U of M Webinar | Working with Difficult People

Good afternoon and welcome to the College of Continuing and Professional Studies of Webinar working with challenging people. Thank you so much for joining us today. It's a pleasure to have you all here this afternoon. My name is Shanta Bhoelai and I'll be your moderator for today's webinar. If you have feature questions about this webinar or other programs we offer, the colleges contact information will be on the last slide of this presentation. I'm delighted to introduce the topic for today's w

ebinar, Working with Challenging People. Working with difficult people is not only frustrated and stressful, it can also cost your organization time and money. The session will cover some ways to recognize difficult behavior and tactics to respond to it both professionally and personally. The key is to learn to separate from people from problems. Act rather than react and encourage respectful behavior. Key takeaways will include understanding what can trigger difficult behavior, identifying basi

c types of difficult behavior, managing anger and defensiveness in yourself and others, and learning specific strategies for interacting productively and difficult situations. It's a pleasure to introduce a presenter for today's webinar, Marilyn Corrigan. Marilyn is a leadership and communications consultant and coach. Her goal is to help her kinds improve performance in the areas of leadership, communications, teams, and managing change. She has over 20 years of experience in management roles w

ithin organizations. So, Marilyn thinks again for joining us today and I'll hand it over to you. Great. Thank you, Shanta. I want to welcome everyone. As I was thinking about, working on this webinar, I realized that dealing with challenging people dealing with challenging situations seems to have increased significantly for all of us, particularly since the pandemic. And so as you look again at these takeaways and start to think about it, it's like, wow, not only are we having to deal with more

challenging people, sometimes we have to admit that we have become challenging people for others. And so I think a lot of times I want to label it as saying that situations and I want to focus on difficult behavior. I'm a little bit uncomfortable on labeling people as a difficult person. Not that they, they may be that at the moment, but a label implies that they're that way all the time. And I don't want to make that implication. So again, When you think about, I'm gonna cover 3, just to build

off of this key takeaway slide, I'm going to focus on 3 different types, the aggressives, the indirect aggressives, and the chronic complainers. Those are the ones that I see quite often, more frequently than others. And then on that managing anger and defensiveness, what that immediately makes me think about is our emotional intelligence skills, which is looking at being aware of our own emotions and managing our emotions. And if we can do that for ourselves, we are better able to identify it

in other people. So again, you, there's been so many articles and books now about emotional intelligence. And you may have had a chance to take a seminar which can really help you increase your skills. If you haven't, I'd like to point out that the College of Continuing and Professional Studies does have a class on emotional intelligence that you might want to consider. So again, as we think about the goal here is to learn more about ourselves, to be able to be more effective in dealing with cha

llenging people. Okay, so again, when we're thinking about what are the payoffs, why are people difficult? It really is. Important for us to be able to think about. What's in it for them? And we've all been, again, challenging people. So what was in it for us? Are we trying to push people away? Are we trying to intimidate? Are we trying to get what we want? Are we trying to get more attention? So what is really happening for us many times or again People are again pushing back on us. So the impo

rtant thing is to be able to say, what is that behavior? What does it look like? What does it sound like? And then to stop and ask ourselves, how do we usually react? So have we been triggered? Do we get defensive? What do we do? And what have we done in the past and how can we increase our effectiveness? The goal is to be proactive. To be effective and most importantly to treat people with respect. So next slide please, Paul. So there's 3 ways that we can go after approaching a relationship or

challenging problem. The first one is to fix it. Sounds easy. It's tough. So it takes a lot of time and energy to fix an issue. So again, you have to say, how important is this relationship? Am I going to see this person again? What do I need to do here? Am I making the commitment to fix it? I had one employee years ago that needed to work with somebody in the organization closely. No one could work with this person well. So he found a way to work with him. And I said, wow, I'm just fascinated.

