January 28, 2008

Dealing with Difficult People: Are You the Dealer or the Difficult?

ME Liz Strauss wrote this at 6:48 am

Can’t Be Both

relationships button

I keep thinking about a conversation I had with my son. We were talking about people he worked with. He’s had jobs since he was 16 years old. So we had quite a gallery to review and dissect.

In the way of discussions about past coworkers, the topic really became how to deal with difficult people. We got to the idea that difficult people are regular folks who just happen to think differently than we do. He saw plenty of examples in his own life in which people thought he was “difficult” when he merely had another idea.

“But, what do you do,” he said, “when someone sees you in the wrong light? It doesn’t matter if you think they’re being difficult or they think you are.”

“Well, one thing I’ve found out is that you can’t be mad and supportive of another person at the same time. Mad gets you looking at yourself. Supportive gets you looking at the other guy.”

If you want to be the dealer, not the difficult one, you gotta join the other guys’ team and then figure out what to do from there.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!


Filed under Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog |



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20 Comments to “Dealing with Difficult People: Are You the Dealer or the Difficult?”

  1. January 28th, 2008 at 7:32 am
    Alina Popescu said

    That’s so true, sometimes we all get obsessed with who’s right and who’s wrong and forget that we’re supposed to work together, not against each other.

    I’ve faced such a situation when I thought a decision is wrong. I tried to prove my point with arguments and it did not work. So I started working on implementing the opposite idea and exploring it throughly. In the end, we reached my initial conclusion without wasting more time working against each other.

  2. January 28th, 2008 at 7:56 am
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Alina!
    Yeah, when we’re together we get more done, even if it’s to find out that we’re on the wrong road. Nothing worse than arguing about how to get where we’re going before we’ve even started the car to get there. :)

  3. January 28th, 2008 at 8:35 am
    Sharon Lee said

    Hi Liz,

    I found your blog through the link on James Brausch’s blog, who linked to your SOB listing of him. ;-)

    Anyways, I agree that MOST of the time, difficult people are only that way, because they see things differently than we do… In fact in my experience, in well over 90% of the time, once you TALK about the problem and try to see WHY they are being “difficult” — instead of ARGUING about the “problem” itself — then we can suddenly UNDERSTAND their point of view. And even if we don’t necessarily always agree with them, at least we now recognize that they’re NOT trying to be difficult, and that knowledge somehow makes them appear less difficult.

    Thanks for the thought-provoking post.

    - Sharon

  4. January 28th, 2008 at 9:12 am
    Mike DeWitt said

    Amen to the wisdom of this post! I have a ‘difficult’ colleague (we just think differently on so many levels), but we have forged a productive relationship based on adapting to each other’s styles without judgment.

  5. January 28th, 2008 at 9:25 am
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Mike!
    So much of our time is spent making sure we can’t get hurt. . . . (I had that conversation yesterday with a friend.) When we agree to mean no harm, a whole boatload of concerns sails away from the situation. :)

  6. January 28th, 2008 at 9:34 am
    Tammy Lenski said

    Liz, your story reminded me of one of my all-time favorite quotes:

    “Every person you fight with has many other people in his life with whom he gets along quite well. You cannot look at a person who seems difficult to you without also looking at yourself.” - Jeffrey Kottler

    I used that quote to build a post a while back and invite folks to come for a visit when they’re done pondering what you’ve raised so beautifully:

    How to Handle Difficult People.

  7. January 28th, 2008 at 9:41 am
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Tammy,
    I’ve had that same thought often, but I’ve never heard it said as well as that quote. Thanks for bringing that and for the link to your discussion. I know how much value and good sense you offer inside that little link. :)

  8. January 28th, 2008 at 9:46 am
    Tammy Lenski said

    Liz, a quick addendum: I like your use of the phrase, “are you the dealer?” Never heard it put that way and it adds a helpful little “hook” in our heads to hang the idea on.

  9. January 28th, 2008 at 10:05 am
    Anthony Lawrence said

    Difficult?

