Difficult People PDF
Preview Difficult People
tHe old softy tHe scaRedy-cat tHe PeRfectionist MR. sPock tHe “fluffy” tHe MacHo Man tHe Pollyanna tHe wallfloweR tHe egotist tHe undeRdog Paul Friedman How to deal witH di f f i c u lt PeoPle Revised edition SkillPath Publications The Smart Choice® SkillPath Handbook Series i How To Deal With Difficult People Revised Edition How To Deal With Difficult People by Paul Friedman SkillPath Publications, Inc. Mission, Kansas ©1989, 1994 by SkillPath Publications, Inc., 6900 Squibb Road, Mission, Kansas 66202. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of SkillPath Publications, Inc. Editor: Kelly Scanlon Cover and Book Design: Rod Hankins Cartoons: Charlie Podrebarac Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 95-71720 ISBN 1-878542-77-X 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 95 96 97 98 99 Printed in the United States of America Contents Introduction .................................................................................ix 1 What Makes People Difficult? ..............................1 Exercise 1: Identifying Your People Network ...........................................2 Exercise 2: Identifying Difficult Behavior and Setting Goals ................4 2 Changing Difficult Behavior ....................................9 Exercise 3: Blaming Patterns. ..................................................................12 Exercise 4: Analyzing the Problem. .........................................................14 Exercise 5: Implementing Your Own Plan .............................................20 3 Preventing Difficulties ................................................21 Exercise 6: Strategies for Preventing Difficulties. ..................................38 4 Being the Solution, Not the Problem .......39 Exercise 7: Identifying Your SAGs ...........................................................49 Exercise 8: Overcoming SAGs ..................................................................52 5 Difficult Modes of Talk ................................................53 Exercise 9: Communication Modes. ........................................................57 6 Encouraging Desirable Behavior ..................63 Exercise 10: Tracking Positives ................................................................66 Exercise 11: Messages of Praise ...............................................................70 Exercise 12: Conditional Appreciation Messages...................................73 7 Summing It Up ........................................................................75 Bibliography .........................................................................77 Introduction M anagement expert Peter Drucker once wryly remarked, “Working with people is difficult, but not impossible.” That’s also a basic thesis of this book. It’s certainly obvious that many people are difficult to deal with, but after reading this book, you won’t find them impossible. You’ll be empowered to understand behavior patterns better and establish good working relationships with even the most frustrating individuals. Best of all, the information the book provides is short on theory and long on practical interpersonal techniques you can put to work immediately. As new information is introduced, highlight, underline, or bracket ideas that you can use when dealing with the difficult people you encounter. Then apply those ideas directly and immediately to your interaction with the difficult people you deal with at work. ix To help you put the ideas in this book to use, exercises are inserted periodically. These exercises allow you to clearly think out strategies for dealing with the difficult people you know and to anticipate their possible reactions—before you approach them. You may wish to copy these exercises or to write your responses on another sheet of paper so you can redo the exercises each time you are faced with a “difficult people” situation. By applying the guidelines in this book, you should see a definite improvement in your interpersonal skills in general; in particular, you will find that you are making progress toward achieving specific goals with the difficult people in your life. x
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