ICommunicate Radio Show #167: Why Are People So Difficult?

In this episode of ICommunicate, Company Founder Mark Altman discusses what traits we tend to associate with “difficult” people, as well as how we can approach these individuals with a lens of curiosity in order to suspend judgment, collaborate on agreeable behaviors, and create an inviting workplace culture. Segment 1: As a result of the pandemic, we’ve all developed our fair share of habits that we know to be counterproductive and inefficient. At what point do we consider our colleagues in the workplace to be “difficult,” and what stigmas surround that? How can we uncover the root causes of these behaviors and iron them out in a manner that isn’t accusatory?Segment 2:Complaints are often spurred by unfulfilled expectations -- but how often are those expectations clearly defined on all ends? How does our learned social etiquette alter our perspective on non-stated expectations? How can those expectations be helpful or harmful on a day-to-day basis, and how can we ensure that our team is aware of the standards that they are being held to?Segment 3: Leaders -- how often do you consider the qualities that make an effective coach? How do small details in communication, such as tone, word choice, and body language, make a difference in the way you are able to influence people when trying to change their habits? What is the difference between internal and external curiosity, and how can distinguishing the two help us to relay expectations in a clear and productive way?Segment 4: We don’t take enough time to consider the many components of a conversation and how to effectively control the flow of a dialogue. How can we approach conversations around habit or behavior change without coming across as judgmental or accusatory? How can we discern somebody’s motivation from their fear, and how do we educate them on the importance of that difference?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to iCommunicate on full service radio 830 WCRM. To join the conversation, call 508-871-7000. Now, here's your host, Mark Altman.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Welcome to iCommunicate. I'm your host, Mark Altman, and president and founder of Mindset Go. I Communicate for those of you who are new listeners to the show. We talk about communication challenges at various levels of leadership and sales, for parents, for professionals of any kind. And basically, if you need to communicate with people, and it's an important part of an aspect of your success, this show is for you. So we've done this show for about three years now, and my approach to this show has always been to pick topics that are very relatable and applicable to people. But my hope is when you listen to the show, is that certainly you have some tools and takeaways. And I'm also really hoping you have some new awarenesses around the topic. And I was reflecting today on what would be a great topic, and I decided that dealing with difficult people seems to be on the top of everybody's mind these days. And, you know, a lot of people attribute the pandemic to how on edge people are, how emotional people are, how much their tolerance and patience levels have gone down. And that's true. I mean, people's tolerance, patience, and their ability to manage their emotions has always been a problem. It's just a question of what's changed. And the pandemic has certainly, in some cases, brought the worst out of people. And what's interesting about the phrase dealing with difficult people, whether it's your boss, a peer, a coworker, someone in another department, you know, you have to manage so many relationships professionally and personally. And the first thing I thought to myself is what actually makes a person difficult? And in my experience, where people typically go first is people who complain a lot. And what fascinates me about people who complain is very often when people complain, they don't have a solution to their problem. They just like to complain. And it's important to understand why people complain, right? Because one of the things I teach about emotional intelligence is that most of the time when people, when you term people as difficult and your perception is that someone's being difficult, their motivation or intentions is not to set out to make your personal life miserable. When people complain and struggle to manage their emotions, there's lots of factors that go into it. But what's interesting about people who complain is it's a message. A complaint is a message. And the challenge is when someone in your life, on your team or in your family, complains, usually we get frustrated or we get defensive, especially if the complaint is something that either directly or indirectly connects to us. But what's interesting is a lot of people complain for connection, believe it or not. People complain, you know, you get the water cooler talk, and people who are tend to be negative and gossipy. You know, they're looking for some kind of personal connection. That's not their only motive. My point is it can be a motive. Sometimes people complain because they're looking for validation. Whatever they're complaining about, you know, they're looking for someone to say, yeah, you have every right to be upset about that. That's terrible. I can't believe that's happening to you. So they look for a sense of validation. And what's interesting about relationships is a lot of times the person you go to to seek validation is a person who plays the role of what I refer to as a riler. And a riler can be a loved one, a trusted or respected friend who you go to. And the riler feels like they're doing you a service and supporting you when you complain and you vent. And that person that you go to