Dealing with Difficult People at Work – Part 1 (ep.205)

If you’re dealing with a difficult person at work, this episode will help you handle it.

Dr. Andrea Wojnicki shares a simple mindset shift that will help you feel empowered, plus a 5 word mantra that changes everything.

Andrea shares a real client story about a newly promoted partner who was being undermined by a colleague, and how this simple mindset shift completely transformed her experience.

You’ll also learn the S.C.A.R.F. Framework, a powerful diagnostic tool created by Dr. David Rock. This framework helps you understand exactly why someone is being difficult (Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness) so you can respond strategically instead of reacting emotionally.

This is Part 1 of a two-part series. In Part 2, you’ll learn specific do’s and don’ts for dealing with difficult customers, direct reports, peers, and even your boss, plus a step-by-step sequence for when things escalate.

If you’re ready to stop dreading these interactions and start handling them with confidence, this episode is for you.

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TRANSCRIPTION

Why Dealing with Difficult People Is Part of Leadership

Part of your job is dealing with these difficult people. It might not literally be in your job description, but ask yourself this: as a senior leader, who else is gonna deal with these difficult people? Unfortunately, dealing with difficult people at work is a common challenge. In fact, I have to tell you this, I’ve noticed that requests for coaching and workshops on this topic are becoming more frequent.

Let me tell you why I encourage you to listen to this episode. Personally, I am a pretty positive person. I’m definitely an optimist, and I’d prefer to only cover positive topics if I could here at Talk About Talk. But the demand for strategies for dealing with difficult people is real. Here’s the good news.

You are going to learn some. Actionable frameworks and strategies for dealing with these difficult people that really work. You will feel empowered. Are you ready? Let’s do this. Let’s Talk About Talk. 

About the Host: Dr. Andrea Wojnicki

Welcome to the Talk About Talk podcast. My name is Dr. Andrea Wojnicki. Please call me Andrea. I’m an executive communication coach here at Talk About Talk, where I coach driven professionals like you so that you can communicate with confidence and ultimately achieve your career goals.

You can learn more about everything we do here at Talk about Talk, including private one-on-one coaching and online courses. Corporate workshops and more. If you go to talk about talk.com, we just relaunched the website, and there are plenty of free resources there for you as well, including my free communication coaching newsletter.

Okay, let’s get into this.

In this episode, you are going to learn a deceptively simple strategy that I promise will help you deal with difficult people, and also you’re gonna learn a framework to help you diagnose what exactly is going on with these difficult people. This, of course, will inform you about how to respond if you have a diagnosis.

It tells you what the treatment is, right? First, though. The deceptively simple strategy. 

Leanne and Mike: When a Peer Becomes the Problem

Let me tell you a quick story about a client. Let’s call her Leanne. Leanne was an incredibly driven consultant who hired me to help her boost her communication skills. She actually called me her secret weapon.

She was gunning for a big promotion to partner at her firm, and it turns out she got that promotion when we were just a few months into our six-month coaching program. But that is when things got really difficult for Leanne, as in. She started to have to deal with difficult people. Actually, one main person, let’s call him Mike, actually, I think his name might have been Mike.

So Leanne and Mike started at the firm at about the same time, and he got promoted just a few months before her. They were both new partners and their offices were near each other. To Leanne’s surprise, things got pretty ugly pretty quickly. She told me that Mike seemed to be going out of his way to undermine her.

He would argue with her. He would argue with the recommendations that she made in meetings. He would raise his eyebrows and shake his head when she spoke up, and he even organized meetings and forgot to invite her. So publicly and privately, in person and online, Mike was being a very difficult person. Leanne told me that at first she decided to ignore it, but then that didn’t work.

So she tried to go out of her way to be friendly with Mike. Guess what? No change. She even tried fighting back, as she called it, in one of her meetings when he disagreed with her, and she ended up coming across as defensive and regretting her response. Andrea, what should I do? 

“It’s Part of My Job”: A Simple but Powerful Reframe

She pleaded, here’s what I told Leanne, and here is what I’m telling you.

This is a deceptively simple mindset shift that you’ll need to adopt to survive as a senior leader, especially when these difficult people rear their ugly heads. It’s a five-word mantra. Are you ready for it? Here it is. 

It’s part of my job. Lemme say that again. It’s part of my job. What exactly do I mean by that?

Well, here’s the thing. When you’re junior in your career, and maybe even when you’re a middle manager, you have a boss who’s looking over your shoulder, making sure you’re learning the technical skills and doing everything right and checking all the boxes for you to help you get promoted. And if someone slows you down, if there’s a difficult person that gets in your way, it’s your boss’s job to fix the situation.

But then, when you advance up the corporate ladder, here’s the insight. Part of your job is dealing with these difficult people. It might not literally be in your job description, but ask yourself this: as a senior leader, who else is gonna deal with these difficult people? It’s now part of what you do, so accept it and figure out how, instead of dwelling on how negative the situation is, dwell on your skills to deal with it.

