How to Deal with Difficult People

0:00Tom Henschel: Hey everyone, Tom here. A word before we begin. I am currently coaching a guy, a vice president. I'm going to call him Ken. Ken's highly visible. He has a huge team. He's got junior people on his team. He's got senior people on his team. The team's output is really watched very closely by the executive committee. He's got a lot of eyeballs on him. And when things are going well, he loves it. But when things are not going well, he suffers. The primary goal for Ken's coaching was to help him manage his reactivity Ken is the first one to tell you He is a super people pleaser So when he senses people are upset with him He reacts He reacts with anger He reacts with shutting down He reacts with defensiveness Well, for the past several months Poor Ken has been suffering because a junior person on his team sent the wrong email to the wrong person.

1:05Tom Henschel: And all kinds of bad behavior has been raining down on him as a result. And the ripples won't stop. It's gotten outrageous. So here we are, session after session after session. We talk about managing his reactivity in the face of all this bad behavior. Recently, I found myself sharing a concept with them that I call, they're doing their best. That concept can help calm you down. I had talked about it during an episode called, Staying Afloat in a Shitstorm. Ken and I actually listened to the episode during one of our coaching calls, and he found it helpful. And so did I. So I thought I'd share it here.

1:47Tom Henschel: It's been retitled, How to Deal with Difficult People, because when you're around people that you think are difficult, the primary task is to manage yourself. That is the core of The Look and Sound of Leadership. So this month, I'm rebroadcasting that episode. I'll pop back in with this month's gratitude. But other than that, here we go. Enjoy the show. Welcome to The Lickin' Sound of Leadership, an ongoing series of executive coaching tips designed to help you be perceived in the workplace the way you want to be perceived. I'm Tom Henschel, your executive coach, and today we're talking about how to deal with difficult people.

2:30Ronna had reason to be upset. Her reputation for making large-scale sales was well known. She'd been hired by a company and placed on a division leadership team that had been together for years, in some cases decades. That leadership team, which included women, had no interest in welcoming this outsider who was supposed to boost their performance. Any success she generated, they figured, could only reflect badly on them. During our coaching sessions, Rana told me she found the team's blatant displays of disrespect appalling. Over and over, they would tell her flat out her ideas were bad and wrong, although they knew she had done it before, which is why the company had hired her.

3:19When one of her ideas actually got approved, the team simply ignored it and continued doing what they had always done. At one session while she was telling me yet another galling incident She sighed and said Every conversation with every one of them feels like a battle I am tired She spoke those powerful feelings quite neutrally She went on saying You know, some days I just stop working I have to I close up my computer and go for a walk Better I do that than send off a flaming email which is what I want to do a lot of the time. But you don't, I said. I wouldn't get me anywhere, she said, shaking her head.

4:03Neither of us spoke. And then I said, Ronna, may I give you some feedback? She raised her eyebrows, a little surprised. Sure, she said. Thanks, I said. You and I have been talking for months. These stories haven't changed much. I mean, if anything, they've escalated. But you haven't. This situation really sucks. You didn't create it. You don't deserve it. But you are in it. I think most people in your situation would be upset. That would not surprise me.

4:36Tom Henschel: But you seem very cool about all of this, which does surprise me. I applaud you, Rana. Actually, I'd like to know your secret. Dismissively, she shrugged and repeated herself, closing the computer and walking away. I nodded. Okay, that's great. Take a time out. but I'm guessing there's more. She looked at me, then smiled. Oh yes, there is more. She took a breath and said, My dad was what they used to call a titan of industry. He used to say his work was like playing chess where the pieces were the size of cities. My dad played at a pretty high level. When I was 11 or so, he started telling me stories about his work.

5:23Maybe he had always told them to me, but that was when I really started being fascinated. He would explain that there was a decision to be made, and he would explain the stakes. The decisions might be about millions of dollars or thousands of people. I remember once the future of an entire town hung in the balance. So he would tell me about the different people on the different sides of the decision. He would tell me what they'd say. And he would tell me what they would do. And I've got to tell you, my dad was a good storyteller. He could paint a nasty villain. And I was all in. I would hear about these people.

6:05I would get so mad. And he would always tell me the same thing. He would say, Rana, they're doing their best. And I would get outraged even more because to me that was like an excuse. I wanted those people to be accountable for what they'd done. I wanted people punished. And he would say, you know, they might get held accountable someday, but don't forget the game you're playing. He'd say, you see, now I know something that helps me play the game. Now that I know what their best looks like, I know how much I can count on them, or not count on them. My game just got a whole lot better because I know what their best is.

6:51Rana nodded and smiled, thinking about her dad. Then, still nodding, she said, It took me a long time to really believe in the idea of they are doing their best.