How did you do that? And he said, well, I'm taking a psychology program in school. And I've decided that this working with his individual is part of my learning lab and I'm going to find a way to do it and different things I've tried some of worked. Some haven't. So. Again, he made that commitment and he used it as a way to learn from it, not be frustrated by it. And that was really effective. So again, it's a commitment. You can see a real purpose in making this relationship be better. Coping w

ith it is one that I think is challenging because we have to find a way to detach and to be able to say, I'm not going to take it personally. Sometimes I've noticed that this person treats a lot of other people this way. And so I'm not actually the target. Everyone, we all are. So I'm not gonna take it personally. And again, a colleague of mine. Found that I said she said I just let it roll off my back And it's like, how do we find strategies to say they come at you? They're challenging. You jus

t deal with the content. You deal with the request. And so you just kind of stay away from the emotions of it. And that's one way to cope with it. The third step is really serious. The third step is where we choose to leave it. And it's much easier if we're in a volunteer capacity, then we can do that at work. So again, leaving it is a very serious. We fantasize, I think, about leaving it. But I would challenge all of us to say. Think about fixing it or coping with it. First. But after the pande

mic, a lot of people chose to leave. Now it may not have been because of challenging people, but in some cases it could have been. So again, think about what you can do. On these and fixing it and tried to avoid again on coping with it. I mean not coping with it but Try to avoid leaving it. So I'm Paul, can I have the next slide? So the first thing I've said this before, observe what's going on before you get involved. So it kind of is a pause. It's like don't jump. Don't react too quickly. Real

ly take it all in. Okay, next slide. So then we can attach a label. What's the pattern? What are some of the characteristics here? Is it aggression? Is it passive? Is it kind of a pot shot at us. So again, Think about. What you can do and looking at this. So next slide. One of the things that I think is to give up magical thinking, I think a lot of times we just wish the person would Go away, change their behavior. We can't change another person's behavior. We can try and influence it, but clear

ly. We can't. We can't. Just instantly have it go away. I know somebody said, could we just put ferry just on this person and have them change their behavior. So there's no magic wand. Okay, next slide. So again, the goal in this one in step 4 is again being able to, as I said, to be able to take that detached perspective. And to be able to say, well, when you think about it, people in negotiations in the middle of negotiations, they try and take the emotion out of it and some negotiators will s

ay try and sit on your shoulder. I think there was a Harvard professor that did a lot in the world. And the area of negotiations and he talked about go to the balcony. Try and step back, detach, look at the content, try and pull the emotion again out of it. Okay, next slide. So then it's get in touch with your feelings. That's at self-awareness, that self-management that is that emotional intelligence skill. The, again, are you feeling frustrated? Are you disappointed in this person's behavior?

What's going on? But be aware of what's happening. Within you. And if you are particularly tired and stressed, that may not be the time to take on this challenging person. And so then if you're again your feelings are pulling you down, then I would encourage you to buy time. Come back to the interaction later. Okay, next slide. So when we think about Do you dealing with certain challenging people and we know that that's been the pattern with them? What can we do? Then the key is to be able to de

velop a plan for handling it. That's how we're proactive because there's certain patterns of behavior we can stop and think what are some tools? What are some things that I know work? What again? Can we do? To make this work for us. So again, think about it ahead of time. And the next step. Next slide, please. One of the things that I found is a really effective approach is to practice. Practice what you will say. And I bounce it off of a trusted colleague or a friend. And I don't know if some o

f you may have found this too, if you're thinking about something you're worried about it, you want to talk it through with someone. Many times as you're talking it through, you actually may find yourself self-editing and changing your words saying, oh, I mean, this would be a better way to say it. You kind of are talking it through with the person. The other thing about bouncing it off of another person or practicing is they can really give you feedback. I've had people say to me, if you said t

hat to me, I think I would have gotten defensive. Let's talk about a different way to approach that. And so you kind of work together to enhance and improve the message. The other thing that I have found is that when you practice, when you think it through, when you self edit, You then are prepared to go into the interaction with a lot more confidence because it's not just instant, it's not just trying to suddenly come up with it and most of us find that if something is really emotional thinking

on our feet may not be our best option. Okay, next slide please. And then with anything that we do, it's like a lot of times we learn from things that didn't work, but the questions that we asked is, what worked? What didn't work? How could I have done that differently? What impact did I have on that person? Is that the impact that I wanted to have? What could I have done differently? And again, being able to, did I get triggered? And if I got triggered. But caused that. A colleague and I work

a lot with emotional intelligence and we have read and we encourage a lot of other people to read the book. Triggers by Marshall Goldsmith. Because again, thinking about triggers. It really again gets us to know ourselves better. So again, Let's go to the next slide and start looking at these patterns. And again, I picked 3 patterns. The first one is the aggressive behavior. And as I start to go through these patterns, I would think that a lot of you are going to start seeing faces coming throug