When I shared this insight with Leanne, she told me, okay, Andrea, that makes sense. I’m gonna try it out, and I’ll let you know what happens then. At our next coaching session, she couldn’t wait to tell me how this simple mindset shift helped her deal with Mike. She told me, Andrea, when I see Mike’s name in my inbox now, or when he knocks on my office door, I actually smile to myself, and I say, here comes part of my job.

You got this. And then that’s what she does. It’s empowering. It makes you feel less like a victim. So I encourage you to try this too. Instead of dwelling on, woe is me. Why do I have to deal with this difficult person? Instead? Remind yourself that as a leader, this is part of your job. And then. Get on with it, but what exactly do you do from there?

Well, I do have some suggestions. 

The SCARF Framework: Diagnosing Difficult Behavior

So the first thing I want to share with you is a framework that will help you diagnose what is going on. When I teach this framework, people tell me they love it, and I hope you love it too. It’s called the SCARF framework. I didn’t create it. It was created in 2008, about 25 years ago, by Dr. David Rock.

And frankly, I have to say, I’m a bit surprised that this framework hasn’t gotten more traction. Most people tell me they haven’t heard about this. Maybe I should invite Dr. David Rock to be a podcast guest here to talk about Talk. Okay. Here is Dr. Rock’s scarf theory. He says that our behaviors are guided in part by five things that we seek.

If any of these five things come under threat, we act out as in yes, we become difficult. Scarf is the acronym that will help you remember what the five things are. S-C-A-R-F stands for status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness. Got that. Its status, certainty, and autonomy. Relatedness and fairness.

You can find the list in the show notes, but let me briefly define each of these and share some ideas on how you might respond if you diagnose someone as feeling like any one of these things is under threat. Okay. The first is S status. Status is about respect and acknowledgement. Maybe with a competitive edge.

It’s a little bit about standing out. When I was coaching Leanne, I asked her whether Mike might feel like perhaps she threatened his status. Yep. When people feel respected and important, their status is secure. They’ll feel more engaged at work. If their status is threatened, they may lash out because they feel embarrassed or diminished.

So what can you do? You can appeal to their need for status. And I’m telling you, this works. Okay, so that’s the first one. S is for status, Part of your job is dealing with these difficult people…” and the next one, C, is certainty. The example I always give with certainty is COVID. Do you remember how uncertain we all felt? Like, how dangerous is this really? And how long is this gonna last?

And on and on. And of course, our anxiety and our stress levels skyrocketed. We were feeling uncertain, and many of us lashed out. The best leaders in organizations are the ones who provide certainty if someone’s being difficult because they feel things are uncertain. What you can do is make them feel certain, provide them with predictability, and tell them what the plan is.

That’s it. Okay, moving on. The third one is autonomy. Autonomy is about control. It’s about being independent. When we lose control, when our autonomy is under threat, we might become difficult. It’s natural, like when employers say we have to come back to work on certain days, and maybe for certain hours.

Some people feel like their autonomy is under threat. And you know what? That’s fair. Do you see how this works? So we’ve covered it. S is status. C is certainty. A is autonomy, and by the way, I have to mention this, these are not mutually exclusive. You can experience one or more of these things at the same time.

Or if someone’s being difficult at the workplace, you might diagnose them as potentially feeling like two or even three of these five things are under threat. Moving on. The fourth is r. Relatedness or I say relationships. This is about social groups. We are social beings, and we all wanna be in the ingroup.

However, you define that. If someone feels like their status as being in this ingroup is threatened, you better believe they’ll act out. On the other hand, have you ever noticed how you feel when someone refers to you as being in the collective, the we and the us, and how satisfying that is? That’s what I’m talking about here, relatedness.

Okay. We’re onto the last one. F. Is for fairness. Fairness as in consistency. Consistency over time, and consistency across people. This is a common one that people tell me is their diagnosis. When someone’s being difficult at work, it’s often because that person perceives that something is just not fair.

Okay, so there you go. Scarf status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness. 

Wrap-Up: How to Apply SCARF—and What’s Coming in Part 2

Are you trying to deal with someone who’s being difficult at work? Here’s my suggestion. First, stop complaining about it and tell yourself, this is part of my job. I can do this. Then use the scarf framework to diagnose what’s going on and to inform you about how to respond.

I hope this helps people tell me that it does. And in the next episode in two weeks, I’m gonna share with you some dos and don’ts, specific suggestions for how to deal with these difficult people. After you diagnose the issue, you certainly need to understand whether it’s your customer or your client, or maybe it’s your direct report.

Or maybe it’s a peer, like with Leanne and Mike, or maybe it’s your boss. That’s always a fun one when your boss is a difficult person. I have some fantastic suggestions and strategies to share with you about how to deal with these folks, and I’m also gonna share with you a sequence of steps to follow if things escalate.

Unfortunately, sometimes things get worse, and you end up having to go to HR or escalate it in some way, and I’m gonna share with you exactly what you need to do and when, step by step. So that’s the next episode. If you’re not already subscribed to this talk about Talk podcast, please hit subscribe now in whatever podcast platform you’re on, and then you’re gonna automatically receive part two of dealing with difficult people and more communication skills coaching from me.

That’s it. Thanks for listening and talk soon.

 

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