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How to Deal with Difficult People at Work

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How to Deal with Difficult People at Work
How to Deal with Difficult People at Work
Interpersonal relationships can influence consistently the effectiveness of work and well-being of employees as well as their psychological state. However, often the problem of the formation of positive interpersonal relationships arises, especially when there are some difficult people within an organization, who ignore interests and needs of other employees. In fact, it is possible to find such difficult people practically in any organization. Many employs believe the communication and mutual work with these people are impossible, but, in actuality, it is necessary to learn how to deal with difficult people. If a person knows how to behave and communicate with difficult people he/she will hardly have any serious difficulties with these people, though it does not mean that this person will be able to establish friendly relationships with difficult people. However, many people do not know how to deal with difficult people. In this respect, it is possible to refer to D.R. McKay’s article “The Five Difficult People You Meet at Work and How to Get along with them” and to J. Horsch’s article “How to Work with Difficult People at Work”.
In fact, the two aforementioned articles suggest quite different approaches to the problem of relationships with difficult people. D. R. McKay studies different types of difficult people and develops recommendations concerning each type, taking into consideration specific traits of character of each type. To put it more precisely the author distinguishes the chatterbox as one of the types of difficult people. Dealing with a chatterbox, McKay recommends avoiding insulting the co-worker and, instead of avoiding the communication with person pointblank, that is not always possible, the author recommends to put the blame on you and explain to the co-worker that you have problems with concentration while listening to her interesting stories.
Another type of difficult people is a gossiper who is



References: Horsch’s J. (2008). How to Work with Difficult People at Work. Retrieved October 11, 2008 from http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Work-With-Difficult-People-at-Work&id=1531370 McKay, D.R. (2008). The Five Difficult People You Meet at Work and How to Get along with Them. Retrieved October 11, 2008 from http://careerplanning.about.com/od/bosscoworkers/a/difficultpeople.htm Schein, E. H. (1999). Organizational culture and leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Schmitt, B. and Simonson, A. (1997). In Marketing Aesthetics: The strategic management of brands, identity, and image, New York: The Free Press.

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