Hi, it's Kim Nickel with the New Manager podcast.
And before we get into today's episode, I wanted to tell you
that enrollment is open now for my course, Communication
Strategies for Managers. This is the foundational course
that will help you feel more calm and more confident in
everyday situations at work. So sign up to join us, go into
the show notes to find the link or go directly to my website,
kimnickel.com. And on the new managers page,
you'll learn everything you need to know to register for this
course. All right, now for today's
episode, we are revisiting a very popular topic, working with
difficult people. This is one of the most popular
episodes that I recorded in the last year, so I thought it
deserved a second listen. Get ready to take some notes and
here we go. Hello and welcome.
I'm glad you're here and I hope you're doing well.
If you are new to the show, you are in the right place.
If you are a new manager, if you are a leader, if you are just a
human who works with other humans and wants to be able to
do that more effectively, that's what we talked about here and
we've been going even deeper in the course that I'm teaching
right now. It's all about communication
strategies for managers and the conversation we've been having
have been so good. Like this is the fun thing about
being in a live class environment where you get to ask
questions and share celebrations and talk through some of those
kind of stickier challenges and figure out what can you try to
do differently or, or what approach might you take.
And so if you're not already aware, I want you to know about
that course because it will be offered again and you want to
plan for it, whether that means both planning to talk to your
work about possibly sponsoring you and covering that cost as
part of your own professional development.
As we're coming into the end of the year, that might look like
performance reviews, that also might look like finding out what
budget is left that has to be used for professional
development before, you know, before the the end of the year.
So if that is true for you, then be thinking about that and know
that that is available. It is really cool to have like
live conversation. It tends to make it a lot easier
to start to apply things when you know that you're going to
have me and a group of people to come back to the following week
and share what's going on. So get the link to that into the
show notes and you can join the wait list to sign up as soon
soon as it opens again. Now, today we are talking about
working with difficult people. And the simple truth is that
it's hard and it happens. You can't prevent friction from
happening no matter how hard you try, no matter how good you are.
It is so normal to experience friction and frustration and
even a clash of perspectives or priorities and also
communication styles. Because humans are human and
especially at work, we can sometimes forget, all right?
People have different priorities.
People have different communication styles.
People are trying to manage the pressure that they are feeling.
And we do it in different ways. And you know, sometimes we
forget that, you know, we have different ways that we have
learned work for us. You know, I one time was
coaching a client and she said, like, why is this person, why
does why, why do they keep doing this?
Why do they keep saying this? It's driving me crazy, like why
are they this way? Why are they doing this?
And the thought that I offered to her was, well, the reason
they're doing this is because on some level this works for them.
This is the thing that they have learned that when things are
difficult or when you're frustrated, the behavior that
you're experiencing right now, that is the thing that they have
done in the past and it has gotten them the result or the
outcome that they wanted. And one of the things that
happens when we start to accept that, OK, we all have patterns
of communication. We all have ways that we behave
with others when we're feeling frustrated, when we realize that
everyone has their own way and it might look different than,
you know, from how you do it. It allows you to start taking
things a bit less personally. And now it's not like, why are
they doing this to me, right? Why are they being so difficult
for me to work with? It shifts that perspective
enough where you can say, oh, this is so interesting.
I like they're this is what they're doing.
This is the behavior I'm observing.
This is the pattern that I'm noticing.
And once you start to let it not be personal, then you can start
to get curious, which gives you more access to actually finding
a path through it and finding something that will be more
workable to change it. O here's how I like to coach my
clients and the general framework I want to offer you
because, you know, it's one thing to try to never, ever,
ever have a difficult working relationship.
That actually takes a lot more energy, I think, than trying to
simply acknowledge, yeah, it's going to happen from time to
time. It doesn't mean anything bad
about you, and it might not even mean anything bad about the
other person. You know, sometimes a difference
in perspective can feel like conflict or a difference in
priorities can feel like conflict.
But you know, none of this means like when you encounter it.
It doesn't mean anything bad about you and it doesn't mean
that you're not cut out for leadership or for being a good
manager. It is just the new thing that
you are learning how to address on your own career path, on your
own life journey, right? It's just a thing that is
happening that you're going to learn.
You know what your options are. It doesn't mean that you're not
good at what you do or that you're not cut out for it.
So three things that will help when you find yourself working
with difficult people. Number one, identify the real
issue. This one can sometimes be the
trickiest one because when we're really caught up in a situation,
it can be hard to see clearly. When we're taking things really
personally, it can be hard to find a more useful perspective.
So we want to be able to take a step back.
Can we identify the real issue? And we're going to ask questions
like what if any role do I have in this dynamic?
We're going to ask questions like, what do I think is going
on? Like what's the story I am
telling you know myself about this behavior or about this
situation, right? Like what what is going on here?
Another great question to ask is to ask yourself why do I think
this is happening? And can I ask them like what are
you trying to accomplish here? What are you trying to do here,
right. We want to start to understand
like what what is really going on?
What is this about? So identify the real issue and
it's going to be different in different situations, different
contexts, different power dynamics, different situations.
We want to start with that question.
We want to slow down and really kind of untangle it, look at all
the different angles. So we figure out what is it that
we're actually trying to solve for?
What's the issue? Once you do that Step 2, you
will choose a strategy and next steps.
This is where the curiosity becomes really helpful.
We want to be curious about, OK, this is the strategy I'm going
to choose because I think this is what's going on.
Based on that, here are some steps I will take, some things I
will do, maybe even a very small adjustment I will make and let
me see what happens. It's not about choosing the
quote UN quote right strategy because honestly, there are so
many factors in play. You might not know exactly what
the right approach is until you started to take a couple of
steps in a direction because something will happen when you
do and that will give you more information.
So you can then adapt or adjust how you want to address the
relationship, the person, the situation.