says, Oh, that's terrible. I can't believe they did that to you. And so in that moment, the person is saying what they think you want to hear. They might actually agree with you, but one way or the other, they're either agreeing with you or saying what you want to hear, or there's a third option, and that third option may be they think it's gonna help you cope and support by agreeing with you. The problem with the riler is that when you go to that person for validation, the riler forgets what you're gonna do with their validation. Because once you validate that someone feels justified and angry for whatever they're complaining about, it's the actions that follow that conversation up that may not be desirable. So if you're upset because your boss you feel is mistreating you and you go to someone for support, and that person says, Yeah, your boss, your boss is a jerk, and I can't believe they're doing that, by agreeing with you. Now the person who's angry and complaining at the first place might act out a certain way that is unhealthy and sets themselves up for failure. So there's a role of support. When you support people, you know, one of the big things to support people, and it's a very simple, powerful tool when people complain, is when you hear the complaint, the response is, how can I help? Now think about that response. Someone complains to you, personal or professional relationship, and your default response is, how can I help? What you do there is you do two things. Number one, you disrupt the complainer's thought process because they're emotional, they're complaining, and they're frustrated. They might not have a solution, they might not have thought that far, they might not even know what they want from you beyond just to complain. So when you say, when you lead with empathy and then say, How can I help? you're opening up channels of dialogue. And what's huge about that in leadership is a lot of times leaders feel pressured to have all the answers. There's a lot of things people complain about in corporate America that as a leader, you're not going to be able to solve because there's no physical action you can take to fix their problem. So when you lead with empathy and you say, gosh, that sounds difficult. Sorry you're going through that. And how can I help? Not only do you disrupt the complainer's thought process to make them slow down and think about what they actually want from the conversation, you disrupt your own thought process. And a lot of the work I do around mindset with companies and teams and leaders is the importance of shifting other people's mindsets, but also shifting your own and disrupting your own mindset. And the point I was making earlier is that a lot of times when people complain, we become judgmental. Oh, here they are complaining again, they're never happy. Um, sometimes people complain because they act entitled. Sometimes people complain because it's easier to complain than have a solution-oriented mindset. So we become very judgmental. We feel like it's a time suck, and there's all these things a lot of people think about in these thought patterns, judgmental thought patterns about a person's complaint. The number one leadership rule we teach at mindset go. And this is leadership, this is relationships, this is communication, is when you feel wronged, when you feel like your expectations haven't been met, when you are disappointed. Default to being curious while suspending judgment. I must say that to leaders and salespeople multiple times a day. And every time I say it to someone, the variety of reactions I get is well, I know that's the right thing to do, easier said than done. Agreed. It is easier said than done. The challenge is once you become judgmental about another person's communication and feedback, your ability to effectively navigate, coach, problem solve through the situation becomes compromised. So default to curiosity and suspending judgment means when that person complains to you about something, it means slow down and disrupt your own thought process and ask, how can I help? And you buy yourself time by asking a question to formulate your thoughts, collect your emotions, and understand how you can show up most effectively in this situation. You know, this is the thing about emotional intelligence I talk about time and time again. Being an emotionally agile person or an emotionally intelligent person, it's you're entitled to your emotions. You don't have to apologize for your emotions. It's when you become emotional, when you become judgmental, frustrated, or disappointed, how do you want to show up in those moments? And what I'm suggesting is the best way to show up in those moments is to lead with empathy and default to curiosity. How can I help? When we come back for our next segment of i Communicate, we're going to talk about one of the biggest signals complaints provide. For i Communicate, I'm Mark Altman. We'll be right back.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Now iCommunicate continues on full service radio, 830 WCRN. Once again, here's your host, Mark Altman. Okay, welcome back to i Communicate.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

