Difficult People—
Managing Your Relationships

Whether it’s the neighbor who always complains about your yard or the boss who is never happy with your work, we all have to deal with difficult people in our lives. Most people deal with a difficult person by dwelling on what they don’t like about that person (for example their yelling, their condescending tone, etc) and then wishing that he or she would change. Not surprisingly, this method of managing difficult people rarely creates the change we desire.

For most of us, our personal experience of conflict moves through a series of phases that together make up a self-perpetuating cycle. This cycle can be positive or negative depending on the beliefs and attitudes about conflict that we developed at an early age from behaviors modeled by our parents, teachers, and friends and our personal experiences with conflict.

Someone says or does something, and our perception of the other person’s intent sparks an automatic response based on our attitudes and beliefs. This, in turn, triggers a consequence that usually reinforces our belief systems and perpetuates our behavior pattern.

The key to dealing with a difficult person is to change your attitudes and behaviors in order to change your relationship with that person. You can do this more successfully by:

• Taking the responsibility to examine your thoughts and feelings about the difficult person.
• Understanding what kind of relationship you would like to have with the person who is giving you a difficult time.
• Taking notice of the behavior that you observe rather than making assumptions about what that behavior means, and
• Examining your approach to communicating with that person.

The next time you are confronted by a difficult person, take the time to examine your own thoughts and feelings about that person. What do you see them doing that causes you to react negatively? Consider the following examples:

• Facial expressions
• Eye contact or lack of eye contact
• Gestures
• The sound of their voice
• Volume changes in their voice such as screaming or whining
• The actual words and the meaning of the words that are used

Pay close attention to their behavior patterns. What is working and what is not? Have you made assumptions about what these actions mean? We usually pay attention to our own assumptions instead of what is actually taking place.

Next, pay attention to your behavior patterns. What is working and what is not? What do others do that works better? If you don’t set aside your assumptions you may never have an understanding about what is really going on and what are you are responding to.

Now, take the time to consider how your actions may affect the other person. What assumptions are they making about you? Using the examples above, consider the message you may be sending them. Finally, decide what you would like the relationship to be and make a plan that will move you toward that goal. What do you want them to know? How will you present yourself? What will you say?

Treat every interaction with a difficult person as an opportunity to improve your relationship. Allow yourself to see the larger patterns of behavior, both theirs and yours. Imagine that you are a neutral third party examining your interactions with the difficult person from a fresh point of view. Become familiar with the type of approach to conflict that you normally use with that person and examine how it works. If it isn’t working exchange it for a thoughtful alternative that will move you toward the relationship that you want with that person.

Conflict with Neighbors

Steps to Resolution

Difficult People

Active Listening Skills

Mediation Links

Videos