DIFFICULT PEOPLE, Grrrrrrrrrrr

Dealing with difficult people is hard enough, but working with volunteers who are difficult is doubly troublesome, In a User Group, there are many questions to be considered such as: Is the difficult person a valuable volunteer? In spite of difficulties with one group (probably the Board of Directors), does this person work for the overall good of the organization? In this particular instance, we are going to base our approach on the idea that the difficult person is a fellow board member or a highly visible and/or valuable contributor to the User Group.

Difficult people are everywhere in certain circumstances anyone can be a difficult person. So, what distinguishes a truly “difficult” person from the general population grumpy, tired, stressed out people?

A truly difficult person, according to Mark Rosen is,”... anyone whose words or actions evoke unwanted and unpleasant emotions.” This is a good definition, but it covers a lot of territory. There are other criteria, but relative to the User Group, it is someone who seems to thrive on causing turmoil and strife within the board in particular and the whole group in general on a consistent and predictable basis. The result is that board members are miserable, dread going to meetings and often resign. The general membership feels stressed, agitated and insecure and the worse it gets, the happier the difficult person becomes.

This is an extreme example most difficult people resort to a variety of techniques that are less obvious. We’ll look at some general categories but first, let’s look at ourselves. We are like complex silicon-based satellite dishes standing out there sending and receiving signals.

What we do when we receive a signal is probably the most important step in dealing with difficult people. You can do nothing, get as far away from the difficult person as possible or you can learn how to deal with the difficult person.

Look at yourself what signals are you sending? Do you cross your arms and legs in a defensive position? Do you look people in the eye when speaking? Do you transmit boredom with a head-in-the-palm-of-the-hand posture?

Remember, in a difficult situation, you are the only person you can change. You can deal with other people but you can’t change them. Try changing your attitude. Wishing things were different is a waste of time. Try to figure out what sort of person you are dealing with and visualize yourself as a polite and powerful person dealing with the problem. Mentally go through a recent encounter and imagine that you are someone else - a favorite fictional character or someone you admire in real life - and imagine how that person would handle the encounter. Then merge those actions with a scenario that you’d feel comfortable in.

Opposites don’t always attract. A difficult person may be an “opposite” or it may be a person who has some of your weaknesses may annoy you because the person reminds you of yourself

The main thing to remember is that you must take control of your own emotions and deal with the specific behaviors of the annoying person.

Let’s list some of the behaviors that annoy us the most and that are damaging relative to our user group:

1. Monopolize discussions, giving other little chance to speak.

2. Unpredictable, explosive, shows anger way out of context of the situation. Loose cannon. When this person is mentioned, people shake their heads and ask, “I wonder what he/she will do next?”

3. Refuse to participate or do their share, but they won’t move on.

4. Blunt and undiplomatic with the membership and fellow board members.

5. Sarcastic, negative, love to shoot down everyone and everything.

6.

7.

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9.

10.

On one hand labeling and generalizing is a negative thing to do, but in the ease of the difficult person it might be helpful to isolate so of his/her actions and behaviors and look at ways to deal with them.

CONTROLLING AND/OR HOSTILE

Aggressive

Bullies - Don’t run screaming in the other direction. If possible, let them vent their anger. (This assumes the fact that you aren’t in physical danger and they aren’t being verbally abusive.) If they are talking about issues (the recent raise in the dues) don’t take it personally. Try to look for the truth in what they say. Sometimes, aside from all the emotional garbage, they may have a good point. Calmly explain the benefits of your point of view in factual terms. If at all possible, allow the other party to save face. The person maybe displacing his/her anger at some personal situation and may later become a valued volunteer.

In her book, “Toxic People,” Lillian Glass describes the bully as, “a verbal terrorist, aloud, obnoxious, rude, demanding, stubborn know-it-all whose motto is, ‘My way or the highway.’ Explosive and volatile, they fly off the handle in an instant. They are happy only when they are running the show.”

Other suggestions from Edward Strong’s August Southwest User Group presentation include interrupting them and saying their name, backtracking and repeating their main point and use “I” language to express your views.

Remember, that regardless of the excuses a bully might have for their behavior, they are responsible for it and they have chosen to act that way.

Sniper

Sneaky and sarcastic, the sniper often fancies himself/herself to be urbane and witty. As with the bully and most difficult people, the sniper is a poor team player that delights in instigating discord. This is your rude, eye-rolling, grudge-carrying sniper who takes a potshot every chance he/she gets.

One thing you can do is to bring them out of hiding. Bring your whole meeting to a grinding halt, stopping in mid-sentence if you must and repeat what they said. Ask how their comment is relevant to the proceedings. If they deny an attack, ask the rest of the board if they heard the remark as a criticism.

Bulldozing Know-It-All

This person thrives on argument. Would you like to see a film that would rival Godzilla? We’ll call it, “The Gargantuan Clash of the Known-It-Alls - When Big Egos Collide.” Don’t challenge this beast and remember, words like “you are wrong,” just spur them on.

Happily for us, there are some people who actually are geniuses and do know most, if not all, about a subject. Don’t confuse them with the blowhard who just claims to know. Time will tell on this front.