7:02Tom Henschel: I mean, at first, I thought it made me superior, like I was looking down on them. But the core concept is really about acceptance. You have to accept that some people do things like that. They do. Some people do things that are jaw-dropping. It can be hard to accept. I made a sound of agreement. She said, So here I am. I'm in a shitstorm, no doubt about it. But these guys, they're doing their best? If I can accept that and keep my eyes on the bigger prize, then it's my move on the chessboard. I can do whatever I want. The power is with me. I said, what a gift, Rana. Thank you for sharing all that.

7:47Can I ask a question? Sure, she said. How did you get there? How did you get to acceptance? She thought, and then said, partly being a mom, I think. To me, being a good mom is all about acceptance. Unconditional positive regard. These kids are truly doing their best. I try to live by that every day. And let me tell you, it is a challenge, but I have learned a lot about acceptance. So these days, I can get to acceptance a lot faster than I used to. And acceptance always makes a better outcome, especially in a hot mess like this. I said, acceptance creates better outcomes. Ooh, I love that. It's true for me, she said.

8:31Look, I don't know what's going to happen here. I won't be surprised if I end up leaving. But while I'm here, I'm going to do my best. And I'm going to be my best. And to do that, I have to believe that these guys are doing their best. I said, I hear how helpful it is to you, Ronna. I'm so glad you have that story in you. Well, there is a downside to it, of course, she said. There is? What's that? I asked. Doubt. As if scolding herself, she said, I mean, come on, do you mean to tell me that their best wouldn't have been better if you weren't here? You must have done something to make this shit show happen.

9:11That's the flip side. If this is their best and this is where it got us, I must have had something to do with it. I said, you and I have talked about your doubts. Do you feel stuck in doubt? No, she answered, no worse than normal. But I do wonder why I do it at all. Do what, I asked. Turn on the self-doubt, wonder if I'm the problem. I don't know why I do that. I nodded. It's a reasonable question. You've noticed a pattern, and you want to understand it better. Great. I just feel I have to point out that you and I, in our coaching, are not going to answer that question about why you turn on the doubt.

9:49We aren't, she asked. No, I said why questions are psychological questions Why do I find myself in this situation over and over? Why do I say the things I say? Why, why, why? The answer to why questions are somewhere inside your thoughts and your feelings And a good therapist will guide you through the forest and help you find your answers But I am not a therapist, I'm a coach I can't guide you to why answers But I can give you a good workaround for the situation But I could do both, she said. Oh, for sure, I said. I'm a big proponent of good therapy. It's a perfect complement to coaching. She nodded.

10:30So, let's suppose I was beating myself up about something. You have a workaround for stopping the cycle? I do, I said. It has three parts. You want to hear them? Go ahead, she said. Okay. First, let's consider what we're trying to do. We're trying to stop the hamster wheel of doubt. We want to quiet the constant why questions, right? That's when these three steps come in handy. The first step, clarify the issue in your own head. What is the issue really? What am I upset about really? What do I wish were different exactly? You will not ask yourself why you want that thing. You will ask yourself, what is it that I want precisely?

11:14That's part one. Part two, you ask yourself, if that's what I want, if that's where I am, how do I feel about that? How am I? She said, when I'm stuck in doubt, doubt is the only feeling I recognize. It's interesting to think there might be other feelings. Okay, what's step three? You ask yourself, what do I want to do now that I know my situation and I know how I feel? What action do I want to take? As you would say, it's your move on the chessboard. I took a breath, then said, those three steps can break a cycle of doubt. She nodded, that little workaround has a lot of acceptance in it. If you want to move to action, accept what's going on.

12:03Maybe that's the lesson of the day. When you're in a world of trouble, acceptance helps. I echoed her earlier statement, acceptance creates better outcomes. We were both quiet. And then I said, I learned a saying from my dad that has a lot of acceptance built into it. What was it, she asked. I said, my dad was a junior officer in the Navy during World War II. The one saying he brought home that I heard over and over was, there's always some poor bastard who doesn't get the word. When things would go wrong, he would say that. Some poor bastard didn't get the word. And he would say it with real kindness.

12:45You know, things break, people get hurt, sometimes people die, because some poor bastard didn't get the word. That's terrible, she said. I said, I never took it that way. I always took it to mean that when something bad happens, yes, most likely you can find the person who screwed up. But then, what if instead of blaming them, you think, you know, it's not really their fault. They just didn't get the word. For me, it created compassion. Like for you, it created acceptance. She shook her head. But my situation isn't about them not getting the word. These guys know exactly what they're doing. Right, I agreed.

13:24But what if the word they didn't get was about how to play nicely in the sandbox with others, How to embrace change. How to live in a world of abundance. What if they just didn't get the word? Whoa, she said, and exploded finger bombs at her temples. That is acceptance on a grand scale. Rana ended up transferring to another division. Throughout all the chaos and frustration, her ability to accept the situation and her commitment to show up as her best self was a masterful display of the look and sound of leadership.

