Lea Remigio

I recently posted about the importance of identifying your project land mines – the difficult participants in your project. Most of the time, identifying the people who are most likely to derail your project is easy. How to deal with those people is more difficult.

Is there intent?

My endless optimism and high expectations (which frequently lead me down the path to disappointment) lead me to believe that most people do not set out to be difficult. I mean, it’s not usually a conscious decision. When I meet the rare person who really did wake up that morning with sabotage in their heart, I’m always shocked. I used to think I would grow out of this as I grew into my career and more jaded with age, but I’m still dumbfounded when I run across someone with malicious intent. It always seems so surreal, like the antagonist escaped from a movie and into real life.

Most people are difficult to work with because they feel scared, threatened or marginalized. They are unintentionally difficult. This could be hard to figure out, especially if their behavior is caused by home or personal life situations, which are harder to discern than workplace scenarios. Rather than avoid the person or pretend like he/she is not behaving badly, I find it works best to confront them about it and figure out what the heck they’re thinking. Maybe they aren’t thinking.

It’s not me, it’s you.

Before confronting someone, I allow the bad behavior to go on long enough to reassure myself that it’s really happening and isn’t something that I’m reading into or  somehow coloring with my own lenses. Maybe it was me who woke up on the wrong side of the bed. If the bad behavior is going on in a group setting such as a software training workshop, it can be embarrassing and a little humiliating, but can also help make me look sympathetic to the other project participants. Allow the bad behavior to get fully established before confronting the difficult person.

Meet people where they are – even if that’s a bad place.

There’s a way to confront someone without being a jerk or coming off in a self-righteous manner. Depending on the person and situation, I’ll choose one of two approaches:

1. I subtly point out someone’s bad behavior with a humorous observation. The humor I use isn’t mean-spirited or sarcastic, but may be enough to get their attention.  A lot of people, including myself, really respond to humor. This alone may be enough to dampen an introspective person’s difficult behavior.

2. If subtle humor isn’t working, one-on-one, I look the person in the eye and voice my simple observations about how they are behaving without implying judgement. Then I tell them how I am having a hard time knowing how to deal with the thing(s) they are doing and point out how important the success of this project is to me. Often at this point, I don’t have to ask them for help or ask them any questions at all; simply pointing out how I am feeling about their actions or behavior may be enough to engage them in a discussion that allows us to work in a better place together.

Sometimes confronting them with other people in the room works, but it’s best when you’re working one-on-one with the person. If you must confront a difficult person in a room full of other people, use humor if at all possible. Nothing makes me feel worse than an ugly confrontation in front of a group of coworkers or trainees. If this happens, then it’s time for my chicken exit approach – public crying. (That’s a joke – I haven’t cried in front of a group of people for weeks. In fact, I offer a crying discount on my training service pricing.)

Relapse

I have worked with unintentionally difficult people who have reacted positively with honest confrontation and discussion, but who later relapse and resume road blocking. Maybe it takes a week or a month, but they fall back into their difficult behavior. So I remind them again. This is just part of project management and working with people. People need reminders. As long as I remind myself that the difficult person isn’t intentionally trying to ruin everything and can catch glimpses of the potential factors that are causing them to relapse (personal life problems, unrealistic work deadlines or other expectations, health issues, etc), it’s manageable to repeat the confrontation when necessary and move on.

Some people are just jerks.

It could go without saying, but the approaches above clearly work best on the unintentionally difficult people. When it comes to confronting the intentionally difficult people (the movie antagonist escapees),  the goal is simpler. I want them to see that I am not a big wimp who will allow them to walk all over me. After employing approach #2 , I then minimize my interaction with them, while still harboring dumb hope of befriending them in the back of my thick skull. Occasionally time alone will wear them down and they will become easier to work with as they realize that the project is going to happen with or without them.

Sometimes in the end, the jerks can wind up being your best system users or supporters.