Conflict Management and Difficult People

Conflict Management Skills

'It's not my fault!'

Most of the things that happen when communication goes wrong are usually the other guy's fault.

It's the Other Guy

Like driving a car: 'I'm a good driver; it's all the other idiots who don't know what they're doing.'

Indeed, not only is it the other guy's fault but if that person would only change, my life would be great.

If he/she would just listen to what I'm saying, return my calls, be more patient, see things my way, understand where I'm coming from, then we would get on just fine, thank you very much.

This is kind of what happens with most of us around conflict and people we find difficult.

Conflict and Difficult People

Inside our heads, that is.

Our thoughts go round and round and round as we inwardly accuse the other person of all sorts of nefarious deeds.

We also make long mental tick lists of what the other person needs to change in order for there to be less conflict.

Not only that, because we know just how everyone else should behave around us, when they don't (and do things we don't like), we're quite capable of thinking that they're doing it deliberately. How could they not know that what they're doing is upsetting to me?

These are the kinds of thoughts that are swimming around inside our brains when we're dealing with awkward people.

On the outside, it's usually quite a different story.

Conflict Options

Here are a few of the options that people take around conflict and difficult people:

Avoid conflict as much as possible
'Evidence collect'
Talk to the wrong people
Be right while the other person is wrong
Let them have it between the eyes

None of these strategies help in any way to resolve conflict or deal with our difficult person effectively.

They are designed to make us feel better or at least justified in our feelings and actions, but they don't change the situation and they most certainly will make it worse.

It's You Not Them

If you find someone rubs you up the wrong way, someone who you find really difficult to deal with, then it is almost certainly about you and not them.

Yes, the world every once in a while throws up someone who is universally recognised as difficult.

But for the most part, if you have a problem with someone, look to yourself first, instead of immediately placing the blame on him or her for being difficult, and the onus on them to change to make it better for you.

You Are Responsible

Get this: they are not responsible for how you feel - you are!

If you make them responsible for how you feel, you give them a whole lot of power, and you can easily make yourself a victim to them.

Under these circumstances, they are in control of the relationship, whether they know it or not (or even want it or not).

Yes, of course, there are people who bully - and that's horrible.

You may have a client or colleague who takes every opportunity to try to humiliate you - and that's awful.

The Bottom Line

But the bottom line is still that you can either choose to be a victim to their personalities and communication styles, or you can take charge of the relationships and manage them, instead of letting them manage you.

When it comes to defining difficult people, it's completely subjective.

One person's difficult person is another person's friend.

You might be the only one in the office who doesn't get on with this 'monster'; alternatively, you might be the only one who does.

I'm Fine. It's Everyone Else

Here's something else even more startling to think about.

You are someone's difficult person.

Yes, you are.

We all are.

Someone, somewhere finds each of us really difficult to deal with.

Just as in the above example at Impact Factory, it can feel quite disturbing to recognise that someone else thinks we are a problem.

We Think We're OK

Inside ourselves, we think we're OK.

When we look out at the world through the filter of our own eyes, it can be very hard sometimes to 'see' that the world looks very different to someone else.

That, in turn, makes it difficult for us to 'see' that they approach communication differently as well.

When we expect other people to treat the world the way we do: to be attuned to the things we are attuned to; to respond the way we do.

When this doesn't happen; when someone else's communication style seems diametrically opposed to our own, then real conflict will come to pass and we may find it hard to know what to do.

First, Let's Look at You

How are you difficult? What do you do that might get up someone's nose or that they might find problematic?

We're not saying they're 'right'.

We just want you to give some thought to the fact that there are people out there who find you just as difficult as you find your difficult person.

Given that it's you and not them; given that you are someone else's difficult person, how likely is it that you're going to get a personality transplant and become how they might wish you to behave?

Pretty unlikely.

In turn, how likely is it that your difficult person is going to go out, get a personality transplant, and become how you want them to be?

Equally unlikely.

If things stay like this, you get to maintain the status quo, but you're still no closer to resolving conflict, are you?