turned it over to him. So this is step two, publicly and directly referencing the behavior. This is a little bit more emphatic than the casual reference, right? If that doesn’t work, you move on to step three.

This is when you check in with others. And potentially get an ally. So this woman with this gentleman who was interrupting her constantly, she went to one of the other senior partners and she said, listen. I’m not gossiping behind someone’s back. I just wanna make sure that what I’m witnessing here, what I’m experiencing is real.

I’ve noticed that whatever the guy’s name is, Sam is constantly interrupting me. I’m worried that it’s affecting my credibility and I’m feeling like my voice isn’t being heard. Is it just me? And the guy was like. It is not just you. It is absolutely not just you. I can’t believe that you’ve put up with it for as long as you can.

And that’s when she went in for the ally. She said, listen, the next time we’re in a meeting and I asked him to not interrupt me. If he keeps doing it, do you mind stepping in? And he goes, absolutely. In fact, you don’t need to say anything. I’ll say it. And so the next meeting that they went to, guess what happened?

The guy interrupted her and her friend Sam stepped in and said, listen. You’ve been interrupting her over, not just this meeting, but many meetings, and we all need to respect each other and to listen to what the points that we’re making. Please let her speak. Guess what? The interruption stopped. So that’s step three.

Check in with others. Make sure you’re clear by the way, when you’re checking in, this is not about gossiping. This is about confirming whether what you’re experiencing. Actually is what other people are witnessing and the opportunity potentially to get an ally on your side. If that doesn’t work, step four.

Is directly and emphatically asking the person to stop. So I shared with this client, this corporate lawyer, if he doesn’t stop, after you get an ally to step in for you, that’s when you book a meeting with him. Ask him to come into your office, close the door, look him in the eye and say, I’ve been tracking this for the last three months.

You’ve been interrupting me. It is affecting my credibility. It’s affecting our productivity as a leadership team, and I’m asking you to stop. That step is also necessary because if it doesn’t work after that, you go to step six, which is escalating to human resources or senior leadership. And here’s where it’s really important that you have followed the previous four steps, because if you go to hr, the first thing they’re gonna say is, have you asked them to stop?

Then they’re gonna say, have other people noticed this? Have you directly and emphatically asked this person to stop whatever the behavior is? Right? And you’re gonna say, I first noticed on this day, I casually referenced it on this day. I publicly and directly referenced it on this day. I checked in with so-and-so.

He or she confirmed that I’m not crazy. This is actually what’s going on. They became an ally. They also asked the person to stop, and then I booked a meeting with the person and directly and emphatically asked them, so you’re going in. In good faith, telling them that you tried to solve the problem, you solve yourself.

You did everything in your power and it didn’t work. This will help you maintain credibility with HR or senior leadership before you escalate it, and then you can turn things over to them knowing that you’ve done everything that you could.

Wrap-Up & Key Takeaways

Okay, so now in this episode. We’ve covered strategies for how to respond to different people who are being chronically difficult, depending on whether they’re your customer or your client, or your peer, or your subordinate or your boss.

Different strategies work for different people, and now you also know the sequence to follow. When things don’t get better, one casually reference it two publicly and directly reference it. Three. Check in with others and get an ally. Four. Ask them directly and emphatically, and then five, you can escalate it.

I hope that this episode in combination with the previous episode 2 0 4, where we talked about the mindset you need to adopt and the scarf framework for diagnosing what’s going on. I hope this helps you feel better equipped on how to deal with difficult people. Please. Let me know how it goes. I know it’s not pleasant, but these skills will help you immensely.

And don’t forget to subscribe to this talk about Talk podcast no matter what podcast platform you’re on. Click subscribe now so you don’t miss any of these opportunities for communication skills coaching. Thanks for listening and talk soon.

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