Working with Difficult People

Everyone knows what is to work with difficult people. These persons are a pain and they make your life impossible or make you work harder when you shouldn’t have to. You can walk away from them, but many times you have to learn to work with them because that’s the only option.

As entrepreneurs and paid workers, we have to learn to work with this kind of people. That’s the idea of this article, to give you a key aspect that will improve the way you relate with difficult people. The objective is to turn this negative situation into a positive one, that with time you can also find fulfilling.

Before I analyze this post’s subject, let me start by explaining the main approach I’ve been using for the last years. At some point, I realized that difficult people would be an obstacle to realize all my dreams. I didn’t need their whining, negative thoughts and complains. I decided I had to be far away from these types of people.

In my job it was relative easy to accomplish this. As a consultant, I have the advantage of choosing my clients. If I don’t like a possible client, there’s no chemistry and I find that working with him will be a bad experience, I just decide not to work with him or her. In my personal life, I’ve taken a distance from this people. Occasionally I run into a difficult person and what I do is be polite, but try to end the contact as soon as possible.

I know that many times you can’t choose who your clients will be or that maybe your boss or one or your workmates is difficult and changing jobs is not an option. In these cases we have to learn to deal with the situation, expecting the best possible results.

Many books and article have been written on the subject of human interaction and there’s one I really like that can help under these circumstances. The book is called How to win friends & influence people by Dale Carnegie. It’s a great book and it will teach you some of the key factors on human interaction.

One of the subjects of this book, which I find it to be the key when dealing with difficult people, is to understand and value people for who they are. For instance, when dealing with someone you consider difficult, you can try to sincerely get involved and interested on what this person likes. However, the sincere factor is key, as it’s the only way to accomplish this task.

People behave the way they do in part of their previous experiences, their likes and their dislikes. If you are interested in someone, surely the relation will flow with greater ease.

Dale Carnegie passed away several decades ago, but his teachings on human relations are as valid today as 8 decades ago when he published this book. If you haven’t read this book, I recommended, it’s even available for e-readers, such as the kindle. You wont’ regret it!

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