14:12There were three tools in Rana's story. I don't want to lose them, so here's a quick recap. When you are in the middle of a shitstorm, three tools you could use are shift towards acceptance. That's number one. Stop being angry. They're doing their best. It's your move. That's number one. Number two, be alert for getting stuck in doubt. Shitstorms can make you doubt yourself. If you find yourself in doubt, here's number three, ask yourself what you want, what you feel, and what you want to do. Those were the tools in my conversation with Rana. Now I want to get to some more ideas about surviving shitstorms.

14:49Let me start by defining what I think a shitstorm is. Rana's shitstorm had a lot of players in it. and the victims and the villains seemed really clear. It was pretty dramatic because Ronna was playing at a high level. She touched a lot of people. Now, shitstorms don't have to be big. Like, your sphere of influence might be a lot smaller. You can still be in a shitstorm, because shitstorms aren't about big or small. It's about how much of our own shit that storm stirs up in us. If you are stirred up, if you feel the stakes are high, If you hear yourself making up victims and villains If you're experiencing doubt that is completely non-productive You are in a shit show It is your personal shit show So that's the definition Now, more tools Did you hear me just now mention the stakes being high?

15:47That was a very intentional call out to a book that I know many of you already have Crucial Conversations The subtitle of Crucial Conversations is Tools for Talking When Stakes Get High. Tools for Talking in a Shitstorm. The book, really, it's had such a rich and long life because the authors are great storytellers, the book's fun to read, but the tools in it are simple and they are effective. One way to stay afloat in a shitstorm is to have some life vests ready for you and Crucial Conversations will give them to you. Listen, this was really true for me in my own life. During the early years of my divorce, there were times, as you can imagine, when I found myself very irritated.

16:34In those moments, I would hear myself arguing in old arguments, even though I knew that the argument was really just a habit on both of our parts. We were never going to get anywhere. Crucial conversations gave me a phrase to say in moments like that. Actual words like a script. And, you know, I'm a former actor. I love a script. Crucial Conversations gave me the phrase, it wasn't my intention to. It suggested this phrase could diffuse tension when the other person was upset. And I remember using it with my ex. We were standing in her driveway and I could feel us revving up into one of those circular arguments.

17:17and I said, hey, it wasn't my intention to make you defensive. And I didn't even have to say what my intention was. I saw her shoulders drop. I saw her face soften. And suddenly we were able to just kind of talk like people. And I felt like I'd been given a magic key. I felt like I was in some club because I knew that a whole lot of people already knew those tools. I will tell you, when you are in a shitstorm, it's great to have scripts you can call on. Crucial Conversations. It's got a lot of scripts. Okay, do you remember a minute ago when I said, you know you're in a shitstorm when you find yourself making up victims and villains?

18:03I want to talk about what it means to make up victims and villains. Our brains use victims and villains to make sense of what's happening around us. And especially when we've lost control, making of victims and villains is automatic. Look, think for a second about how I told Rana's story to you. Think about the words that I used, how I talked about the leadership team. I used words like appalling and outsider and galling. And I ascribed their actions as aimed at diminishing Rana. It was a good story, right? It is an easy to grasp story. The framework of that story is how our brains serve up stories to us.

18:48Our brains deliver stories to us weighted in that way so that they support our view of the world. And we often do not question the story we're being told. I'm suggesting that one clue that it might be time to question the story you're hearing in your head is when you start painting villains. And it's hard to spot a villain, but, you know, I think it's a little like trying to see an octopus that's camouflaged. It's hard to see at first, but you can learn to spot them. One thing to listen for in yourself is intent. Where have you ascribed other people's intent? Villains become villains because we assume they have bad intent.

19:33We assume they do not mean us well. The action here, assume good intent They're doing their best If you can assume good intent If you can believe they're doing their best You will not get stuck in victim and villain thinking

19:55One more tool You may remember I was talking about one way you can see yourself in a shitstorm is when you find yourself in a nonproductive cycle of doubt. I have a thought about that, and I have a story that I really want to tell you about coaching versus therapy right after this month's gratitude.

20:16Tom Henschel: Last month, my entire gratitude was about a live event here in Southern California that I was going to do with my good friend Dave Stachowiak, the host of the Coaching for Leaders podcast. Well, that event is now about to happen in three days. I am so grateful to be doing this with Dave. The event hasn't happened yet, and we're already having so much fun. It is great to work with your friends, isn't it? Dave, thanks. Gratitude also to Susan Smalley and Kenny Rhodes. I know that both of them are coming to the event. Look forward to seeing you there. Susan Smalley, along with Dave, is one of my best friends.

