2.2 Understand your own reactions
You are an important part of any situation involving difficult people, so you need to understand yourself and your reaction to difficult situations. Armed with self-knowledge, you can avoid the mistake of putting people in pigeon holes and, instead, treat each situation individually.
Let’s explore why you react as you do. What might cause you to lose control of your emotions? It might happen when:
• You feel that your fundamental beliefs or values are threatened.
• You sense you are being treated unfairly.
• Someone lets you or your team down.
• You are overloaded.
• Your intentions are misunderstood or misinterpreted.
• You make an embarrassing mistake.
• Others lose their temper.
• You are cornered, with no choice or options.
• Your ambitions or goals are threatened.
• You are irritated by a personal emotional trigger.
“Emotional strength comes from self discovery and self mastery”
Bossidy and Charan, authors of Execution
The secret is to develop your skill at handling yourself before you engage with others, as it’s important to respond in a calm way rather than adding to the emotional cocktail of a difficult situation. If you don’t, you are likely to be the ‘difficult one’.
• Know yourself. Be aware of how you react and what causes you to lose control of your emotions. Are you confused, embarrassed, frightened, disgusted, angry or sad? You need to ask yourself about what you feel and why you feel as you do before you can handle difficult people.
• Listen to others. Listening to others and acknowledging how they feel will defuse the emotions that make life difficult, and give you time to understand yourself and them. Accept that listening takes time.
• Stay calm. Develop relaxation techniques. Take a few deep breaths.
• React to what’s around you. You need to take note of the system in which you operate. Allow for company procedures, the law and the interests of others in the company. This requires objectivity, detachment and structure.
• Respond to the person. It is important to attend to the needs and feelings of others. This requires that you understand the truth as perceived by them. We’ll look at this more thoroughly in Chapter 3.
Know yourself if you are to work successfully with others.
2.3 Check your confidence levels
‘Confidence’ comes from the Latin confidere, which means to trust. If you are to handle difficult people, they need to trust you, which means that you have to trust yourself. You need to trust your motives, your decision making and your people skills.
Confidence goes hand in hand with assertiveness, which is distinct from aggression or over-confidence (see Secret 1.5) It’s other people’s perceptions of you that matter here, but there are steps you can take to ensure that your confidence is at an appropriate level. You should first ask yourself a few questions:
• When do you feel comfortable, and when do you feel out of your comfort zone?
• How comfortable are you with what you have achieved in life?
• Where do you add value, and where do you add little value?
• How well equipped are you to do your job?
• When might you need to be more decisive or inclined to take risks?
• When do nerves inhibit your performance? When does your body language betray you?
• When do you ever feel the need to cover up a lack of confidence?
“People become what they believe themselves to be. If I believe I can do things I acquire the ability to do it.” Mahatma Ghandi
• Do you harbour any self-limiting beliefs about yourself? Do you contribute as fully as you should?
• Do you feel in control of your life at work?
• Are you overly concerned about what people think of you?
Reflect on your answers to the questions. They can be connected with many things – meeting the ‘big boss’ for the first time, speaking to 30 people, an unpleasant experience or a lack of key skills. The trick is to look for clues and patterns, and then do something about it:
• Remind yourself of your successes. What are you good at?
• Treat yourself. Maximize your time spent with people who appreciate you and in situations in which you excel.
• Address your development needs. Share your ideas with a trusted colleague. Consider training, coaching or mentoring.
• Visualize being successful. Top sportspeople do this; it breeds success!
• Open an achievement bank. Create a log of your successes.
• Learn from your mistakes. But don’t be inhibited by them.
• Set achievable goals. Recognize that you can’t be good at everything.
In short – take stock of yourself; know what you are capable of; keep learning; be prepared to develop your capability by stepping outside your comfort zone and live with ambiguity.
For others to have confidence in you, develop your own confidence.
2.4 Ask yourself, “How do I look to others?”
If only we could be as honest with ourselves as we are with other people, we would see ourselves as others do. Then, armed with an accurate perception of how others see us, we would be better able to get on their wavelength and bridge the gaps between us.
Everyone sees you differently, but it is helpful if your perception and theirs line up. Consider a set of personal qualities that are important, such as those listed in the chart, opposite. Rate how people see you on a scale of 0 to 10 (the numbers don’t imply any relative merit, such as good and bad, only difference).
Have
