I said in my first post on mentoring that I'd talk about how to deal with difficult people. But I've been putting it off, because it's such a big topic. I tend to put the people that I work with into a few categories:
- Peers
- People who I can help (generally more junior people)
- People who can help me (generally more senior people)
- Managers up my chain of command
- Managers in another chain of command
I'm not sure that those are all of the distinctions, but those are some rough categories to start. The goal with each of them is the same, however: to get the work accomplished, efficiently, effectively, and in such a way that the person you are working with really wants to work with you again. When people are being difficult or playing games, it's hard to keep that goal in mind, but it's important.
Here's a game that senior people like to play with me, when something that I've said moves them out of their comfort zone (please pardon the language, but this is how I think of this kind of conflict)... the game is called, "mine's bigger than yours is". It's great to recognize when this game is started, because it means that they are feeling threatened or insecure. You'll know you're a player in this game when the subject of conversation moves from the thing that you wanted to talk about, to a topic that they know they can "beat" you at; a place where they know they can win. This almost always happens in a large group setting, frequently over email.
Sometimes, just acknowledging that I've done something to make them defensive will diffuse the situation, and then I try to redirect them back on course. I'll say something like, "My intent was not to put you on the defensive. I'm sorry to have done so. Your last point was the one that that I'd originally wanted to discuss ..." or some such thing. But what about when they really want to get into a conflict? I have a couple of tactics:
- Take the discussion offline -- posturing is less interesting to the person when they don't have an audience, and most people are very reasonable 1:1
- Look for areas of agreement or convergence between your points of view and then play them up -- acknowledge when and where the two of you agreee, and then refer back to that agreement at least once
- Stay calm -- emotion is your enemy -- if you can't respond without getting angry, then wait until you can. If you can't wait, have a colleague review your response.
- Ask open-ended questions and listen to the answers -- try to discover what it is that this person really wants, and then use that to find more points of agreement
- Pick up the phone -- some people are just more comfortable voice-to-voice than in email. Once you've had your discussion, send a email to the person (not the larger group) that summarizes your discussion and invite them to edit and respond to what you thought you heard on the call. Once you have their agreement in email, you can return to the large forum with a summary of your new-found convergence.
- Don't dig in your heels -- as much as you want the other person to come around to your way of thinking, you need to be able to acknowledge when they have a good point, and then move forward from there.
- Don't make an enemy if you can help it -- by using the tactics above, I've converted many people that I've been in conflict with into strong supporters of mine.
Again, your goal is to get the work done, efficiently, effectively, and in such a way that the person you are working with really wants to work with you again. Generally, people just want to be treated with respect and have their points heard and acknowledged. If you can do that, it won't matter whose intellect is bigger ;)