    I have a customer this morning who wants to pay by credit card. As 99.99% of my business is corporate, I simply don’t have enough people who would use credit cards to make that possible, so I offer PayPal (where they CAN use a credit card) as an alternative for those few people who apparently can’t cut checks or make electronic payments..

    He says “I hate Paypal” with nothing else added.

    OK, so I apologize again, explain again that I don’t have a call for credit cards and again tell him I don’t mind waiting for his check (I’ve already shipped his order).

    Apparently the problem from his pov is that HIS A/P department is difficult - they lose my invoices.. so of course I send statements, they lose those .. :-)

    So am I being difficult? Or is he? Or is his A/P?

    Darned if I know..

  10. January 28th, 2008 at 10:07 am
    Akemi - Gratitude Magic said

    So he is having the great opportunity to learn team building. Some people step up to management without learning this, and build his team with people he likes — big mistake. A group of people with homogeneous ideas may go with the flow with ease, but lacks the resilience to deal with various problems.

  11. January 28th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Tammy,
    It’s a thing from childhood . . . are you the “dealer or the dealee?”

  12. January 28th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Anthony,
    I can’t help but call that a difficult situation. :)

  13. January 28th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Akemi!
    I’m with you on that. Diverse ideas and healthy discussion bring invention to resolve problems. That makes for a much stronger team. :)

  14. January 28th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
    J. Erik Potter said

    Life got much easier for me when I realized its much easier to change my perspective than it is to change another person’s perspective.

    “Come on in, boys, the water’s fine.” - Delmar, O’ Brother Where Art Thou

  15. January 28th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
    Kathy said

    My sister’s favorite phrase is “Would you rather be right or would you rather be happy?”

    Usually, when a client is being “difficult” it’s almost ALWAYS because he/she doesn’t understand. More often than not in my practice, it’s because he/she doesn’t understand the COMPLEXITY of his/her request.

    Just last Friday, I had a client who wanted to make simple “revisions” to her custom coded and designed blog theme. Since were were on the phone as she dictated the “minor” changes that needed to be made, I couldn’t hide my sigh of exasperation. So I explained WHY I was making “that sound”.

    “If we were working with an image on a piece of paper, your request would be as simple as pulling out the scissors and cutting the theme into tiny pieces and rearranging them. Once in place, we’d bring out the glue gun. That’s what we did when you approved the original design and we submitted it for coding.

    Now, since we’re working on the web where nothing is as easy as it appears, making these changes are going to mean we have to go back to square one and begin the coding of your theme from scratch. This is only a problem if I have to do this within the confines of the original proposal. If you don’t mind paying the coding fee twice, then I don’t mind going back to my coding guy to ask for these revisions.”

    There was a time when I would have viewed that client as “impossible”. I now know she just wasn’t web savvy… after all… it SOUNDED like a reasonable request to her!!! Which is why she hires me…because she doesn’t know. Because there are people who don’t know what I know is why I’m in business.

    It wasn’t a matter of “right” or “wrong”. My client wasn’t WRONG for wanting to change the elements of her blog… she just needed to realize it was going to cost her more than she budgeted for to do so.

    When put in context of recoding the entire design, suddenly her approved blog theme became just fine as it was. That’s usually the way things work out now that I don’t “right fight” anymore over issues like that.

  16. January 28th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
    Brian Krassenstein said

    People who work together succeed. Those who argue waste their lives away, unless arguing for a purpose.

  17. January 28th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Erik!
    My version of that was . . . when I learned that the quickest way to change someone else’s behavior was to change my own. :)

  18. January 28th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Kathy!
    Peter Drucker, the father of business management, used to say it’s better to be nice than to be right.

    Lot’s of times we don’t know what we’re asking. Often I ask how much work something will take and have trouble getting answer, because the person on the other side is afraid I won’t like the truthful answer.

    We all need information to make good decisions. Your comment says that so beautifully. Thank you for bringing it to the conversation.

    You’re not a stranger anymore. :)

  19. January 29th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
    Mihaela Lica said

    Call me “mig, the cocktail” - :)
    What a great entry, Liz. Why do I recognize myself in both roles?

  20. January 29th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Mig!
    Maybe it’s because both sides only exist in our heads. :)

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