I have not posted to this blog in over a month. I have been traveling around the country delivering a workshop on dealing with difficult people.

I want to share some observations with you about what I learned and observed.

First, some observations about the people who attended the Dealing with Difficult People Workshop.

There are three types of people who attend this workshop. The first type includes people who are not happy with their relationships and they find certain people and their styles hard to deal with. They want to reduce the stress associated with certain people.

The second type are the difficult people themselves and they know they are difficult and they want do things differently (or they attend because their boss told them too.)

The third type is the one that interests me the most. They are difficult and they come to the Dealing with Difficult People workshop because they are asked to as part of ongoing continuing education. The managers who send them hope they will understand that they are difficult and change their behaviors as a result of what they learn. These individuals are easy to identify because they try to take over the workshop. After all, they think they know the material better than me. I find this interesting because the material is based on a book I coauthored called The Platinum Rule for Small Business Mastery (available on amazon.com) and it discusses different behavioral styles, their strength and weaknesses and how to build on personal strength and it provides suggestion on minimizing weaknesses. It is the foundation of much of the business coaching and consulting I do to grow revenues, create and maintain a competitive advantage and provide accountability to my business owner clients.

I had four individuals from the same company (all IT professionals) challenge me during one seminar and I explained to them why people typically come to the seminar. They fell into the last category (managers asked them to come and did not tell them they were difficult). They realized their manager was sending them a message about how difficult they were. Once they realized why they were they were at the workshop they became model students.

I find it interesting that people are sent to a workshop and not told why. As a manager, I find that people can be difficult when they do not know the rules. They can also be perceived as difficult because the rules (for this style) are made to be broken. Let’s call this “It is easier to ask for permission than forgiveness” behavior style. For this type of individual that are primarily concerned with results – sometimes results at the expense of relationships. A simple adaptability strategy would be simply to understand others have different priorities and they can get more done with honey and not vinegar.

I will be talking more about the different behavioral styles in future posts. I can assure you they will not be so far apart.

I am doing a "How to Deal With Difficult People" workshop on 9/9/08 in Akron, Ohio from 8:30 AM to 12:30 PM. If you want to learn more contact me at the number below.

In my next post I want to talk about some variances I observed in the economy in different parts of the country.

To Your Continues Success

Ron Finklestein
Inspiring, leading and motivating others to action that leads to successful results. www.businessmasterynow.com
330-990-0788
ron@akris.net