Working Well - Problem People

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Problem People

Whatever you do, on whatever scale, there will always be people who have the power to affect you and your goals. These people may be your boss or may be clients, politicians, managers within your company or external people who have the power to help or hinder your projects.

These people may be able to help you and support you in realising these goals or may be able to undermine you and block your achievement. They may have the power to overload you with unpleasant and stressful tasks or may knowingly or unknowingly be quite unreasonable in the demands they seek to place upon you.

A key area of potential stress lies with your relationship with your boss. Issues here revolve around balancing work and free time, managing workload and handling apparently excessive demands or unreasonable behavior. The same can be true of working with clients. While your boss has an interest in keeping you as part of his or her team, clients may see things on a much shorter-term basis. Clients may wish to get as much as they possibly can out of you, irrespective of the long-term consequences to you as a person.

Mind Tools has some useful tools to help individuals deal with problem people in the workplace.

The first tool is about Assertiveness and shows you how to defend your right to a well-balanced life in a fair, reasonable and positive manner. It helps you to express, and get, what you want in a way that is rational, non-manipulative and adult.

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The second tool, Coping with 'Unreasonable' Demands helps you to handle seemingly unreasonable demands in an appropriate and mature manner. People tend to react emotionally to demands that they perceive as unreasonable, often jumping to the conclusion that such demands are being made by a ‘bad person’. In reality, most people are fair and rational and many apparently unreasonable requests arise from misunderstandings and lack of knowledge. It is also possible that demands may be objectively reasonable but that circumstances make them impossible to meet.

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The final tool, Stakeholder Analysis shows you how to manage your communication with powerful people so that you can win support for your projects. This helps you to cut through much of the politics and unpleasantness that can lead to frustration and get in the way of accomplishing your goals.