I'm Mark Altman, and we're talking about why people like to complain and what we should learn and pick up when people complain. And the number one thing that people should pick up from a complaint is there is an unmet expectation. Okay. Now, I spent a lot of time as a speaker on the vista circuit, which I really enjoy working with executives, VP level leaders. And one of the things that we talked about recently is the rules for expectations. And expectation is a really heavy, powerful word. Okay, because if you expect something of someone and they don't meet that expectation, it's frustrating. It's disappointing. And when we feel frustrated, we tend to make it about the other person and complain about the other person. It becomes a very one-sided thought process. And so the rules of expectations, I'm going to share what the three rules of expectations are, and we're going to talk about examples of them individually and how they play out. The first rule of expectations is they have to be stated. And as you listen to this show, and I give you the challenge, and you're to think about how many expectations you have of people in your life, strangers, friends, professionals, loved ones, acquaintances, you name it, you have a lot of expectations of people that they don't know you expect. For example, in the workplace, if you send an email to someone, okay, and are waiting for a reply, and you don't get a reply in a certain time frame, you're frustrated. Okay? Think about this for a moment. When you send an email to someone, there's all kinds of expectations you could have when you send that email. Number one, do you expect receipt acknowledgement that they received your email? Some people do, some people don't. Second is, do you expect a response to your email in a certain period of time? And here's where judgment comes in, right? So if you send an email and someone hasn't responded in a day, you may be annoyed by that. It's like, why aren't they responding to my email? Okay. So we're annoyed. We think that's disrespectful, rude, or frustrating. And the reality is, when you sent the email, okay, did you tell them what your expectation was of your res of the response time? In other words, did you say, here's my question, here's where I need help, I need an answer by tomorrow. So did you specify when you expect a response time? Did you specify that you would like acknowledgement of the receipt of the email? This is what I mean. Communication, when relationships break down, it's often because of the ambiguity in communication, things that aren't said that you assume may be intuitive to people. If your value system is that it's respectful to send an email or reply to an email within 24 hours, that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. You're entitled to that. And I may not know that that's your value system, and I may certainly not know that that's your expectation. So if you get frustrated at me for not responding to your emails in a timely manner, that may be on you, not on me, because you haven't clarified the expectation. You haven't stated the level of priority or urgency this email is for me to respond to. So that's an example in the professional realm. Examples in personal life? Think about this. When you do something nice for someone, do you expect a thank you, an acknowledgement, appreciation? Do you like it when people ask you for something or ask you for a favor? They say please before they do. Okay? Those are a couple of examples. And what happens with the word expectation is we often confuse societal etiquette with expectations. You know, in one of the trainings I did last week, someone we were talking about interrupting in conversation. So someone said, I expect people to not interrupt. Well, in some cultures, there is interruption. It's just how they talk, it's how they deal with each other. The reality is, as a society, we may, in America, we may prefer that people don't interrupt, but if people don't interrupt, if people do interrupt, you know, and you're upset about that, did you tell them you don't want to you didn't want them to interrupt? Or do you assume they should know that because it's a societal expectation or societal etiquette? We assume things about people all the time, and we assume that because of our value systems. Societal etiquette and your value systems can't be expectations. So, rule number one of expectations is they have to be stated. Rule number two that I'm leading into is they have to be agreed on. So if you expect something of me, would you like to know if I agree with it? Or do you just want to tell me and cross your fingers and hope I do it? The example I like to give in sales, okay, and this doesn't even have to be in sales, this can be in any department in your company. Not every company, but the majority of companies give KPIs or goals to people to measure their performance and success. Okay? So if you give me a goal and it's a revenue-driven goal, that my department has to generate$5 million in 2023, would you like to know if I feel like I can achieve that goal? Because how many times do you give someone goals and KPIs and then you meet with them next quarter or at their annual review or at their semi-annual review, right? And you're like, how come you haven't done this? Well, they may not have done it because they may not have had the confidence or felt that they had the time or skills or experience to achieve that goal. When you ask someone if they feel like they can achieve the goal, it doesn't give them an automatic out. It doesn't give them a chance to not have to meet the goal. It opens up dialogue to find out what they think is in the way of meeting that goal. And as a leader, you have every right and opportunity at the end of that conversation to say, I understand the challenges you're having and why you're unsure you can hit that goal, and you need to hit the goal. And I'm going to support you and help you to set yourself up for success. But when you have an expectation of something, you want to know if they agree with it, if they actually believe they can do it. So expectations stated and agreed on. The third rule of expectations is it painfully clear? We have in business and in life these things called SMART goals. SMART is an acronym for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely. The purpose of a