Barbara Pachter - The Power of Positive Confrontation: The Skills You Need to Handle Conflicts at Work, at Home, Online, and in Life, completely revised and updated edition

Praise for The Essentials of Business Etiquette

If you are looking for practical guidelines on how to conduct yourself in a business situation, what behaviors you need to use to get ahead, and how to be sure that you do not offend others, read this book!Madeline Bell, President and COO, The Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia

Pachter has once again done an excellent job at highlighting some key tools to succeed in leadership and how to conduct yourself in the workplace.Joseph A. Barone, PharmD, FCCP, Dean and Professor II, Rutgers University, Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy

The pragmatic advice Barbara offers is sure to meaningfully help people be more confident and effective in multiple business situations.Elizabeth Walker, Vice President, Global Talent Management, Campbell Soup Company

Praise for The Power of Positive Confrontation, First Edition

Barbara Pachter has written a wonderfully perceptive and incredibly constructive book. Instead of complaining when someone does something that annoys you, now youll know the basic strategies for handling conflict effectively while feeling good about the experience. Everyone needs to read this book!Sharon J. Wohlmuth, New York Times best-selling co-author of Sisters, Mothers and Daughters, and Best Friends

This is one of the best self-help books ever written. I wish this wonderful book had been available to me long agoit would have saved me years of problems. We face the problems it identifies daily. The help it offers is immediate.Larry King, Hall of Fame Broadcaster

Also by Barbara Pachter

The Essentials of Business Etiquette:

How to Greet, Eat, and Tweet Your Way to Success

New Rules @ Work:

79 Etiquette Tips, Tools, and Techniques to Get Ahead and Stay Ahead

When the Little Things Count... and They Always Count:

601 Essential Things That Everyone in Business Needs to Know

The Jerk with the Cell Phone:

A Survival Guide for the Rest of Us

Minding Your Business Manners

Prentice Hall Complete Business Etiquette Handbook

Business Etiquette

Climbing the Corporate Ladder:

What You Need to Know and Do to Be a Promotable Person

Copyright 2000, 2014 by Barbara Pachter

Dont Attackem, WACem is a trademark of Pachter & Associates.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For information, address Da Capo Press, 44 Farnsworth Street, 3rd Floor, Boston, MA 02210.

Book design by Cynthia Young

Pachter, Barbara.

The power of positive confrontation: the skills you need to handle conflicts at work, at home, online, and in life / by Barbara Pachter with Susan Magee.

pages cm

ISBN 978-0-7382-1760-4 (e-book)

1. Interpersonal conflict. 2. Interpersonal confrontation. I. Magee, Susan. II. Title.

BF637.I48P33 2014

158.2dc23

2014005086

First Da Capo Press Edition 2014

Published by Da Capo Press

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

www.dacapopress.com

Note: The names and identifying details of people associated with events described in this book have been changed. Any similarity to actual persons is coincidental.

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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To the memory of my parents, Esther and Victor Pachter.

CONTENTS

F or more than twenty years Ive been a business communications trainer and coach specializing in communication and etiquette skills. Practically since the day I started, Ive had participants make comments during my seminars, or come up to me at breaks or after workshop sessions to share their experiences with someone they were having difficulty with. My seminar participants have come from all walks of life and all levels of the corporate food chainfrom senior VPs at Fortune 500 companies to administrative assistants in accounting firms. Again and again, these people have expressed an urgent need to talk about the conflicts and difficult situations in their lives and have asked for my help.

I cant tell you how often Ive heard frustrations like these:

My boss isnt fair.

My employees take advantage.

My next door neighbor is so inconsiderate.

My coworker is driving me nuts.

I feel like a pushover.

And after telling me their stories, they invariably ask, What can I do?

Some of the stories I hear break my heart. I feel really bad for the people who seek me out, and at times Ive even commiseratedIve been there myself. I think at one time or another we all have felt frustrated, tongue-tied, or fed up with someone elses behavior.

I listen with sympathy, but always there is a part of me that wants to reach out, give the person a shake, and say, Why dont you do something about it?

Over time, however, I made what I think is a significant discoverypeople dont say or do anything to the person bothering them mostly because they dont know what to say or do!

I have also noticed a negative communication pattern in many of the comments I hear: when people have difficulty talking to someone in an appropriate manner about a situation that is bothering them, they simply dont talk with that person at all. Instead, they complain to anyone who will give them a sympathetic ear, including me. Some people come to my seminars just seeking an opportunity to vent their emotions.

And yet there are just as many people who, when faced with a bothersome situation, say or do something that, however well intentioned, makes the situation worse: