How to Communicate with Difficult People: Don’t Take the Bait
Written By WIN Coach and WIN Summit Speaker, Katherine Gentile
It really is just the worst feeling. That dreaded moment - an interaction with someone goes sour. It is something we have all felt. Whether this negative experience is with a family member (our favorite uncle at Thanksgiving) a colleague or boss (Miranda Priestly, from The Devil Wears Prada), or your sweet little toddler, we have all suffered the consequences of going head to head with a fighter. Most of the time these interactions don’t end well. If we are lucky we settle for an impasse or an unhealthy and uncomfortable compromise. Even worse, if the interaction escalates, the relationship can end.
On that happy note, I am here to offer you some solutions and strategies that can help you manage these negative interactions as best you can. Many times a difficult person just wants to get the job or negotiation over with so they attempt to take away your voice, manipulate and confuse you, and worst of all overpower you.
My first (and I think most important) strategy when someone triggers you is:
TAKE A PAUSE, DON’T TAKE THE BAIT!
What do I mean by this?
Take a pause. Your best line of defense against a difficult person is most definitely not your being willing to engage in destructive behavior. Once you go on the crazy ride with this person there is rarely any turning back. Think of a toddler. These poor little loves want to have a specific toy that doesn’t belong to her, you give her a healthy “no”. And she starts screaming inexplicably. If you engage and match this negative behavior, all you are adding to the relationship is that you are not capable of managing your emotions.
Why does the child respond this way? Toddlers have the best excuse, and it’s not because they are cute. It is because they have not been given the emotional vocabulary to express themselves. Additionally, their developing language skills limit them from expressing themselves appropriately.
As adults, we mimic this “toddler-like” process. We get triggered and immediately think that we are being threatened by you, your behavior, or just your very presence. We too, in this moment, don’t have the ability to communicate. Our heightened emotions make us physiologically incapable of doing so. Whether a difficult person’s tactics are to intimidate, gaslight, cause confusion, or infuriate, in this moment the best thing you can do is not react and match this negative behavior. This is by far the most difficult strategy to apply to your interactions.
Why is not engaging so difficult? Because engaging, raging, confronting, and exploding is actually an easier and less efficient way of processing emotions. We can thank our amygdala for that. Our amygdala is that pesky yet important portion of our brain that allows us to perceive threats and act irrationally. It is a faster and more efficient way of processing our emotions. However, it is sloppy and prevents us from taking in crucial information that could help us deescalate interpersonal tension.
Not taking the bait will also help you in this circumstance. You are now able to see the negative behavior and tactics for what they are. If you don’t allow yourself to accept insults from another party, and let them cause anxiety, then you have won the battle already.
One of my former students just benefitted from not “taking the bait”. She works in a high-stress environment with extremely demanding clients. Luckily for her, the office atmosphere is a constructive and supportive one. However, once a demanding client gets on the phone, my student would easily get thwarted and intimidated by the demanding needs of her clients. The needs of her clients were communicated as threats and insults. She then would either lash out at her team or hold all of her emotions inside and not delegate any responsibility, for fear of the task not being done the right way.
After discussing this dynamic I told her about the need to press the pause button and not take the bait in these situations. Once we dove in deeper and realized that her natural emotional response was to absorb this stress and let the other person put her in a panic, thereby creating panic within her team at work, we were able to modify her response to the behavior.
Realizing that this was not a healthy experience for her we decided to figure out a new way of responding to this negative behavior. I started by asking her how it made her feel when she was attacked verbally. The words humiliated, antagonized, and frustrated came to mind. By pressing the pause button we understand that these emotions, while valid, do not serve us in this situation. Instead, these emotions create a chain of negative behavior that has an impact on her team, and most importantly, herself.
As an alternative to my student focusing on her emotions and how badly she feels during these interactions, I told her to put her focus on her client. Know that her client’s negative behavior is more of an indication that something is wrong. I then told her to ask questions about what is going on at work with her client, and why the needs that they had were so important and necessary. These simple questions had a tremendous impact on their relationship. So much so that they transformed their interactions from that point forward. It was revealed to my student that her client was also working in a stressful environment and the demands of her superiors continuously caused her to panic.
After addressing these issues they came up with an understanding and they redefined how they would address important matters in the future.
Now, this is not easily done. It takes a tremendous amount of emotional discipline to not let a difficult person trigger you. They have been conditioned to do so. It is how they know they can get their way. By taking the focus off of yourself and onto the difficult person, you take away the power they are trying to exert over you. Even more, by showing them compassion and the desire to understand their motives, you give them the opportunity to work with you in a productive way.
I have many more examples, tips and strategies at my upcoming workshop at WIN SUMMIT June 1st 2022.
Deep-dive into strategies that will help you negotiate with difficult people
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More About The Author
Katherine Gentile
Lecturer at Columbia University, and WIN Coach
Katherine Gentile specializes in teaching and lecturing on conflict resolution, mediation, negotiation and communication. Currently, she teaches the course Introduction to Negotiation at the School of Professional Studies at Columbia University. She has worked as a Lecturer at the Master of Science in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution Program at Columbia University. Katherine works as a guest lecturer and consultant providing interactive workshops and in-house training sessions on negotiation, mediation, conflict resolution, emotional intelligence, and effective communication.
Katherine Gentile holds an MS in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution from
