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I want you to think of a time when maybe
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you were interacting with somebody who
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you felt was difficult as you're sitting
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there and you're talking to them maybe
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getting into an argument
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maybe the tensions are starting to rise
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if you can feel your palms starting to
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sweat you can feel your breath starting
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to get shorter you can feel yourself
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getting angry and at some point in time
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in that conversation you decide I've had
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enough of this it's time for me to walk
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away you walk out you get about five
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steps this way and it hits you and
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you're like oh I should have said this I
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would have totally got them that is a
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product of our brains when we meet
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somebody maybe for the first time and we
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shake their hands we say hello how are
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you my name is Jay nice to meet you and
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something in the back of your mind is
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already hitting you and going I'm not
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gonna like this person well if you've
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experienced that trust me you're not
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alone our brain is designed for survival
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what Daniel Goleman calls the low road
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is something where we look at others
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call it the limbic system our fear
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regulation our fight-or-flight response
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when we deal with difficult people
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ultimately what we're doing is trying to
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get past that response it's a natural
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response that we have in fact it's an
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important response it is the response
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that stress comes into the body so we
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see things like adrenaline
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norepinephrine cortisol flood the system
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when we're engaged with those difficult
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people we're in a heightened state of
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anxiety during that and our other
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systems start to shut down we don't
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think rationally our metabolism slows we
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can even get acne from having too much
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stress hormones put into the body is
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that a way that we want to live our
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lives conflict in the workplace between
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difficult people are not difficult
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people has serious impacts and
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ultimately what it does is it causes
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turnover absenteeism it can even cause
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projects to fail
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so what can we do about that
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we can't change other people's behavior
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I can't make somebody behave in a way
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that I want them to so I guess maybe we
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need to look at a different framework of
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operating from internal when we look at
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people one of the ways that we can start
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changing this conversation with
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ourselves is to look at how we label
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them so we label somebody difficult or a
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pain in the you-know-what we also have
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these archetypes that we tend to create
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so for example one of the people you
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might encounter them in the office place
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you walk in to have a conversation with
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them and they won't lift their head up
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they're just sitting there they're
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texting they're playing under computer
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and they're not paying any attention to
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you that's the archetype of the not
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listener we have other art types such as
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the one-upper if you've ever been I had
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a party and you tell a story and then
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what happens somebody has to tell a
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better story or you go and get a new
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dress and somebody has to get a better
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dress or something of that nature
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anything that's always the one-up
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archetype how about the gossip er the
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person that walks around and it gossip
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all about different people in the office
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place it almost just to stir up trouble
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what about the curmudgeon the person
00:03:31
that's been there and done that and
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remembers the glory days of everything
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that's right or wrong with your
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organization now part of my framework is
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behavior and I can guarantee you that at
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some point in time when I was talking
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about those archetypes you put a name
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and a face with each one of those
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individuals yeah I see the knots when we
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look at that and we understand that
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those are the different behaviors that
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really impact us individually we know
