Dealing with Difficult People: 15 Examples for Setting Performance Goals

Dealing with Difficult People is learning how to tactfully calm down an obnoxious person who is either verbally attacking you or stealthily criticizing you or your professional contribution.

Dealing with Difficult People: Set Goals for your Employees. Here are some examples:

• Accept the fact that there will always be difficult people, who seem to enjoy hurting others, and learn to deal with them
• Identify the different types of difficult people in order to decide the best way to deal with them
• Avoid dealing with the person one-on-one and demand that a third party be brought in order to avoid getting cornered in an argument
• Stay calm and be aware of the fact that one will never win an argument with a difficult person
• Remove oneself emotionally from the situation and keep the impossible person at a distance for a moment
• Stay out of difficult people's businesses and out of their way and avoid talking about them or to them as much as possible
• State own views with confidence and look at the difficult person in the eye when communicating with them in order to look reasonable
• Always try to be a reasonable person by considering all sides of the story before coming to a conclusion
• Distract oneself by doing other activities or meeting new friends in order to stop thinking about what the difficult person said or did
• Be kind and friendly even when the other person attacks you to receive negative attention

Dealing with Difficult People: Improve and master this core skill with these ideas

• Ask questions rather than make statements. To get to the bottom of any problem, use questions wisely. When questions are answered, you get enlightened and get to the lower part of the truth. Do not make statements because they might be wrong, always leave room for the truth to be communicated to you. Use less confrontation and more questions to get the right answers.
• Ensure effective communication and understanding. Effective communication is essential more so when dealing with stressful situations. Communication breakdown causes arguments that divide employees. Listen carefully to those who are talking without talking at the same time to understand keenly what the other person is saying. Ensure that you understand others and that the other person understands your point.
• Separate issue from the individual. The person is not the problem! No matter how difficult the person is, it is good to separate the idea from the individual. Separate every issue from the person and deal with them separately. Do not criticize the person rather encourage them to view the issue they are presenting as well as a separate issue than themselves so that they don't feel attacked.
• Express appreciation when appropriate. Appreciate the employees immediately they do something commendable. If you take too long to understand, it might not make sense why you appreciate them. Even careful people respond better to appreciation.
• Do not make things personal. Personalities are very different, and if you dwell too much on them, you end up feeling very overwhelmed. Do not take anything personally at the workplace rather take it with a light heart.