Andrew Fuller - Tricky people: How to deal with horrible types before they ruin your life

Hell is other people .

Jean-Paul Sartre

Y ou probably wouldnt want to sit down and have a cup of tea with many prominent figures in world history, such as Genghis Khan or Attila the Hun, or even Joan of Arc for that matter, but youd have to admit they would be damned handy to have on your side in a scrap.

Tricky people are human dynamite sticks who impact on all that goes on around them exciting, dramatic, powerful and often a right royal pain in the rear-end. Even so, they get things done and they get people talking. When a tricky person does something, it generally stays done. Learn how to harness their skills and passions and you have a secret weapon that makes the Stealth Bomber look, well, a bit second-rate.

If you have one or more tricky people in your life, this book is for you. You may be trying to live with them, work for them, manage them (well, at least attempting to), be part of a family with them, or just trying to co-exist in a semi-harmonious way that wont set off the next world war. Whatever you are trying to do with them, this book will help you firstly identify them, and then provide you with strategies for remaining sane while being with them. In some instances, it will even help you to use the energies of tricky people for your own benefit.

Tricky people are a wild, lurching mob that could at times fall under the banner of:

PEOPLE

TO

AVOID!

However, as we all learn, they arent that easy to avoid. There are plenty of them out there!

Whether they are members of your family, friends or work colleagues, the conundrums they provide can leave you in twists and knots if you are not careful. Very, very careful! They can have you twisting and turning in the middle of the night while they sleep the unperturbed sleep of the guilt-free. They can consume you with fury and toxify your life. You may well end up wailing and gnashing your teeth over their latest exploits.

This book is designed to help you leap over the intricacies of office politics, sidestep the intrigues of family dramas, and rise exultantly from the hotbed of rumour and innuendo. But gird your loins, grab a stiff drink and breathe deeply: your opponents are serious competition. They are scarily used to the world of co-conspirators, deceit, bragging, slashing and burning, and slander Oh, and they are far better at squabbling than you are.

Most of these people, it is fair to say, do not play well as part of a team.

In this book you will learn how to:

In one of my previous books, Tricky Kids , I looked at how to parent and teach children who are wilful, spirited and defiant. By the time these kids have become adults, their tricky behaviours have become ingrained as a default position. This means you need even greater skills to deal with them.

Well look at developing these skills in work, romantic, social and family settings.

People often report that the most stressful aspect of their job isnt time pressure or the tasks they are required to do, its the people they have to work with. The snide, snivelling ways of some colleagues can not only become depressingly familiar, they can also make you ill. Sadly, it is not only individual co-workers who hold this power; some workplaces have cultures that are toxic.

Organisations have an invasive power over the people within them. They grip and they stick. One of the oddest aspects of organisations is they often behave in ways that are precisely the reverse of their intentions in the world. This is known as their shadow, and it often shows up as the awful and shoddy treatment of workers. It is the dark side of good intentions. And its often the best organisations that have the deepest shadows.

The idea of an organisational shadow helps us to understand why hospital staff are often at bitter loggerheads with one another despite providing wonderful levels of care for their patients. This helps us to understand why mental health and social welfare agencies are often a bit mad, why bankers can become spendthrifts or gamblers, why teachers can bully and belittle one another, and why religious organisations can become places of abysmal inhumanity to their staff despite doing wonderful spiritual work in their communities.

It almost seems that the better intentioned an organisation is, the more likely it is to treat workers badly when the chips are down. Its a bit like a tree: the bigger it is and the more light it basks in, the larger its shadow will be. Of course this means that tricky people can wield enormous sway in these workplaces.