| DEALING WITH DIFFICULT PEOPLE
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
Difficult people can disrupt a workplace and bring productivity to a halt. They inflame dissatisfaction leading to absenteeism and turnover. They add stress to any workplace. Many people are intimidated by difficult people and try to avoid them which usually makes the disruption worse. This workshop presents frameworks for better understanding what's behind difficult behaviors and strategies for addressing them.
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DETAILED SUMMARY:
Trying to prevent people from becoming difficult is the first strategy. Prevention strategies look at new ways of responding to difficult people before they become disruptive. However, prevention is not always enough and intervention strategies are also presented to help people learn how to intervene with a difficult person.
The strategies can work in dealing with a wide range of difficult people; from customers to co-workers, direct reports or supervisors. The focus of the workshop is on understanding why people act in a difficult way and how to reduce the negative impact of the difficult person's behavior. The design can be adapted to build on prior interpersonal skills training the participants have received, making this an "advanced" program.
Workshop Goals:
- Identify what leads to people acting "difficultly"
- Develop strategies for changing or managing the behavior of difficult people
- Develop strategies for defusing emotionally charged situations
- Develop strategies for managing/changing their own emotional behavior when responding to emotional situations
- Communicate and problem solve with difficult people to resolve conflicts
Workshop Outline:
- Clarifying a staff person's job in dealing with a difficult person
- Understanding why people act difficult - what motivates them to act that way?
- Critical communication skills - listening and giving feedback
- Conflict management:
- how to approach and change/manage a difficult person
- how to defuse and successfully manage an emotional situation
- how to move towards problem solving
- Case studies / role play / worksheet for a real person on the job
- Handling your own emotions: how you respond to difficult and emotional people and how can you deal with this more effectively?
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