SMART goal is to be able to measure real success. Not subjective, not ambiguous. You either did it or you didn't. There's no room for confusion. Well, when you're setting expectations for someone, they should be smart expectations. For example, if I work in finance and I want you to generate a report on cash flow or revenue growth, shall I just ask you to generate the report? Or do we need to discuss my specific expectations of the report? Do you want to receive the report in Excel, QuickBooks, or a different software? What columns do you want represented on the report? How many months do you want me to go back to compile this data? And the list goes on and on and on. The reality is when we delegate tasks and projects to people and we don't find success in delegation, it's often because of unclear expectations. So you can listen to this and be frustrated and think, well, I don't agree with you, Mark. You know, I believe that people should say please and thank you. And I believe that societal etiquette should be an expectation. You can believe it. Again, it can be your value system. You don't have to apologize for your value system, but you can't impose your value system on other people. You can't. So when we come back for our next segment, we're going to continue to talk about why people complain, why they're difficult, and some strategies to navigate difficult people, but also manage yourself in the process. For i Communicate, I'm Mark Altman. We'll be right back.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Now iCommunicate continues on full service radio, 830 WCRM. Once again, here's your host, Mark Altman. Okay, welcome back to iCommunicate.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

And today we're talking about why people complain and how to manage emotions, how to disrupt thought processes and mindsets. And I want to share an example uh one of my clients shared this week because it really fits into what We're talking about on the show today. And the example is he recently just started coaching someone new. And he inherited this person from someone else. And the first few weeks he was working with the person, he noticed that the person CC'd him on every email. Okay? And so my client, who's the boss, his initial reaction to himself was, why the hell is he doing that? Which, frankly, I think is a very genuine normal reaction. Why would someone that works for you CC you on every email? So I want you to follow where I'm going with this because the point I'm trying to make is there's two kinds of curiosity. One is called internal curiosity, and the other is called external curiosity. For the moment, we're going to talk about internal curiosity. And when you are internally curious, there are two ways you can ask that question to yourself. First way is, why the hell is he doing that? The second way is, geez, I wonder why you would feel the need to do that. And the difference in the way I'm asking myself that question is by tone. See, because the first tone is judgmental, and the second tone is curious. And to be effective at coaching and motivating and developing people and using questions and listening to understand, you have to get your own house in order and measure your tone and judgment and assumptions when you're internally curious. When this person chooses to email his boss, CC his boss in every email, he's not sitting there, the person, and saying, How can I annoy my boss? How can I jam up my boss's inbox? How can I frustrate him? He's not saying that. There's a reason why someone would feel the need to CC their boss in every email. There's frankly could be several reasons. And the beauty of this story is, as I was working with my client, the client figured out, and this is what every coach wants, right? Every coach wants their clients or their training audience to become critical thinkers to problem solve on their own. And he figured it out. And he said, you know what? Maybe the guy's emailing me and CC me on every email because maybe his old boss asked him to do that. And maybe that was his first job, and maybe that's all he knows. And I was like, it's possible. It's plausible. It's a theory. But what that theory allows is the opportunity for motives and intentions to be honorable, to be normal, to be judgment free. Okay? So internal curiosity is discerning people's motives and intentions. Are they doing this on purpose? Very unlikely. But internal curiosity is the opportunity to discern your own motives and intentions. An example of an internal curiosity that I love is when people are fearful of doing something. So an example I used this morning in a training was let's say, think about this for a moment. Let's say you work in client services at a company. And let's say every time you deal with finance, okay, it's a frustrating experience and you don't feel like you're treated fairly or respectfully. And let's say, in this case, there's six people in the finance department, and you've had experiences with three different people in the finance department. So if you say to yourself, I can't deal with the finance department, they're impossible. You're indicting the entire finance department and you're not being truthful. If you were internally curious, you would say, you know what it is? I choose not to deal with those three people. But see, what happens is when you're being internally curious, we often make statements that we call absolutes. I can't deal with anyone in the finance department. This company sucks. The whole company? Every aspect of it. So what we're talking about is being internally curious is discerning the truth, discerning people's motives and intentions, discerning between your rational fears and irrational fears. That's what being internally curious is. And