h your mind because that we will immediately start to identify with people that have demonstrated this behavior to you. So the characteristics are pretty clear. They're abrupt, they're intimidating, they may be trying to wear you down. It may feel a little bit like an attack. And the key is They are also trying to control the situation. So. Sweet often they come at you with high energy and you're kind of taken aback. So what are some strategies? So Paul, next slide please. So again, the key is t

o be a assertive. Not to be aggressive back. Remember I said I think the most important thing for all of us to remember is to be respectful. And That means stay assertive. Strength respects strength. So you can gain their respect. But again, you pick your battles. So is this issue important to you? Is this goal important to you? Is this value based? Because it will be a lot easier for you to hold your ground and be assertive. Sometimes people you want to let them vent a little, but some people g

et carried away and could probably vent for a long period of time. So you may need to interrupt him to get their attention. But then you repeat their key points. You can't repeat their key points if you weren't listening. So you're trying to come back to the content, not the emotion. So again, repeat their key points, but the key is be concise. So it's like being able to say. You're, your key points. This is my position. We have a difference. So again, you're holding your ground and you're being

assertive. One funny example I have, I wouldn't say it was really aggressive behavior, but sometimes when we get caught in a real conflict with somebody, I, the strategy is to agree to disagree agreeably and one that didn't involve real aggression was really actually too assertive people. Happened years ago when I was in a voting line and these 2 this couple ahead of me were trying to convince each other to change their vote. Now I will tell you I learned a lot about both of those candidates an

d listening to these 2 people. But they were both holding their ground. They were being assertive, so they weren't attacking each other. But clearly neither one of them was shifting. And one way that this woman demonstrated agree to disagree agreeably was as they were ready to head into the voting booth in the voting area. She just smiled and said, I think we are now about to void out each other's vote. So again, it's acknowledging the differences. So it's that's more assertive rather than this

person who's being aggressive is really trying to push you towards something. Okay, so if we can go to the next slide, please. The indirect. Aggressive. I don't like the term anymore that used to be used. It still is used a little bit because of all the things we have going on in the world, but quite often it's called somebody who's like a sniper, they hit you in directly. They can be sarcastic. I think the easier way to talk about it is a cheap shot. It can make you feel cornered or can make yo

u feel trapped. Again, when I think about some of these behaviors. It's like it just comes out of nowhere. Sometimes it's done with humor. And if that humor, that sarcastic humor is directed at you, it's not funny. It actually may be hurtful. And so they're trying to get a laugh from others, they may be trying to get attention, but when you're the receiver of the message, it doesn't feel good. So what are some strategies? Paw the next slide, please. It's to kind of surface the attack. Put it out

there in the open. Go after what they said, not how they said it. So one of the ways I saw this was actually quite impactful. Years ago I was involved with a supervisory program where we had executives come address the supervisors. In a group of about 30. And I can't remember exactly how this person asked the question. They were way in the back of the room and I think they thought they were hidden by being in the back of the room. So they asked A question of this executive that was really a got

cha question. It definitely was a cheap shot. Now this executive was known to have a temper. And so when this individual asked that question in that manner, I think all of us in the room and particularly the staff. Stopped breathing. Because we were really nervous on what was going to happen next. Well, what he did was incredibly powerful. First off, he did nothing. He stopped. Then he reached his hand down to his side. And pulled it out away from his body and said, Let me take the knife out fir

st. And now I will answer your question. So that is quite the way to surface the attack. Again, it's like. That certainly worked and we were all surprised and relieved that that's how we responded to it. So again, coming back and saying, 25 actually is one way to deal with it. It's factual. You're not getting all caught up on all the reasons that it happened to you. The other strategy and I've only used it once. And it's called, but it worked. Sometimes when you're teaching a class, there's a pa

rticipant that really wants to take you on kind of as a way to get attention, show their knowledge in the class. A lot of times that can be really helpful because they're bringing up another perspective. The class benefits from hearing a different opinion, but sometimes the way they do it is definitely a put down. To the instructor. So one of the things that she said was a response could be, whoa. That sounded like a dig. Did you mean it that way? So you're giving them an out because did you mea

n it that way can be? No, of course I didn't mean it that way. This is what I meant. So they can save face. But if it's really intentional. Puts him off. Well, this person in class. Said something that and I said, whoa, that sounded like a dig. Did you mean it that way? And they said, wow, you're sure sensitive. And I said, that sounded like an another dig. Did you mean it that way? It did shut them down and I think the class appreciated it, but it's not something that I like to do. I don't like

