Where are we?

1. Where are we? • Workplace Conflict (Spiral of Conflict) • Workplace Bullying (Types, Tactics and Outcomes) • Handing Difficult Personalities (the Hostile, the Neurotic, the Rejection-Sensitive, the Egoist) • Today: Specific Communication Strategies to Use

2. Will you like everyone you work with? No. • Tell me about a time you had to directly work with or manage someone you didn’t particular like. • How did your feeling effect how you interacted with this person? • Describe the behaviors that made you decide you didn’t like them or made them difficult? • What kinds of conflicts resulted from this situation?

3. Quick Review Difficult Personalities • The Hostile1: Explosive, reactive, often disagreeable, cynical, doesn’t like to be wrong. • The Neurotic: Full of anxiety, pessimistic, obstructionist, naysayer – shoot others’ down. • The Rejection-Sensitive: Always watching out for others’ slighting or criticism – real or perceived. All slights are intentional; become unglued with disapproval. • The Egoist: All about him/her. Everything is personal, unable to compromise. 1Marano, H. E. (May/June, 2012). The High Art of Handling Problem People. Psychology Today, 53-61.

4. If you remember one thing • “When people become problem people, the thoughtless negative reactions of people around them tend to provoke and then reinforce more of the same” (Brinkman & Kirschner, 2001, p. 59) • Pygmalion Effect and Power: What you expect, you get. • How do you change your own reactions to change a difficult workplace situation? • In the extremes, remember being able to work with doesn’t mean you can change a co-worker. Diffuse, redirect and move on may be your best strategy as a co-worker. Manager = must assess.

5. From Conflict to Cooperation • Skills for Development: Blending, Listening and Redirecting2 • Conflict often exists when we emphasize differences rather than similarities among employees. • Success may depending on developing common ground for communication before moving on to redirecting to new outcomes or goals. Brinkman, R. & Kirschner, R. (2001). Dealing with people you can't stand: How to bring out the best in people at their worst. New York: McGraw Hill.

6. Blending and Conflict • Messages and/or behaviors that show or begin to develop similaritiesbetween people. • Urge to ‘blend’ with others that you like is common: body posture, pace, volume, speed, etc. • We want to cooperate with those who seem to be aligned or similar to us not those ‘against’ us. • Must establish rapport and blend before trying to redirect when dealing with difficult people.

7. Blending Tactics with Difficult People • Purposively blend (without ‘hostile gestures’) to show solidarity but be careful . . . • Use to show interest in what they say, but not so obvious so as to be perceived of as mocking. • Non-verbal blending can help with getting to the substance or content of the conflict or diffuse. • Ever experienced? • Co-workers non-verbals that might be sending either unintended negative or perceptions of being ‘difficult’ to others.

8. Listening to Understand • Good managerial communication means sometimes setting aside need to be understood for a period of time to understand. • Difficult people (may all) need to feel listened to emotionally and intellectually. • Start noticing your own inclinations: Do you interrupt? Do you ‘look’ like you’re thinking about what you want to say next? Natural facial expression? Do you backchannel?

9. Five Steps • Blending: Non-verbalssignals of listening: “Uh-huh” or “I see” and repeating back what they’ve said, eye contact, nods. • Remember, we talk to figure out what we want to say. Don’t expect to clarity, conciseness, rationality. • Backtracking: Repeating back is a form of feedback. Don’t change their words, repeat so they know you’ve heard their perspective. • Clarification: Begin to gather information, ask open-ended questions, don’t react – gather info.

10. Benefits of Clarification • Gather specifics not react to vague information that may be incorrect or not fully developed. • Help people to become more rational and think through their perspectives. • Allow you to slow down a situation to assess what the person’s goals or intent may be headed. • Can surface hidden agendas and reveal inconsistencies or false information.

11. Summarizing: “So, if I understand you correctly, this is the problem, this is who is involved, this is what happened, etc . . .” • One more chance for clarification or correction. • Demonstrated that you’ve made the effort to understand. • Confirm: Ask for confirmation. “Am I correct? Anything you want to add?”

12. Beginning to Redirect: Positive Intent ** • Once you’ve listened, can you identify ‘positive intent’ – you may not agree with their intent, but what is the good purpose the person is trying to achieve? • Difficult people or problem behavior can be driven by employees misguided positive or personal intents. • What assumption do you make? 99% of the time?

13. Possible EE Intents • Some people “Want To Get Things Done” -- Blend with efficiency, direct communication • Some people “Want to Get Things Right” -- Blend with attention to detail in interactions • Some people “Want to Get Along with Others” -- Blend with social communication and care • Some people “Want to be Appreciated” -- Blend with recognitionand appreciation

14. Speaking to be Understood • Monitor your own tone of voice and body language. Are you even aware of your own behaviors? • Up font, state your positive intent as a manager. Do you know it? • ‘Tactfully interrupt interruptions’ of problem people? • Tell your truth, honestly. • “I” statements, specificity, illustrate effects of problem/negative behavior, suggest options.

15. In Sum • Won’t always like co-workers or employees. Ok. • Some extremely difficult co-workers or employees. • Need skills to diffuse immediate situations but also to work through conflicts and get work done. • Using Blending, Listening, Redirecting first will help you to redirect and work through conflicts with difficult employees.

16. What if your boss is the difficult person? • Let’s listen to the Regina Brett Show (WKSU, NPR) • Conversation Among: Stanley Silverman; Lead Researcher to develop the Workplace Arrogance Scale Jill Geisler; Work Happy: What Great Bosses Know Steve Brubaker; Chief of Staff at InfoCision Management Corporation Sue Peirce; Principal at Apple Growth Partners ERC (Employers Resource Council) http://www.wksu.org/regina/?e=182