when you take the time to slow down even for a minute to be internally curious, it allows you a level of accountability I would bet you've never thought about before. And the kind of accountability I'm talking about is holding your thoughts accountable. Holding your thoughts accountable. Usually when we talk about accountability and leadership, we talk about holding other people accountable. But what about holding yourself accountable? What about holding your judgments and assumptions, being accountable when you become judgmental and you assume? What about being accountable to making sure you don't have preconceived notions and you're curious and suspend judgment? That's accountability. That's a different kind of accountability. And people who can experience that kind of accountability are emotionally intelligent, leaders, communicators, thinkers, reflectors. So again, I said this earlier. If you're internally curious, in the same way, you would not say out loud, what the hell is he doing that for? You wouldn't say that to the person who's CCing you on every email. You wouldn't. I hope you wouldn't. So if you wouldn't use that tone externally, why would you use it internally? Because if you use a judgmental, skeptical, assumptive tone internally, it's going to translate when you communicate and coach and motivate and develop that other person. Look, we all have things that frustrate us, get under our skin, trigger us, our pet peeves, make our blood boil, whatever generic phrase you want to use. And that's okay. And part of being an effective leader, behavior modeler, and authority figure is to recognize that managing your emotions is central to strengthening and building relationships with other people. I talk to a lot of people who get triggered when they're talking to someone, and the person pulls out their phone and does something on their phone in the middle of the conversation. Again, societal etiquette. You would hope that someone knows that that's not polite to pull out their phone and be on their phone in the middle of a conversation. But we don't know why the person is doing that, do we? And in the example I like to give on this is let's say you're a leader, you're talking to someone on your team, you're having an important conversation, and a minute or two into the conversation, they pull out their phone and start looking at their phone. There's two ways to handle that. You can say, you know, I really don't appreciate you looking at your phone when we're in the middle of a meeting. Okay. Now, when you say you don't appreciate, in that moment you're expressing your frustration and you're likely going to put the person on the defensive. What if you said that and the person looking at their phone was checking on their sick mother that was in the hospital, and that was their response, you'd probably feel pretty bad. So instead of saying, you know, I don't appreciate that you're on the phone when we're in a meeting, you could say, as a question, external curiosity, hey, would you mind me asking? Um, you know, I noticed you pulled out your phone in the middle of the discussion, and I just wanted to check in and make sure everything's okay. Now you're safe because you didn't assume, you didn't make a judgment, you asked a question. So this is what I mean about different strategies and techniques and how internal and external curiosity work hand in hand. Now, when we come back for our final segment, I'm going to cover one of the most powerful ways to buy yourself time, collect your thoughts and emotions, and create safe conversation. For I Communicate, I'm Mark Altman. We'll be right back.

SPEAKER_00 31:41

Now, i Communicate continues on Full Service Radio, 830 WCRM. Once again, here's your host, Mark Altman. Okay, welcome back to iCommunicate.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

We are talking about people who could be perceived as difficult. You'll notice I'm putting the word perceived as difficult because from your perspective, someone may be considered difficult, and from my perspective, I wouldn't see them as difficult because it's a value judgment and it's an opinion. Okay. If you call someone difficult, that is what we call an assessment. You're interpreting and judging and evaluating the situation. You're entitled to that. But it's not a fact that someone's difficult. It's your assessment of the situation, it's your perception. Okay. So we're talking about why people complain, why people are difficult, and how to shift your mindset and the mindsets of the people around you, how to influence people, how to influence people's thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Okay? Now think about what happens in conversations, especially quote unquote difficult or courageous conversations. They often start out great. Hopefully you've done some preparation for the conversation. Hopefully you're clear on what you would like to accomplish, the outcomes you seek in the conversation. Hopefully, you're ready to lead with empathy, listen to understand, ask great questions. So it all starts off great until the other person responds to you. Because one of the things we forget in difficult conversations is that people don't know your objectives. In other words, just because you're being an emotionally intelligent communicator doesn't mean they're going to cooperate with you. Just because you're doing your part right doesn't guarantee an outcome. You can't change people, but you can influence them. You can influence their responses, their ability to process information, their willingness to speak the truth. You can influence that very much. There's lots of ways you can influence that. So what happens a lot in conversations is to be an emotionally intelligent communicator, it's