Shortcut: 4 Ways to Talk to Difficult People

Do you feel angry or helpless when facing difficult people? Is there someone in your life who always pushes your buttons or makes the simplest interactions feel like pulling teeth? Whether you’re dealing with rude customers, a boorish coworker, or an ornery in-law, difficult people are a fact of life. This article provides four practical strategies experts and popular authors recommend to help you navigate challenging conversations without losing your cool.

1: Start Off on the Right Foot

In Difficult Conversations, Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen emphasize how important it is to start your conversation in the right way. Know your purpose—and make sure your goal is not merely to vent or assign blame. Think of an actionable outcome to work toward, such as avoiding conflicts in the future or helping someone understand why their actions hurt you.

Importantly, don’t open your discussion by judging the other person’s character, and don’t assume their intent. You can’t know what drove them to behave as they did, and if you imply that they’re lazy or inconsiderate, they’ll become defensive and your conversation will derail.

Instead, ask open-ended questions to get them to explain their point of view. Be curious: How do they interpret the situation? How do they view your contributions? What, in their minds, would improve the situation? The better you understand their perspective, the less accusatory you’ll be, and the more room they’ll have to work with you to find a workable solution.

2. Don’t Return Insults

If the other person throws an insult at you, resist the urge to respond in kind. George Thompson advises in Verbal Judo: Acknowledge the other person’s insults but don’t address their specifics. Instead, say something like, “I hear you, and I have an idea about how we can get this resolved for you.” Then, move the conversation along: Restate their complaint to be sure you’ve understood it, and ask them to clarify their thoughts. For example, you might say, “So, you feel I don’t appreciate you because you’ve had to plan our recent get-togethers, right?" Putting their concern into your own words shows them you care enough to understand how they’re feeling.

3: Use Humor

Sometimes, a disagreeable person won’t respond well to a calm, direct approach, but instead will keep lobbing insults and expressing anger. In these situations, humor can help. As Robert Sutton explains in The Asshole Survival Guide, humor allows you to hit back at their behavior with your own insults while still being socially acceptable.

For example, if you’re working with a bully on a project and she starts changing your work without your permission, you could confront her by saying, in front of your manager and team, “Hey, I noticed you’ve been very interested in my work lately, changing and deleting it. I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I have a secret weapon: version history.” This approach maintains levity while exposing her bad behavior.

Be careful with this tactic, though—a difficult person may want to get back at you if they feel you’ve humiliated them. You don’t want to get caught in a cycle of mudslinging, however “good- natured” you try to make it seem.

4. Use Your Body to Control the Vibe

Using nonverbal communication can be a powerful way to establish the emotional energy of your interaction, which can encourage the other person to respond to you in a more positive way. In Powerful Phrases for Dealing With Difficult People, Renée Evanson advises that you communicate through nonverbal signals that you’re calm, empathetic, and confident. When you project calmness and empathy, the other person is less likely to get defensive, and when you project confidence, they’re more likely to respect your desires.

Use your body to send these signals. Sit or stand upright—while also remaining loose and relaxed. Keep a kind and caring facial expression, even if you don’t actually feel those emotions. Maintain strong eye contact (but not so strong that the other person feels uncomfortable), and speak quietly and slowly rather than forcefully.

The Bottom Line

Overall, the key to successfully dealing with difficult people is keeping your own emotions in check—this will prevent your conversation from devolving into an angry diatribe that solves nothing and leads to more problems. Experts also advise that you try to see a sticky situation from the other person’s point of view; when you can better understand why they acted as they did, you can more easily figure out what they need from you to resolve your disagreement.

Read the Full Guides

Shortform note: Read the full Shortform guides mentioned in this article here (Image: Vitaly Gariev):

• Difficult Conversations
• Verbal Judo
• The Asshole Survival Guide
• Powerful Phrases for Dealing With Difficult People

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