The Bad News About Difficult People

 I have to share bad news with you. The purpose of my articles is to assist you in continuing development of your workplace communication skills, to help you be a better leader, a better coworker and a better family member. To do that effectively I have to be brutally honest with you sometimes and this is one of those times. The bad news is this, you cannot change others. You just can't. More specifically, you can't change the way others communicate with you. I am often asked, "What can I do to change a difficult person I work with?" Take a close look at that question. The words change and difficult person are important. Do you think the difficult person is going to change? Of course not. The reason they won't change is because they think you are the difficult person. If you doubt the validity of my assertion then consider the following scenario. Your best work friend frantically rushes into your office saying, "I can't believe you did this! Your mistake is going to cost me weeks of work. I don't know what I am going to do!" You would be shocked and have a sick feeling in your stomach. You would listen to them, ask questions to discover the problem and work to fix the issue even if it was not your fault. Now imagine the exact same scene with you arch nemesis at work. The response is likely much different. Your nonverbal communication becomes closed off. Your tone becomes accusatory. Everything about you is defensive because you know they are out to get you somehow. However, can't your arch nemesis tell you are defensive? Isn't that what they expected of you? To them, you are the difficult person. We expect the difficult person to be difficult so we look for all the things they do that could be seen as "difficult person behavior." When we look for something in someone else we almost always find it. One of the few things the vast majority of physiologists agree on is that the greatest need of humans is to feel in control of their environment. To satisfy this need, people look for evidence to confirm their existing beliefs. Take talk radio for example. If you are conservative you listen to conservative radio. If you are liberal you listen to liberal radio. You listen to people talk about what you already believe in because it reinforces your beliefs and fulfills your need to feel in control. Much like when you believe someone is a difficult person. You look to reinforce your opinion they are difficult. In my career I have had only TWO people admit they were the difficult person. I can assure you there have been far more than two difficult people in my career. Frequently I have had someone pull me aside and confidentially say, "Please don't say anything, but our difficult person is the one at our table wearing the blue shirt. He is a total jerk at the office!" No one ever thinks they are the problem. Not even the guy in the blue shirt. However, it is rare you come across a communication problem where there is zero responsibility to be had by either of the parties. It is actually good news that you likely have some responsibility for the bad communication. If you have some level of responsibility it means you can change things. So what can you do differently? The answer is to change your "touch points." A touch point is any interaction you have with another person; an email, a phone call, a meeting or any other interaction. To change the way you interact with the difficult people then change the way you approach these touch points. For example, look at things like how well you listen to the person, the nonverbal signals you are sending them and your tone of voice. All of those little things can add up to make a big difference in the long run. There is still more bad news though. Not only do you have to change the touch points, but it might take a long time to see a change in the other person. Think about it like this. If your difficult person reads this article and thinks of you, their difficult person, and decides they are going to change their touch points with you, how would you react? If they had never thanked you for a thing then they suddenly thank you for all of your hard work on a recent project you would question their motives. If they bring you your favorite drink from the coffee shop across the street and thank you for the help you gave them the other day you might wonder if they spit in the coffee. It would take a long time for you to start trusting that person because you have both used up all the trust in the relationship. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6599882