Recently at a book talk at the Richmond Heights Chamber of Commerce an interesting and informative story came up. One member asked how to deal with a difficult co-worker.
Someone noted that they once worked with a person who took a “cheapshot” every time she saw him, always a nasty, disrespectful one-liner. This was very upsetting, especially when it was in the morning.
The person decided to change the nature of the interaction with this difficult person. Every day on the way to work he thought of some pleasant, respectful comment to use and he wisely moved into the interaction fast, made the comment and departed. Over several weeks the person’s behavior toward him began to change and others in the workplace noticed it. Eventually the two became working colleagues and when the former “difficult person” left for another job she wrote him a two page letter about how fine it was to work with him.
Think about this: What you give is what you get. She lived in a world where everyone she knew either responded in kind or they avoided or fled from her. He modeled a new and more effective way to interact with others. All it took was a plan, some effort and patience. The benefit was that he immediately felt better because he knew he was doing the right thing.
To set up an RSS (really simple syndication) feed to make Managers Into Leaders appear in your email every week:
Go to RSS Feed on the right hand column of this page
Click on RSS-Posts
Subscribe to the feed using your default – click on subscribe
Make sure the drop down window is correct and click