to confront a participant, but I had tried coming back and finding the issue. The other response on something like that is to be able to say, Can you give me some examples because I would really like to understand what your concern is. Can other people please tell me what their response is to this? This sounds important and we need to discuss it in more detail. So you surface the attack but you explore the content. To try and again validate the issue or concern that's buried in that sarcasm bec

ause usually what they're bringing up is something that they want to know more about. So I spent a little bit more time on this one because This one can throw us off. And people are doing kind of putting us off a little bit or making fun of us so it's at our expense. I often say with sarcasm, use sarcasm at an issue. Do not use sarcasm at a person. Because it quite often will not be perceived well. OK, Paul, can I have the next slide, please? So the chronic complainer, think about this. They're

whining, they're finding fault with everything. They are blaming, they're projecting all the blame out on others. They're not seeing any part that they might have in it. And at that point in time, they're not interested in problem solving. Well, years ago, I came across somebody had shared with some other instructors. If you're thinking about complaining, there can actually be 4 categories of complaining. I never thought of that before. So one of them is recreational complaining. I think we have

it as an art form here in Minnesota because we do a lot of recreational complaining about the weather. So that's recreational complaining. Sometimes people are complaining because they really want something to change. They want action. Another category is that they may be complaining to get appreciation. They don't feel valued. That certainly is a major issue in society today. People not feeling appreciated, not feeling that their work is valued and that could be behind it. Or some people compl

ain because in reality they are actually trying to look for help. And need help. So they're like overwhelmed. And they need some help. Okay, so again adding to these strategies, Paul, the next slide please. So again, what can you do? It's like, how can you take that negative energy and where they're coming from and kind of get it to focus. In the direction of problem solving. It's like there's energy there. They don't seem to want to problem solve, but how could you engage him in that? And one o

f the ways to do that is to really listen to their issue. Ask for more examples. Engage them. In the problem identification. It's like, what would you like it to look like? What would make it better? How could we find what are the resources that we could do? State the facts then as you're pulling that information together because you want to problem solve with them. And then recognize their contribution sounds like a funny statement, but it's a matter of saying, wow, okay, let's look at what som

e actions could be taken. To make this issue be better, think about your experience. Think about what you know, how you know how to do things. How could you use your knowledge and experience to help us. The problem solving. So you find in a way to work with them and to engage them in the process. But you have to collect that information up front to be able to do that. So again, being able to say what would you want and trying to get away from that negative energy. The other thing is that what ca

n be helpful and that's a empathy piece but acknowledging that you know that this is frustrating to them. You're validating the emotion that they're having. That becomes really important. Okay, next slide. And then the tools and techniques. So let's just go on to the next one. So again, I've talked about this so you think about I mentioned in the takeaways. Again, the skills of being non-defensive. So again, how do you step back? How do you, disengage from it and Sometimes we need to disengage a

s I mentioned earlier. By buying time. This is not a good moment to try and go after this. Your mind is on something else. You're really tired. You're stressed. So the disengagement. Is to step back as a way to protect yourself. Disengagement, remember, goes back to that again. Possible technique of coping. So again, the next slide, I'll spend a little bit more time on because this empathize. Empathy is there's a lot more articles right now on talking about empathy as a really important leadersh

ip skill. It's all, it's clearly critical and the emotional intelligence skills. So again, it's like how can you empathize? And so some of the things is to be able to understand where they're coming from, what's their perspective. You do not have to agree with them. But you have to validate their right to come from that position. So again, it's trying to see it from their perspective, which requires listening. And what you've heard again, as I said, you can't paraphrase if you haven't been as I

said you can't paraphrase if you haven't been listening checking if you haven't been listening. Checking out is your interpretation, correct? And validating their emotions again. And one of the books that was helpful to me, particularly when I was teaching some of the leadership classes, was again difficult situations and That book is difficult conversations. I'm sorry, difficult conversations and it was I want to check the author so I get it right it was difficult conversations how to discuss w

hat matters most and it was 3 authors. Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Hind. So again, they said, You need to empathize and you need to again paraphrase. And then the next slide is the other thing they really focused on was how do you inquire. How do you ask open-ended questions? Because we know that if you ask closed questions it's kind of the typical Was anything bothering you? And of course they'll say no, that would be a closed question. Rather than what's going on here. Tell me more