If your know-it-all turns out to be an honest-to-goodness expert, they can be a very valuable asset to your group.

In a board meeting, try to keep them on task and focused on the subject at hand. If necessary interrupt them and focus on how their knowledge directly applies to the current question. Use non-argumentative questioning with terms like “perhaps” or “suppose we did thus and such.”

ATTENTION SEEKING

Know-It-All-NOT

This person happily jumps into the center of any conversation and seeks attention and admiration. Knowing a little bit (or a lot) about almost everything that goes on in your organization, this person doesn’t feel any particular need to consult the board or ask permission to do or say whatever strikes their fancy. Confront them with examples of the behavior that isn’t acceptable to the hoard. Define the limits of what they can do in the name of your User Group. Don’t forget to acknowledge them when they do something good.

Loose Canon

This one is scary and has others walking on eggshells. Out of the blue, they explode, become furious and have embarrassing and annoying tantrums. You must first decide whether or not this person has the potential for doing physical harm. Obviously the physical safety of your board and group must come first depending on how long the person has been in the group, you may be able to determine if there has ever been anything over-the-top in their history.

This one is a tough call. If you feel that this person is making a worthwhile contribution and the explosions aren’t too frequent, you may want to try to figure out what sets them off and show some genuine concern.

ACCEPTANCE JUNKIES

Ms/Mr Agreeable

These people need to be liked and approved of. They don’t want to offend anyone and to please you, they’ll say whatever they have to. They’ll say “yes” to a request with no intention of following through. They over-commit and don’t fulfill their obligations for promises.

When you first find this volunteer, they seem too good to be true. They can be helpful, but you have to be aware of their shortfalls and give them very structured, no-nonsense assignments.

Worrywart Fence Straddler

Don’t ask this person to make a decision and act on it. You’ll be disappointed. This person procrastinates until the decision is out of their hands. You don’t want to put this person in charge of the Annual User Group Picnic. Although pleasant and supportive on the surface, they seldom make a decision or take a firm stand.

You may be able to utilize their skills in a task that is routine, established and not controversial.

PESSIMIST/PERFECTIONIST

Moaners and Blamers

This negative person doesn’t look for the bright side, because they live on the dark side. Life is a heavy burden, everything is a disappointment and nothing measures up. They are User Group vampires sucking the lifeblood and enthusiasm out of ideas and projects. They don’t trust anybody, especially leaders and they can find fault in anything. If something doesn’t work out, they are always ready to say, “I told you so.”

Don’t argue with them, but make sure the facts are clear to everyone. Point out that helpful, positive, constructive comments and suggestions are preferable and beneficial to the board and the User Group as a whole.

It’s possible to acknowledge that looking at the worst that could happen in a project is helpful in planning and part of the process but certainly not the whole process.

In this same vein, we have those people who seem to find and collect problems like a normal person collects stamps or carnival glass. The polish and admire their collected problems and love to display them whenever possible. They believe that, “if it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.”

The blame others and believe that somebody should pay -somebody should make things right- and they are always bringing problems to the board.

Sometimes they have a legitimate complaint so jump right in and ask for specifics. Ask them exactly what they want and tell them what they can legitimately expect from your board and your organization.

The perfectionist believes that only he/she can do a job right. This person refuses to train others or work cooperatively. We have a love/hate relationship with this type of person in a User Group. We love them because they usually do a good, reliable job and they often hold key positions. We hate it when they leave because nobody has been trained to take over their job and they enjoy the idea of the group suffering when they leave.

We’ve talked about a few types, and there are, of course, many variations and combinations of these types. So lets look at a few techniques for working through a confrontation or argument at a board meeting.

1. Uniting: “Why are we discussing this issue? What does it have in common with the agenda item we’re discussing?”

2. Reorienting: “I think we’re getting off the track here. Are we discussing the real issue that is item number 9.”?

3. Challenging: “Doesn’t that go against what you said before?”

4. Coaching: “Could you express your ideas less personally?”

5. Connecting: “Doesn’t that point connect to what I said earlier?”

6. Exploring: “Can you tell me more about why you feel so strongly about this issue?”

7. Mediating: “What would it take to resolve our differences?”

8. Problem solving: “What are some possible solutions?”

9. Summarizing: “Is this what you mean to say? ...“

10. Visualizing: “Could you give me an example?”

I guess we should be thankful to difficult people. They are big business. There are shelves of library books dealing with them. Speakers make a good living telling us how to get along with them and Psychologists cleanup after them by letting us hire them to exorcize the demons left behind by the difficult people.

The bottom line, as far as I’m concerned, is that we are unpaid volunteers doing our best to help others and ourselves learn about computers. We shouldn’t have to spend too much of our time dealing with difficult people.

We can make a reasonable effort and hope what we learn benefits us in other areas of our lives but I think we must draw the line and establish reasonable guidelines as to what we expect and what we will accept and not put up with more than we can handle. As Richard Carlson entitled his book, “Don’t sweat the small stuff. . . and it’s all small stuff,” or as he entitled chapter two, “Make peace with imperfection.”