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that we need to change the simple
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message is this why should we have to
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change ourselves because of somebody
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else's behavior because it's your heart
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attack those stress homework hormones
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are killers it's your heart attack so if
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we can't change other people's behaviors
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the only thing that we can change is our
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own behaviors
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let's look at a unique approach through
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behavioral intelligence behavioral
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intelligence really has four quadrants
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to be able to explain existing behaviors
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predict future behaviors influence other
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people's behaviors and control our own
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behaviors and we'll talk about that in
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the context of difficult people so one
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of the things that we want to look at is
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how do we explain behaviors when we see
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somebody do something that we really
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just don't like and we label them maybe
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they're stubborn well at the same time
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couldn't we see our friend doing that
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and say well they're just headstrong we
00:05:05
see somebody do something that we feel
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like it's aggressive but on the other
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side of things we look at our friend
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that does the exact same behavior and we
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say wow they're dedicated motivated
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passionate even so some of these labels
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start to infiltrate the way that we
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understand the world
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it's a bias that we have so we want to
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look a little bit deeper and ask the
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question of why why did somebody behave
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that way
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is it something inherent is it an
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intrinsic desire that is pushing them to
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behave that way now this is a tough
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question because we're in a heat at the
00:05:41
moment one of the things that we get
00:05:43
really frustrated with is ourselves in
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that moment we don't take the time to
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actually ask we just label and continue
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but again it's your heart attack
00:05:53
it's your organization that's suffering
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so we have to look at this in a
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different way
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asking questions is one of the best ways
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to explain behavior and I'm gonna give
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you an example of a case study one of my
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favorite case studies of when I was
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working with two different divisions in
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a management organization one division
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had manager and I'm gonna rename them
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Bill and Ted to protect the guilty we
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had bill on one side and we had Ted on
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the other and these two could not get
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along in any way shape or form they were
00:06:22
constantly at odds with each other
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causing projects to fail and ultimately
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I was brought in to take a look at this
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and say what behaviors are existing
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that's creating this situation so I had
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Bill and Ted both write out everything
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that they felt about the other person I
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asked them to put ever
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onto paper and then I had them submit
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that to me so I take a look at this I
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review it and as I'm reading through it
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and the value of being an objective
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outside observer is something incredibly
00:06:51
valuable to take yourself out of a
00:06:53
situation is something that you can do
00:06:55
also as I start reading I read bills all
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about Ted and Bill says Ted is
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constantly coming to my office asking
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questions he's bothering me he will
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never leave me alone he's such a
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constant contact okay
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so then I read Ted's and Ted says bill
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just can't be bothered with me my
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manager keeps telling me to go to Bill
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and ask him these questions to find out
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more because all of his experience his
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knowledge his value to the organization
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but he just won't listen he's such a not
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listener so I bring these two people in
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and I put them at the table and I share
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with them each other's perspective and I
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swear it was just like lady in a
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when all of a sudden they looked at each
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other like oh my goodness I had no idea
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that you valued my opinion so much and
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on the other side it was oh my goodness
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I can't believe that that's the way that
00:07:56
I'm coming off in this environment and
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all of a sudden we start to look and
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they were able to answer each other's
00:08:02
narrative that narrative that was hidden
00:08:04
to them because they didn't ask
00:08:05
questions they didn't go to why they
00:08:08
just labeled they labeled them difficult
