Introduction

“Handling Difficult people” concerns nearly all of us and it is an important theme that “Difficult people” may well have personality issues that make them difficult.
 On the other hand, people may only seem difficult because their personality clashes with our own; they are only difficult in our eyes and not necessarily in the eyes of others.
 Some people may be difficult because of the way we interact with them.

Objectives

By the end of the program, participants will be able to:

• Understand their personal style, needs and values, and make an assessment of the people and situations they find difficult.
• Understand the types of behaviour people use at work, how people deal with conflict, and how orientation and attitude influence behaviour.
• Become aware of their current levels of pressure and stress, to help them understand what pressure and stress are, to provide ways for them to reduce their levels of excessive pressure and stress, and to cope better with the pressures and stresses they are unable to avoid.
• Understand that there are barriers to effective communication and that effective communication also includes non-verbal elements. Deceptive and aggressive behaviour is also described, because it is often associated with difficult people and situations.
• Describe what assertiveness is and why it is relevant in the work situation and use skill or techniques to become more assertive.
• Develop and apply practical approaches for working successfully with difficult people and for dealing with a range of difficult situations at work.
• Use assertive behaviour in a way that can be applied to difficult situations and difficult people at all times.

Duration

2 Full Days

Course Outline

The following outline highlights some of the course’s key learning points:
 

• Understanding yourself: assessing how personal style influences performance, determining how needs are met by the work done and identifying the types of people and situations that are difficult. 
• Understanding others: identifying the strengths and possible weaknesses of different work styles, determining the stages people go through when dealing with conflict and dealing with difficult behaviour.
• Managing pressure and stress: evaluating the areas of life that are causing stress, assessing how pressure and stress affect performance, evaluating how personalities might be contributing to stress and applying stress-reducing techniques.
• Communication: identifying the psychological and sociological barriers that might prevent communication, noting the importance of body language in the communication process, and examining more effective methods of giving people feedback.
• Assertive Skills and techniques: identifying the three major types of behaviour, demonstrating the importance of verbal skills in assertiveness and using the main assertive skills and techniques
• Approaches and case studies: working successfully with other people, describing level of difficult behaviour and applying approaches for dealing with difficult people and difficult situations.
• Maintaining the success habit: looking at difficult people and difficult situations from different perspectives, adjusting ways in seeing things in order to deal assertively with difficult people and situations and reprogramming minds to a generally assertive mental state.

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