easy when everybody's in good space, happy, positive, when no one's feeling burnt out, tired, overwhelmed, agitated, sad, disappointed. That's when you earn your money. Because in the conversations, when you lead with empathy and default to curiosity, and you ask someone, hey, I wanted to make sure everything's okay, why do you ask? Well, the reason why I'm asking is I've noticed over the last few weeks, you know, you haven't been turning in your reports on time the way we've agreed. Okay? Now, the way you ask that question and the way you share that observation sets up the rest of the conversation. Because when you say, when you ask the question, the question needs to be asked with a curious and empathetic tone. And then after you ask the question and you share your observation, it has to be said without judgment. Okay? So you have to, it's not just saying the words, it's the tone of the question and the statement. So let's assume you achieve ultimate success and do everything I just shared. Then what happens? Then the person looks at you and says, Well, I know, you know, Bill and Jeff over there, they don't always turn in their reports on time. And now we're off and running. Because the person wasn't accountable, made an excuse, and deflected from your question. The hat trick. Now you're annoyed. And this is where the judgments come in. Now, your original goal for the conversation was to get to the root cause and understand the real reason that they're not turning in these reports on time. But now you've been distracted. Now your mindset has been disrupted because there's been an excuse, a deflection, a lack of accountability, or all of the above. So in that moment, you would have to be self-aware to know that you're drifting, that you're distracted. Because if you respond to the excuse or the deflection, you've been sucked in. They've dragged you right down into the weeds and they've distracted you from your ultimate outcome. You've lost. You lost right there. Because if the conversation becomes about the excuse or the deflection, you're not going to be able to bring them back within that conversation. So when someone deflects and makes an excuse to me, the idea is to say, look, this conversation isn't about Jeff and Bill. I'm happy to address that at some point with you. But this conversation's about you. And my expectations of you, your expectations of me. So I'd like to ask the question again. So I just pull it back in, reframe how I presented. You know, I always remember, remember when we're remember when we were kids, right? And if you ever got a bad grade on a test score in school, and if you ever tried to influence your parents by saying, Well, I understand you're upset, but everybody else did bad too. And you know what I'm going to say. The famous line for so many parents is, I don't care about everybody else, I only care about you. So that's that's the mantra there as the leader. Don't get sucked into the weeds. Remember the goal. The goal is to just listen to understand, acknowledge the comment, redirect them, and reframe the question. So that way they feel heard and they know you'll eventually get to it, but you rein them back in. So hard. It's so, so hard, everybody, what we're talking about here. You know, there is such an incredible need for emotional intelligence and communication training in the workplace at all levels. You know, we're getting requests and calls like I've never seen before. And obviously, I'm happy because the company's growing, but you know what I'm actually more happy about? That people recognize, are really starting to recognize the importance of these traits. And one of the things I'm really proud on, and how the trainers at Mindset Go have done this, is we've we've gotten the best of both worlds together. We've married emotional intelligence and conversation intelligence. And that the marriage of those two concepts with some serious cups of mindset is what makes people emotionally intelligent communicators. So by mixing emotional intelligence with communication, we're teaching people how to communicate with one another in an emotionally intelligent fashion. So they are self-aware, they know how to manage their emotions, they know how to motivate and influence other people's thoughts, feelings, and actions, and they know how to use empathy as a tool of influence because it is. So there's a lot of takeaways from this show. And the biggest two takeaways I would like you to have are around internal and external curiosity. Because ultimately, it is very hard when we get in cyclical thought patterns to disrupt that, especially based on patterns and precedents with people and baggage and life experiences. There's so many barriers to disrupting negative thought patterns. But that's what that's what I want you to take away. I mean, that's the skill we help so many people with is how to disrupt your own thought pattern, how to manage yourself more effectively, so you're better at disrupting other people's thoughts patterns and managing them effectively. They connect, they go hand in hand. Manage yourself to better and more effectively manage others. Internal curiosity, discern your own truth, discern motives and intentions, discern rational and irrational fears, discern whether your negative thought patterns are justified or not. And then on the external curiosity side, like I said at the beginning, default to curiosity while suspending judgment. That is the pinnacle. That's where you want to be. So thank you for joining us for another edition of iCommunicate. I am Mark Altman. If you want more information about Mindset Go, please reach out at 978 793 1159. And for more support around emotional intelligence, conversational intelligence, and mindset, give us a call.