Handling Difficult People Training Course - 1 Day

The world is populated by people with great diversity of characters. You may find some character types difficult to deal with, but you need to handle them, because they form part of your job.

So, we are here to answer the question: How can we get the best from ourselves and others?

To get the best from difficult people, we must first learn how to get the best from ourselves.

This course is predominantly a personal development course designed to improve communication and confidence, so that we are empowered to positively affect others.

There are many skills needed, but they can all be subsumed under a smaller number of main headings:

1. Clear thought
2. Accurate language
3. Rational approach
4. Positive emotions
5. Body language
6. Voice tones

This Handling Difficult People training course is based on these six themes.

We begin the training by asking you to do a self-assessment, measuring yourself against a set of fundamental key skills. The result will identify areas for potential improvement.

We all make impressions in the minds of others. People will form a mental image of you based upon two things, their own preconceptions and your behaviour. Their response is governed by their impression of you.

You cannot change their preconceptions, but you can change your behaviour in ways that will trigger an adaptive response.

In order to make progress with people, you need to decide how you wish to be perceived by others, and then act accordingly.

We will discuss how you want to be perceived by others and what attributes to focus on.

There are many people who are difficult because they are intellectual, argumentative, contradictory, and have strong opinions. They are confident, articulate, sometimes pushy. They upset people and create tension. They can be intimidating. They ruffle feathers.

In this section of the course you will learn how to deal with these intellectually difficult people.

To achieve your purpose, you must first define it.

Your purpose is to gain the willing cooperation of the difficult person. That means you must find common ground between:

1. What you want
2. What the other wants
3. What is reasonably / logically possible

In order to find the common ground you need to decide what you want, discover what they want and determine what is a rational way forward.

To discover what the other person wants, you need a formula for asking the right questions. We will give you an 8-step questioning formula, which will help you develop your questioning abilities.

Communication must be clear and distinct, with no ambiguities or vagueness. Language is inherently tricky, but it is important your words are clearly understood by the other person, in order to avoid misunderstandings.

Equally, you must fully understand, not just hear, what the other person is trying to say. We will show you a special formula (called CG4D), that will allow you to clearly define what is meant by what is said. This single method will improve your communication skills for the rest of your life.

You might think the other person is being negative, they would disagree with that assessment. Nobody thinks they are negative. They regard their so-called negativity, as realism. They even say: “I’m not being negative, I’m being realistic!”.

Difficult people have powerful intellects, but lack direction to use it creatively. You need a technique that will transform their 'no-can-do' mindset, to a 'can-do' mindset.

We will show you how to turn the problem creator, into a problem solver.

Humans are open to suggestion. And suggestion can be a better way to approach people, rather than issuing instructions, or orders.

We will show you how you can use words, as a form of positive suggestion, using language in persuasive ways.

When you learn this technique, you will find yourself using it all the time.

The Germans have a saying, “Übung macht den Meister”, which means "practice makes the master", or practice makes perfect! How will you put into practice what you have learned this morning?

In this session we discuss how to handle people who behave badly. This can include behaviours such as lateness, physical bad habits, swearing, abusive words and inappropriate behaviour. Or it may be laziness, improper laxity, or carelessness in the performance of their duties.

This is effectively performance management, or behaviour modification. This is not easy to manage. We will show you how to do this correctly.

When faced with a difficult person, we all have four options of how to respond: with anger, with upset, by avoidance, or by reason.

Only reason works.

We discuss why the other methods are not effective and why you should use reason to resolve difficult situations.

In order to present a rational approach, we will show you:

• The importance of the self-concept
• How to use objective language
• How to script your message
• Focus on the future
• How to gain commitment
• Assertive body language and voice tones
• Why you should finish on a positive

The self-concept is the core of personality, it is the image a person has of themselves. If you attack a person’s identity, they will always respond negatively.

Therefore, you should never use negative identity statements; statements that contain the phrase, “You are ... annoying, rude, etc."

To protect their self-concept, use only objective language.

We discuss the difference between objective, non-emotionally charged language, and subjective, emotionally charged language.

When you are in a negatively charged situation, never use emotionally charged language, use only objective language.

We will show you how to describe your message in objective terms.

You will find this section of great benefit in the handling of conflict situations.

Now you know the rules, you can write scripts that will allow you to positively affect negative people. We will work the material together, covering different scenarios and you will see how it works in practice.

We discuss why it is a mistake to argue for too long about the past, and why it is better to focus on the future.

We will show you how to shift conversations “back to the future."

In order to find a suitable solution, you need to find the common ground between:

1. What you want
2. What the other wants
3. What is organisationally possible

Everyone has a rational side, and your task is to find it. Nobody regards themselves as being unreasonable. Learn to take advantage of their desire to be a reasonable person.

It is not enough to know what to say. You also have to say it in the right way.

We will show you how to be assertive, not aggressive, not passive.

When handling difficult people, body language is also important: eye contact, body posture, facial expression, appearance, hand gestures.

We will discuss the importance of body language and how to use it to win over difficult people.

Voice tones are important too: volume, pace, pitch, and intensity of emotion.

We will explore how you can use your voice to deliver your message convincingly and confidently.

By using the methods we have taught you, you will be able to defuse a potentially explosive situation. You will have removed the negative, leaving the situation emotionally neutral.

But now we need to add in positive emotions, so that you finish on an affirmative.

We will show you how you can always finish on an affirmative.

We summarise the training and ask you what you found the most useful and discuss the ways in which you are looking forward to put the material in practice.