Heidrun Schüler-Lubienetzki - Difficult People at Work: Action Strategies for Dealing with Challenging Personalities

This book is a translation of the original German edition Schwierige Menschen am Arbeitsplatz by Schler-Lubienetzki, Heidrun, published by Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE in 2017. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by the service DeepL.com). A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content, so that the book will read stylistically differently from a conventional translation. Springer Nature works continuously to further the development of tools for the production of books and on the related technologies to support the authors.

This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE, part of Springer Nature.

The registered company address is: Heidelberger Platz 3, 14197 Berlin, Germany

Our book deals with people that are toxic to other peopleToxikers! We know of such people from clients experience, weve seen them in various roles within companies, and we have personal experience with them as well. Toxikers dont only harm the people in their work environment, but they are also a substantial cost factor for the affected companies. Every new coaching case of our clients and every new personal experience regarding Toxikers convinced us that devoting a book entirely to Toxikers and how to deal with them is worth the effort.

This book is primarily written for those affected by Toxikers in a work environment. Wed like to emphasize that those affected are not only employees plagued by their toxic supervisors, but that poisonous people at work can just as well be colleagues and subordinates.

A supervisor with a toxic team member is challenged in many waysthey not only have to deal with the situation personally, they also have to avert damage from the team and company. Therefore, our book is also meant for people in companies that are responsible for human resources, human resource development, and occupational health management.

Since we know that people who are affected by Toxikers usually seek external help, we are convinced that our book can also provide suggestions and ideas to business coaches, consultants, and management trainers. The systematic presentation of the Toxiker and the toxic process enable deducing corresponding strategies of action. Our book offers the chance of more focus within the consulting or coaching process with the help of this knowledge. Whats important to us is a recognition factor for everyone affected. We therefore begin by discussing the subjective experience. All cases described in the book are based on actual experiences. Of course, the cases are altered in such a way that no conclusions can be drawn regarding specific companies or people. Then we will discuss the Toxiker himself. The central questions are: Who is a Toxiker? What drives the Toxiker? What does the Toxiker want to achieve? Beyond that, its important to understand the pattern in which Toxikers act and the harm their behavior causes.

Based on this knowledge, we instruct readers to design promising strategies of action for their situation. We would like to encourage our readers to break free from the victim role. We will point out self-help options for everyone affected that can improve the situation to a certain degree. As we know well the options and limits of self-help, we also talk about getting professional support as well as the relief that a good personal network offers regarding major personal decisions, such as leaving a company.

For reasons of simplification and better legibility, we always refer to the company as the area of a Toxikers activity. The company is representative of further organization and company forms. This includes public and private sector administration and organizations, including non-profits. The form of organization is not the sole crucial factor. The vision and goals of an organization as well as actual organizational culture are what actually matter. We hope that our book can be a genuinely useful tool for dealing with the Toxikers in your work environment. We have tried to balance sharing theoretical input as well as practical advice. Therefore, wed like to point out that several topics can be further read about by using the bibliography as well as our website ( http://www.entwicklung-hamburg.de ). Please feel free to contact us.

Before we begin our journey through the chapters of the book, we would like to thank everyone who has supported us. Our work environment and especially our clients have encouraged us that the Toxiker and strategies of dealing with him are relevantthank you all for your interest and the many suggestions on the topic. We would also like to thank Joachim Coch and his team at Springer for the competent and pleasant collaboration. We thank our family and friends for always being at our side, for lively discussions and the shared joy of this project. We dedicate this book to our son Felix.