about what's happening. I want to understand it. I feel like I'm missing something and I really want to be able to be supportive of you, but tell me a little bit more about it. So you need to get that information to get the context. I find that quite often I have jumped mentally to a certain conclusion and when I inquire I find that I went in the wrong direction. And so I need more data to even validate what I think is happening here. So again, keeping those questions going. Okay, next slide. A

nd then disclosing sometimes if we open up and share something. Is similar to what they're dealing with, to be open about it. That can encourage them to be open. The tricky part about disclosing is that requires vulnerability and we have to make a decision about how open we're willing to be. What are we willing to disclose? Sometimes we hesitate. Because we're worried that that information might be used against us in some way. So again, think about these skills on being non-defensive. Which of t

hese do you feel are strengths of yours? And which of these do you feel like? I think I need to work on that. Do you need to work more on the empathize. Do you need to work more on the probing? Do you need to disengage so that you can think more clearly because your emotions are kind of sabotaging your mind and you don't you're not thinking well. So again, those are some 5 skills. Oh, I'm sorry. The fifth one. I forgot the fifth one. Sorry. Next slide. Just going on a roll here. So the next one

is to depersonalize it, ties with what we've talked about earlier. It's like You're not the target. You may feel like the target, but how do you depersonalize it? And the best way to do that. Is to focus on the issue, not the person. And again, not it's easy to say, depersonalize. It's really tough to do and there are challenging people who work very hard to try and personalize. And I think that sometimes is where the indirect aggression and the aggression come from. Okay, now next slide after t

he 5 skills. This tool I have used a lot, the levels of diagnosis. It actually, I was introduced to it many years ago and I'll kind of date myself by saying it, but it was in a workshop by Peter Blocks. Organization in the workshop instead of conflict management was called managing differences. There's multiple ways that I've used this. He said the first thing that program had really emphasized the first thing you need to do. To what is the problem? Let's state the problem. Have you ever been in

a situation or debate with someone, you try and define the problem. And realize that your interpretations of the problem are so different. That you're actually working on different aspects of it. So it's like, be clear about what is the problem. And I think when you again start to step back, you're dealing with content. Not emotion. Because what's the issue? What's the concern? What are the factors? What are the variables? What are the pressure points and you get that information and then withi

n all that information, now how would we define the presenting problem? So now you both can be focused on the same issue, the same concern, the same problem. Again, it's working with somebody and engaging them rather than immediately going into a debate. Because you may be actually depating. Different aspects of the problem. Okay, so then next slide, please. So the second level is where the other people coming from, how are they contributing? We usually have no, we have no problem identifying wh

ere the other person is coming from. It's kind of like, it's easy for us to say, because when we particular are saying it's not really much of my problem, it's what they're doing. But then the third level, if you'll go to that one. Is the tough one is what your contribution is. So again, you're stating what the problem is, making clear that you're both looking at it from the same perspective, understand the issue, understand the concern. Then you're thinking about what the other person's contrib

ution is and then acknowledging and validating what yours is. What I have found in dealing with someone that's really challenging is I changed the steps around. What I do is I always start with that first step. I always start. With being able to say. What's the issue? What's the problem? Then I quite often will go to this third level and say I need to be onest about the fact that I know I am contributing to this. And I will share part of my contribution. But if I share part of how I'm contributi

ng, it's a lot easier to say. What would you say your contributing? How can we work this through? But if you go problem and then immediately say, what are you contributing to it, then they're going to get defensive. So again, being able to say. Let's look at this. We're both contributing. Let me upfront share a couple things I know I'm contributing. What would you share? Then you have a chance that you're both owning your part. In the challenge. So again, I find that I've worked with this a lot

and one example I would just give. On this is that I remember I was having so much trouble with the boss in an organization. And I decided that I finally had no choice to fix it, but the only way I could really fix it because I had tried with my boss wasn't working. So I went to his boss. Now this was a high risk. And this organization. So I did it on a Friday. I did it on a Friday. And, so if I ended up, I had, I had to admit that if I might lose my job over this one, I'd rather lose it on a Fr