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once we can explain behaviors then we
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can predict behaviors we can predict
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what's going to happen that'll help to
00:08:18
reduce uncertainty uncertainty is one of
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the things if you've ever gotten a phone
00:08:23
call from a superior saying hey can you
00:08:26
come down to my office immediately what
00:08:29
happens you don't think oh I'm going to
00:08:31
get a raise this is gonna be great
00:08:33
you start thinking yourself what did I
00:08:34
do oh my gosh this could be the worst
00:08:36
that uncertainty creates some of that
00:08:39
anxiety and when we bring that anxiety
00:08:41
into a conversation or into the
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relationship that's gonna be felt by the
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other person
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so by being able to predict those types
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of behaviors it'll actually reduce the
00:08:52
anxiety if you've ever been in a
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situation
00:08:54
where you've said hey listen my friend
00:08:56
is probably going to say X Y or Z don't
00:08:59
be offended by it that's just how they
00:09:02
are that's a fundamental effect of
00:09:04
prediction we can forgive or we can be
00:09:07
prepared so that we were not hit with an
00:09:09
onslaught of anxiety influencing
00:09:12
behaviors we look at this and say how do
00:09:15
we necessarily influence that person
00:09:18
that is a difficult person one is by
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using inclusive language when we talk
00:09:24
about somebody if I say your behavior is
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doing X Y & Z immediately the walls
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going to go up they're going to get
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defensive they're gonna look for the
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ways in which your behavior contributes
00:09:36
to it and fire back and all of a sudden
00:09:38
we're now in an argument and we're in a
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place where we can't necessarily get out
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of that difficulty versus when we start
00:09:49
to talk and use inclusive language like
00:09:50
I noticed that we're having some trouble
00:09:52
communicating here that key word we're
00:09:55
we are having trouble communicating
00:09:57
because communication is a two-way
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street
00:10:01
we should probably take a look at this a
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little bit more effectively and now all
00:10:06
of a sudden is togetherness we're
00:10:08
engaging the other person we're bringing
00:10:10
them together one of the other ways in
00:10:14
which we can actually influence other
00:10:17
people's behavior is reward and
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recognition just like a child that goes
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potty when they're supposed to and where
00:10:24
they're supposed to we give them an M&M
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we never really get beyond that behavior
00:10:28
as adults but when we're at odds or when
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we're working with somebody difficult it
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is very hard for us to think that giving
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them recognition or a reward would be a
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value to us but if they do something
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nice we can reach out to them and say
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hey I thought your report today was
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fantastic and all of a sudden we start
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to move ourselves out of that enemy zone
00:10:51
and into being a friend and let me tell
00:10:54
you it's much more valuable in work or
00:10:57
anywhere else to be a friend because if
00:11:00
people like you they will do business
00:11:02
with you and if they don't like you they
00:11:05
will do whatever they can to usurp your
00:11:08
to be successful so utilizing something
00:11:11
like a recognition or reward scenario is
00:11:14
something that can actually help build
00:11:16
that influence and that report they're
00:11:19
gonna start looking to you as maybe not
00:11:21
necessarily the difficult person I used
00:11:25
to be a difficult person when I talk
00:11:28
about difficulty I'm sure that there is
00:11:31
plenty of people that still find me to
00:11:33
be difficult but the reality is is until
00:11:36
we recognize that each of us are a
00:11:38
difficult person for someone else we're
00:11:42
never going to be able to adjust our
00:11:43
behavior and that's where we get into
00:11:45
control some of the self-awareness
00:11:47
aspects so some of the things that we
00:11:50
can do to control that low-road system
00:11:53
that limbic system that fear that
00:11:55
flight-or-fight response that we have
00:11:57
when we're interacting with somebody who
00:11:59
we find to be difficult is as simple as
00:12:02
we learned in kindergarten first take a
00:12:06
deep breath when we take a deep breath
00:12:09
and out we flood our body with oxygen
00:12:16
now that system that's fight-or-flight
00:12:19
it doesn't know the difference between
00:12:21
you interacting with a difficult person
00:12:22
in a lion chasing you and if a Lions
00:12:25
chasing you are you gonna go no
00:12:30
absolutely not you're gonna run you're
00:12:32
gonna scream so when we take that deep
00:12:36
breath we're literally telling our
00:12:38
system that low-road system everything's
00:12:41
okay look at how we're breathing look at
00:12:44
how we're managing ourselves another way
00:12:46
is to count to ten and that doesn't mean
00:12:48
standing there going one two three four
00:12:50
five six seven eight nine ten I'm still
00:12:52
angry that's probably not going to be
00:12:55
effective in working with that difficult
00:12:57
person but counting to ten is as simple
00:12:59
to say you know what I noticed that both
00:13:02
of us are getting a little passionate
00:13:04
about this why don't we take a small
00:13:05
recess why don't we take a step back and
00:13:08
reset and in come at this with clear
00:13:11
heads and notice again I'm using that
00:13:14
inclusive language the we us together
00:13:17
because together we can solve the
00:13:19
problem
00:13:20
so when we look at that another way that
00:13:23
I love to look at difficult people is to
00:13:26
separate out the person from the
00:13:28
behavior in so many cases we label them
00:13:32
tough to deal with difficult bad but if
00:13:36
we look at it and say I dislike this
00:13:38
behavior that this person this human
00:13:41
exhibits it separates those two things
00:13:44
for us the label is no longer on them
00:13:47
it's on the behavior and then we can
00:13:50
carve that out and say is this the hill
00:13:52
we want to die on is that behavior worth
00:13:55
my heart attack and I would like to
00:13:59
think that the answer to that is no so
00:14:02
with all of the impacts that we see this
00:14:04
model of behavioral intelligence gives
00:14:06
us the opportunity to explain the
00:14:08
existing behaviors to ask those
00:14:10
questions of why to predict future
00:14:13
behaviors to reduce the uncertainty
00:14:15
surrounding those to influence other
00:14:18
people's behavior why because our
00:14:20
relationships matter and if we're not
00:14:22
engaging in those relationships well
00:14:25
guess what they're going to continuously
00:14:27
go down and we see the impact of
00:14:29
conflict in the workplace and on
00:14:31
ourselves and then we can control our
00:14:35
own behavior by being a little bit more
00:14:37
thoughtful and aware of how we are and
00:14:39
again why should we have to do this why
00:14:45
should we be the people that has to
00:14:48
change our behavior to deal with
00:14:49
difficult people ultimately because it's
00:14:53
your heart attack and someone else's bad
00:14:56
behavior should not be the cause of your
00:14:59
heart attack thank you very much
00:15:02
[Applause]
