You know Ron. He’s the inflexible, loud and objectionable person who says loudly that the organisation doesn’t care about its staff. He’s been around for a while and knows a lot about procedure. He uses it to beat other people up about how “stupid” they are. He’s not well liked through the organisation, but he does nothing bad enough to be worthy of managing him out. His manager, is always mending fences with customers and other areas because of Ron’s meanness and inflexibility.

Karen you may have met too. Her work is full of strangely consistent errors. She prepares board reports with wrong captions, forgets to spell check documents before they go to the boss, leaves extra pages from the previous report in the new one. When her manager addresses it with her she shuts down. Her eyes glaze over. He’s tried over and over to make her hear the problems. Nothing changes.

Or perhaps it’s Celia you know. She sticks her nose into every conversation. She eavesdrops. She gossips. And she’s also the supreme critic - the first to shoot down ideas at meetings. It drives her manager insane.

If you’re managing or working with a Celia, Ron or Karen, or even someone else you find difficult, there is good news! Difficult people of all types respond to five simple principles. Here’s the story of how each of their managers have made working with them easier. By the way, these are real stories from real coaching sessions with real managers. Only the names are changed to protect the difficult!

The five principles are these:

• Make sure you run your own show
• Put yourself in their shoes
• Discover and work with their strengths, strategise for their weaknesses
• Keep yourself sane

I’ll go through each of these in turn and tell you how Ron’s, Celia’s and Karen’s managers got them back on track.

The first principle is to make sure you run the show. This means you don’t obsess over problem people!

Take Ron and his manager John. When he and I analysed what was going on, John became aware that Ron constantly interrupted. Ron demanded something or he ranted so John had to run interference. Even though John was the manager, he felt Ron was controlling him. So John came up with a way to control the interaction himself.

Put simply, he headed Ron’s problems off at the pass. Every day, John made a point of asking Ron how he could help him. He gave Ron attention and time. But he only did so when it was convenient to him as the manager. Stephen Covey called this management as Stewardship – asking staff “how can I serve you?”

This made the Ron centre of attention, the star, for a moment. After a few months, when Ron knew he would consistently get this attention, John scaled it down to every few days. Ron now brings up issues when John comes to his desk, but rarely otherwise. He gets attention, feels cared for, and he has calmed down. John chooses when, how and where to give the attention. He feels more in control. His natural ability to manage and set boundaries has returned. Ron no longer controls the show. John is relieved, sane and capable again!

John says it’s like he’s the ringmaster who controls the circus and directs the audience’s attention, rather than the clown who runs around filling gaps as they appear.

With Karen Don tried the second principle. He put himself in her shoes.

From her perspective, Karen was getting freaked out by the way Don was giving her feedback. She was shutting down as a defense. Karen wasn’t stupid. She was trying hard, and had great potential, which is why he’d hired her. Something he was doing was putting her into a tail spin.

As we all know, insanity is doing the same things and expecting different results. Don was searching for something different to do. Don and I discussed Deborah Tannen’s research into differences between the way men and women take and give feedback.

Men tend to be more straightforward, as Don was being with Karen. He’d say something like: “This isn’t good enough, the captions should fit the graphs.”

Women on the other hand use the sandwich technique (a positive, a negative, then a positive). Something like this: “I know you’re doing your best with the reports, but the graphs and the captions should match. You have the talent to fix this”.

Tannen says women receiving the straight feedback can feel shattered*. Don knew Karen felt threatened. He hadn’t known why. Putting this together with the fact that her previous manager (who happened to be a woman) didn’t have the shutdown problem with Karen. We set down some things he could do to make a feedback session less threatening to Karen.

Don called me, jubilant, a few days later. He had changed tack with her, starting with the sandwich technique. Magically she didn’t collapse, she blossomed. They agreed that there were some consistent errors with the report. He asked her to create a checklist of these from the past few months, so they could use it as a guide to error-free reporting, and she was eager to begin. The next month’s board report didn’t have the same errors.

All from putting himself in her shoes.

The Third and Fourth principle go hand in hand. They’re about discovering what strengths these difficult people have, and how you can strategise to use the strengths and avoid the weaknesses.

Celia the eavesdropper, gossip and critic is a case in point. Her manager Lynda knew Celia’s major strength was her thirst for information. She had all sorts of facts in her head, and so far had been using them to trip people up in meetings. If Lynda could leverage this attribute for good, and not for evil, she’d be made!

Lynda took Celia aside at Friday night drinks. She asked for her help reviewing a report. Lynda intimated that it was vital and confidential. Celia beamed. Lynda confided that the outcome of the report was very important to the team.

Overnight Celia became an ally, not a problem. She read the report and came up with issues to address so it could work for the team.

Lynda started giving Celia other such “special” assignments. She read and critiqued plans and reports that no one else really wanted to. It was inside information, though, and Celia thrived on it.

As is often the case, Celia’s strength had manifested as a weakness when all she could do was gossip or obstruct. Now, instead of bothering everyone to know what was going on, or withholding information to show her power, Celia has transformed to bountiful information queen. She’s still tough if you want to put something new in a meeting. She’s still critical. And now she comes from a base of useful facts. Her job isn’t so much changed as the point of her role is expanded.

Let’s be clear. When you strategise to use a staff members strengths and stay away from their weakness, it’s not about rewarding them for their misbehaviour. It’s not about trying to please them. It’s about organising so they don’t sabotage. So they become a help, not a hindrance.

Finally, and most importantly, remember that regardless of what happens at work, whether your staff and colleagues are easy to deal with or not, it’s you who keeps you sane. This principle says keep yourself sane!

As you’re trying these principles out, you’ll come across times when it hasn’t worked yet. It may take a few weeks to pay off when you start running the show, putting yourself in their shoes and strategising for their strengths and weaknesses.

While you’re doing the hard work and waiting for the results to come in, you need to put yourself and your team ahead of the difficult people. You know there are things you can do to make it easier to cope and even thrive as you work. Some people suggest things like:

Clearing your mind at least once a week through exercise, yoga, meditation, fishing, painting or origami (or anything else: my neighbour says rock climbing works)

Getting out of the office at least once a day - taking lunch or a walk, meeting outside the building, going to the gym

Taking a mental break when things get tight - concentrating on something which inspires or relaxes you – people you like (family, friends), holiday destinations, your goals.

In the end, when you begin to approach “difficult” people with respect and hope, when you feel inspired and relaxed, you’ll find there’s always a new way to approach the task!

* She also says men hearing sandwiched feedback hear 2 good things and 1 bad, and figure 2 out of 3 ain’t bad! Of course Tannen’s research is a generalization (and therefore mostly right, not always right). Some men prefer the sandwich technique. Some women prefer straightforward feedback. Every individual is an individual. Test which technique works for each person and use the one which gives you the most success.

You may need some advice or help in dealing with difficult staff.

Check out coaching by phone or in person, and public or corporate training.

Sign up for me to send you an email linking to new articles on this web site.