iday. And this person that was his boss had been a negotiator with unions, so he's really tough. And I went in and I said, I'd like to share with you how I see the problem that I'm having. With my boss, but I want to acknowledge. What my believe my contribution is. And I went through several bullet points of how I knew I was contributing. But I said it's not just me. I'd like to also summarize my perception of his contribution. And this whole thing took about 10 min and I had been awake all nigh

t trying to think about how to do it. Anyway, so then he didn't say anything right away, which really scared me. And then he said, that was actually well done. I like your approach. And the reality is I'm changing your boss's job on Monday. So see, you wouldn't have had to do it. You wouldn't have had to say anything. But I know I gained his respect, which paid off in the future. But it taught me that by being open up front about what part of my contribution was, then somewhat people are more wi

lling to contribute what their contribution is or they're more willing to listen to you. So with that, that kind of ends my presentation. And I again, I know we've lost a little bit of time. With some of the technical issues. The mystery of the Zoom calls. So with that, I will turn it over to Shanta and be sure to see what questions you have. Again, I'm sorry for the technical. It looks like there's some things that have come through in the chat. Yes, no problem at all. We're all here for your p

resentation and it was very insightful with all of your tips that you had for us, which it's a, like you said, it's we deal with difficult situations and we usually have tips to get through them. Not before, and I want to just say, I don't mean to interrupt you, Shanta, but I want to say I want to really thank the staff at the U for helping me with the technical. I know I haven't had trouble like that in classes, but who knows what's going on. It may, it's not a full moon, I don't think, but I a

ppreciate the support from the staff. So, okay, so what questions? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So our first question here is what recommendations do you have for dealing with difficult person when there is a power imbalance in the relationship? Especially when they're in a higher power position. Well, a very first statement would be carefully very carefully. I think one of the things and I've certainly encountered that in the past. Sometimes. You need to consider bringing another person into it. Sometimes

what I've also done is knowing somebody on that person same level. That I trust. I have gone to them to say I'm having trouble working this out. What suggestions would you have? And again, I want this to work. This person's respect is important. I don't know what to do. So sometimes I'll get suggestions from them because I understood the politics, but I have to tell you I wasn't always very good at it. So that could be helpful to me. And the other thing is sometimes that person at that higher l

evel. The peer of the person I'm having trouble with would actually find a way to help me. So again it's being can I handle this on my own? Do I need help on this? If it's not my boss, can my boss help? If it is my boss who's on my boss's peer level that I could get some help from. So, or sometimes then having to bring in a third person to resolve it because it's important to resolve it because it's not that's the magical thinking isn't going to work, it's not going to go away. Yes. Thank you. A

nd our next question is, How would you handle a situation where you are interrupted? To get someone's attention and they continue to talk over you without acknowledging your attempt to get their attention. You know, there's a term. That was used. I'm trying to think exactly what it was that's really a put down. Where the person is treating you as a non-person. They're treating you as if you're invisible. That's really tough because I think sometimes you have to increase your volume to do it. Som

etimes you have to non verbally try and engage some support from someone else in the room. It depends on who who's doing it and whether someone has the courage to speak up. Sometimes you just have to let them go because they're not. They're not going to listen. And it actually over time makes them look worse than you, but, it's not, I would. Say you can try to interrupt him, but some people get on a roll. And I do think it has a backlash to them, so you just have to say, I tried. If somebody els

e won't intervene. Then you have to find a way to come back at it later and perhaps talk with them outside the meeting to ask what's going on because you don't want it to happen again in the future. Okay, wonderful. So I think this is valid for folks that are in Minnesota. What is the most effective approach to address passive aggressive behaviors also known as Minnesota Nice? But I don't know. I kind of laugh at the Minnesota Nice. I have I mean, I understand it. I've lived here for a long time

. I'm from the West originally where people are a long time. I'm from the West originally where people are a little bit more open. Part of it, I think the passive aggressive, the most important thing is to be able to say to them, I'm confused on where you're coming from. You know, at one point you're quiet on another you're coming on pretty strong I really want and you go from assertive respectful what's the issue here? What do you want or need from me? I think that's a really powerful question.

