John Hoover - Difficult People: Working Effectively With Prickly Bosses, Coworkers, and Clients

Why are some people so difficult to work with? Whats the best way to deal with them? How can you cope with a boss whos a Slave Driver or a Bully? What about the colleague who shows up repeatedly in your office to chat about personal matters? Why are some managers able to take difficult people in stride, while others feel overwhelmed by them? How do you avoid becoming a difficult employee?

In this book, we distill the wisdom of some of the best minds in the field of human resources to help you manage difficult peopleperhaps one of the most challenging problems of the workplace. The language is simple and the design colorful to make the information easy to grasp.

Quizzes help you assess your knowledge of difficult people and how to handle them diplomatically. Case files show how people have managed difficult people effectively. Sidebars give you a big-picture look at the challenges inherent in managing a group with diverse personalities and highlight innovative, out-of-the-box solutions worth considering. Quotes from business leaders, psychologists, and human resources experts will motivate you as you interact daily with difficult people. Finally, in case you want to dig deeper into the literature of difficult people and management, we recommend some of the most important business books available. The authors of these books both influence and reflect todays thinking about handling difficult people effectively and related management issues. Understanding the ideas they cover will inspire you as a manager.

Even if you dont dip into these volumes, the knowledge you gain from studying the pages of this book will equip you to deal firmly, effectively, and insightfully with the difficult people you face every dayto help you make a difference to your company and in the lives of the people who support you.

T HE E DITORS

F rom line supervisors to senior managers, todays leaders are in the business of developing their people, which means helping them develop strong and productive relationships. Your challenge as a manager is to form coalitions of willing, eager, and ambitious people within your realm of responsibility.

Getting in your way, when you least expect or have the time to deal with them, will be difficult people.

If you observe enough managers over time, youll notice that some are far less annoyed than others by these problematic employees. Thats not because frazzled managers have a greater number of difficult people on their staff or that their difficult people are so much more challenging. Rather, serene managers have developed better skills for dealing with difficult people.

Every difficult person that you come into contact with is an opportunity for you to grow and develop into a stronger, more resilientand more serenemanager. Fortunately, the coping skills you need can be learned.

The exact cost of difficult people in the workplace is incalculable. Examining the subject is like trying to watch a skyscraper being built by peering through a knothole in a plywood construction fence. You are only able to see a portion of the complete picture at any given time.

The problem is not only that difficult people make everyone miserable, but also that they diminish your effectiveness and the effectiveness of those around you. Your effectiveness is a measure of how you get things done on time, under budget, with quality workmanship, and without overturning any apple carts, so that you get positive performance reviews, promotions, and raises.

Difficult People Undermine Your Authority

If you have institutional authority as a supervisor, manager, director, or higher executive, there is probably a difficult person over whom you have some control. A difficult person can undermine your popular authoritythat is, the leadership role youve earned among the people you work with through your consistent and trustworthy behavior. A difficult person can complain about you when youre not present, compete with you for power, impede your ability to follow through on promises, and so on. If the difficult person misrepresents what you have done or how effectively you do things in general, it will become that much harder for you to build peoples faith and trust in youthe very foundations of your popular authority.