20:58Tom Henschel: She is a partner in many different parts of my life, including as a co-host with me for the Executive Coaching Special Interest Group. I've talked about the group before. If you're a coach, if you are at all interested in finding community, if you are at all interested in executive coaching, please come join us. We meet six times a year. We're sponsored by ICF Los Angeles. The link is in the show notes. Check us out. It's really, it's a wonderful community, and it is a better community because of my partnership with Susan. Susan, thank you for all the ways that you enrich my life. Gratitude to another attendee, Kenny Rhodes.

21:36Tom Henschel: Kenny is a loyal member of that special interest group community, and Kenny is a longtime listener. Thank you both for showing up for me. I am very grateful. Speaking of longtime listeners, I am very grateful. This month, I got a bunch of emails from people who said they have been listening for five years or ten years or longer. Thank you so much. Also, gratitude to the people who help new listeners find the show by posting reviews. This month, a longtime listener with the username TheJourneyIsTheGoal wrote the loveliest review titled A Decade of Thanks. And she also reached out to me, and I'm going to coach one of her direct reports.

22:25Tom Henschel: Thank you so much. I am grateful. Okay. So what can you do to toss yourself a lifeline when you find yourself in a cycle of nonproductive doubt? The question I would like to ask is, who gets to decide what is and is not, quote, productive? How do you know if it's productive doubt? Sometimes good things come out of doubt. Well, you get to decide whether it's productive or not. Each one of us gets to decide whether we are focusing our attention in a way that is productive or nonproductive. Are we moving forward? One way to help yourself move forward, look at your own contributions. This is when why questions really can be your friends.

23:15Why questions can help you examine your motives and your feelings. If you aspire to be a leader who draws people towards you, you need to be able to look at your own part in things. Why questions can help with that. At the same time, be alert. Why questions demand that you turn your focus inward, right? But you can get to an answer, but the answer is never for certain. You could stay looking inward to look for more clues. there always might be more, right? Sometimes we forget to look up and see what's going on around us. Or if we do look up, we look up through that lens of doubt. The tool here is to be aware.

23:57Are you moving forward? Can you look up and see what's going around you? Having doubt is not unusual. I talk about it all the time with people. Confidence is an issue all the time with people. Sometimes as people are talking about their issues of doubt and confidence They'll joke and they'll say, you know, this feels like therapy I understand why they would say that And I clarify Coaching and therapy are both great, but they are very different Here's the metaphor I use to explain the difference At the beginning, coaching and therapy actually share a lot of beliefs One belief they share is that people, as they travel their road of life, hit potholes.

24:45Another belief in common is that potholes that people hit often are connected over a lifetime. They repeat themselves. Another belief that coaching and therapy share is that our present behaviors are shaped by our past experiences. That's in the beginning. Then, let's imagine you. You are driving down the road of your life. You hit one more pothole. You decide that's it. You want some help. And so you find a therapist. Here's what's going to happen. The therapist is going to ask you to pull over. You'll both get out of the car. You'll walk over. You'll look into the pothole together. The therapist is going to help you look at that pothole up close to see what you really notice about that pothole.

25:31And soon the therapist is going to teach you how to repair the pothole one thin layer at a time from the bottom up. Every layer is a piece of healing. And you do layer after layer, and then one day your pothole is filled in. It's gone. You're free of it. That is the gift of therapy. It is a long, intimate process of healing. Now, what if you put a coach in your passenger seat instead of a therapist? How does that go? When you come upon a pothole, the coach is going to teach you how to drive around it. The pothole is still there, and your life would be better if the pothole were filled in. But in the meantime, the coach gives you a workaround.

26:17And by the way, that is for executive coaching. That is not at all true in the realm of life coaching. It's a completely different discipline. The only coaching I talk about on this show is executive coaching. When you find yourself in a shitstorm You do not have to do it alone You can work with a therapist Or you can work with a coach Or you can do some self-study in our archives Three categories in the library that might interest you are Managing yourself Perception, how you perceive yourself And self-talk Five episodes that you might listen to are Building emotional intelligence That's really important for navigating a shitstorm, by the way.

27:00Coaching versus therapy There's a whole different set of ideas in that episode, by the way. Combating emotional hijacks Don't take anything personally And taming the wild child This episode is built around a metaphor that I share with a lot of my clients And they almost always experience it as a very powerful catalyst. I really want to encourage you to check it out, Taming the Wild Child. All the links are in the show notes. Help yourself to the coaching tools on our website. In fact, a really relevant tool for this episode is the Feeling Word Grid. The Feeling Word Grid is our second most downloaded tool after sorting and labeling.

27:40Being emotionally fluent is one more way to stay afloat in the shitstorm. There is a link to that and all the tools in the show notes. The tools are free. Help yourself. Okay, that's it for me. Until next time, I'm Tom Henschel. Thanks so much for listening.