When someone is coming at you is to be able to stop him and say, I'm confused. I'm not sure what you want or need from me at the moment. So if you could elaborate on that, that would help. But you're trying to pull them from either the passive or the aggressive to the assertive position. And I think all of us remember, I can't remember the name of it, I'm just blanking on the name of the book now, but it's like to go from parent child to adult adult. It's like assertive to assertive and how can

you help guide them to that? Great. I think we can all use that on that help. So our next question is, how do you deal with and validate a Chronic complainer when they're complaining is happening at an inappropriate time such as in a meeting Well, part of it is to be able to ask. If others have the same issue. So you're taking an attention away from just that person and saying, this sounds like it's an important issue. How would the rest of you look at it? So you're kind of taking the spotlight

off of them. People, again, are they complaining because they want action? Are they complaining because they feel like no one's really listening to them. What's going on? The other thing, what I used to do when people had a lot of concerns or were into chronic complaining, I actually would sometimes, there's a lot going on in the organization, I would start a meeting and say there's 10 min. Of wine time. And I would have them go around and say, what was really bugging them. And I would keep tra

ck of that. And at the end of that round robin, I would say, let me tell you some of the things on this list that I can do something about. I can tell you some of these things on this list. We're just going to have to live with because it's outside our control and we actually don't have the ability to influence. But there's a way of trying to take it out, take the emotion out and say let's look at you're bringing up something that's important to you, please state what the issue is. So you're try

ing to pull the emotion out. And later, then later I would say, if you have an issue, I would go to them one and one and say if you have an issue or a concern I would prefer that you bring it up to me before the meeting so I can put it on the agenda. Rather than to bring it up because I felt that the way you presented it last time was not as effective as it could have been. So I would give the feedback to them and ask them to change in the future. Okay, thank you. When you annoy a conversation i

s going off the rails, how can you get back on track? I think sometimes you just have to surface it and say looks like this is really conversation is really kind of not working at the moment. I think we both need to step back and come back to this. I've known people in meetings where all of a sudden you get some participants really going after each other and someone will say, we now need a five-minute break. So you break the pattern. So you're buying time because you just acknowledged, look, we'

ve just escalated this in the last few minutes and I think we need to step back from it and come back and deal with it when we're both calmer. Wonderful. Let me just get one more here. Okay, so we have a question about generational. Difficulty. Would you, when you comment on if these techniques work better with adults compared to younger people, sometimes only in my experience it could be challenging to get used to open up even using open-ended questions. Well, I used to teach at class on genera

tion, so I'm kind of out of touch a little bit with the newest generation, but I would say one of the insights I had from teaching that class. Was that different generations have different value systems. Different things are important to them. And so it's important to try and understand where that person's coming from and then adapt your behavior to fit what's important to them. Because I find that a lot of times with the generation that I'm from, I sometimes have trouble identifying with the ap

proach of people that are younger, but that doesn't mean that their concern isn't valid. It's up to me to collect information to understand where they're coming from, not to try and force my generational perspective. One of the things that a quick example that I could give here is that work ethic and how it was defined used to be a major, major issue. And a lot of times the younger generation would say, I don't take lunch breaks. I don't take coffee breaks. Don't measure me on hours worked. Meas

ure me on output. Am I getting the task done? So again, it's requiring you to change your perspective a little when you were in environment, your generation was focused on how many hours are you working and you work extra time, they said, no, go to output. We are getting towards the end of the presentation, so Paul, I will actually just have you go, to the next slide, please, and I'll just wrap it up here. So I apologize if I was on able to get to your question. If you'd like to send your questi

on to Marilyn, I know you have a lot. This is a great topic for that. Please email ccapsinfo@umn.edu and we can pass that along to Marilyn. And hopefully get back to you with an answer for that. So did you know that the University of Minnesota's College of Continuing and Professional Studies now offers flexible workforce development solution designed to equip employees with targeted knowledge and skills your organization needs. Our program includes industry driven bachelors and masters programs

along with 12 non-credit certificates and over 80 individual courses. If you or someone in your organization would like to learn more, we welcome you to schedule a consultation with our business development representative Beth Lory. There's also a QR code there if you'd like to scan that if you're interested in that. Paul, next slide please. And as I mentioned earlier, we will send a link to the webinar recording within a week of today's webinar. The recording will be posted to our CCAPS webinar

archive as well as our CCAPS YouTube page. We also welcome feedback. So please use the core QR code listed to provide any suggestions for future production. And for our University of Minnesota employees, there is a link there if you'd like to receive well-being points for listening to our webinars. And otherwise, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you again, Marilyn. Have a wonderful afternoon and thank you again for joining us today.