Next, one of my favorite practices that I'll offer is to
look for the wins and to start telling people what they're
doing. Well, it's really, really simple
and I talk about this in a few different contexts.
You might have heard me talk about this on the episode where
I talk about like celebrating the small wins or when I've
talked about giving feedback and performance reviews.
You know, it's it's easy to forget that feedback doesn't
just mean here are the things that you're doing wrong or here
are the things that are falling, you know, below expectations.
But giving feedback and giving that gratitude or that
appreciation of, oh, here's here's what I see you doing.
Well, it's such a small thing, but it can have such a big
positive effect because it can signal, hey, I appreciate you.
Your work is recognized, you are valued.
I am seeing you. I am with you.
I am on your side. It can be a way of establishing
some connection and some goodwill.
And sometimes we just forget that part, you know, especially
if you have a bit of a perfectionist streak towards
yourself and you tend to overlook your own qualities that
are, you know, that that are doing well for you.
If you tend to, you know, over overcorrect and tend to only
focus on the gaps and the things that you feel you need to get
better at, it's easy to do that with others too.
And sometimes that very small shift right, is part of your
strategy. Let me just you know, what
happens if I give everyone on my team a really genuine
appreciative compliment this week and let them know what I
appreciate about them and what I see them doing well, what might
happen? Like, let's find out.
So you want to choose a strategy and you want to choose to take
some next steps. Let them be small things that
you can easily put into practice, put into action, and
then see what happens. And then the third thing that
will help when you're working with difficult people, be OK
being uncomfortable. And I mean this in a few ways.
So it might be uncomfortable to give someone a compliment, for
example, it might feel uncomfortable to have a direct
conversation around, you know, I've noticed this and I'm
curious what you think about it and where this is coming from
because I was kind of surprised or I'm just, I'm kind of
confused about like this behavior that I'm observing.
Can you fill me in on what what's going on?
It might be uncomfortable to be that direct, but also it might
be uncomfortable to stay with the discomfort that someone else
is kind of spinning up around you.
And what I mean by this, this is the kind of situation where you
might work with someone who has learned over the years in their
life that the best way to get things done for them is to make
other people uncomfortable. Because then when someone else
is uncomfortable, they will then concede or, you know, give in to
what that other person is wanting.
So they might be creating discomfort through, you know,
anger or impatience or pressure or like a passive aggressive
nature. It's, it's this really
interesting thing that honestly, I, I think it mostly happens a
lot, a little bit on the subconscious level.
They've just learned that this is, this is an effective
strategy. I try to be very generous with
the perspective that I don't think people are intentionally
trying to like, be difficult. I think we just have different
strategies for how we like to get things done.
And some people have learned, you know, if I make things
uncomfortable enough for this other person, then I will be
able to get my way. And they're very comfortable
with you being uncomfortable. But if you are not comfortable
being uncomfortable, then you will fall into that pattern.
And it can feel very, very frustrating.
And it's like, what is happening here?
So being OK with discomfort, you know, and part of what I work
with my clients on when we coach is let's really understand what
is the quality of discomfort here?
Like what is this really about? Because if we understand kind of
what that's what that is, where that's coming from, it can give
us a lot of really good information.
So these three things, OK, you're dealing with someone,
you're thinking this is such a difficult situation, is such a
difficult person. And you know, and by the way,
they might not be a bad person. You might really enjoy them in
another context. But in this particular work
relationship, things feel difficult and it's very
frustrating. Or they could be somebody that
you just genuinely don't vibe with.
Like you really just don't enjoy them.
And yet here you are in relationship with them at work,
and you still need to work together effectively and
respectfully and in a way that doesn't drain right 'cause you
know, there are so many other things that you could use your
energy for rather than feeling drained by a work relationship.
So considering these three things, right?
Identify the real issue, choose a strategy and next steps.
Be OK being uncomfortable. A couple of extra notes. 1 is
that if you're a perfectionist, watch out that you're not being
too hard on yourself, that you're not trying to do it
perfectly. The goal here is process, not
perfection, so be willing to do things clumsy.
That also might be where some of the being OK with discomfort
comes into play. If you are someone who dreads
conflict, be really compassionate with yourself and
also be willing to be uncomfortable addressing the
issue head on, like head on, heart forward and you know, feet
grounded. That is a practice and there are
so many reasons why people struggle with that.
It's really common for, you know, lots of different reasons.
So just be mindful of that experience for yourself and
remember that, you know, it might take some practice and it
might take a new way of seeing the situation.
But as you do so, it will start to grow your courage, your
confidence, and it will start to relieve some of that pressure
that builds up. And if you've experienced that,
you know, you know what that that feeling is like.
And remember too, that this is kind of what leadership
development is all about. It is about acknowledging when
you're in a leadership role that will require you to effectively
work with different kinds of people, with different
perspectives, different priorities, different strengths.
And all of those differences can be part of what makes a team
really effective and really, really strong and really good.
But it requires communication skills, it requires a strategic
thinking, and it requires really understanding yourself and the
things in your own background and experience that might be
tricky for you when you are in that position of needing to
communicate and make decisions and kind of, you know, work with
people of different backgrounds, perspectives, priorities, ages,
all of that. But you know, that's that's what
we're here for, right? Right.
So anyways, that's what I wanted to share it with you today.
If you want additional help, then reach out to me for
one-on-one coaching or get on the wait list for the next round
of communication strategies for managers.
All that you need to know is in the show notes or if you just go
to my website, kimnickel.com, you will find everything you
need to know there. All right, have a great week and
I will talk to you next time. When you're more effective at
work, you're happier in your life, and when you're happier in
your life, you're more effective at work.
I can help. Go to my website, kimnickel.com
and sign up for a coaching consult.
It can get better.