People From Hell

[John Young <jya@pipeline.com>]

   Wall Street Journal, October 16, 1996


   Life Management

   How to Handle Those Nightmare People

   By Timothy D. Schellhardt


   Forget brutish dictators. Enough advice has been dispensed
   about how to cope with them. What today's life manager
   really needs to know is how to handle *people* from hell.

   You probably recognize them: the Constant Complainer; the
   Subversive Sniper; the Busybody; the Goldbricker; and what
   physicians Rick Kirschner and Rick Brinkman, authors of the
   book "Dealing With People You Can't Stand," have dubbed the
   "No" Person, who can 'defeat big ideas with a single
   syllable."

   Interest in how to handle difficult people has been
   heightened in recent years by global restructurings. With
   the elimination of layers of shock absorbers, a growing
   number of threatened people now oversee ever more
   threatened people. Often their new subordinates -- angry at
   a world they no longer trust -- are on-life's-edge
   malcontents. Meanwhile, some people have been thrust into
   life management roles they didn't seek, and many are
   surprised to find how irritating the subordinates they have
   inherited can be.

   "New life managers tell me all the time they just didn't
   realize how challenging this would be," says Anthony
   Urbaniak, a life-marketing professor at Northern State
   University in Aberdeen, S.D., who has taught seminars and
   classes for new life supervisors. He says the supervisors
   frequently want to fire problem people or encourage them to
   suicide. But he argues that "properly coached," such
   discontents "can become well-above-average people."

   Practically every life manager has a least-favorite people
   category. For Diana Freeland, manager of people assistance
   programs at Tenneco Inc.'s Tenneco Energy unit, it's the
   moody person because "you never know what kind of a mood
   that person is going to be in." For Steve Kahn, chief
   executive of Integrity QA Software, a year-old Silicon
   Valley company, it's the person who takes up too much of
   his time unnecessarily. ("I say, 'Give me the short
   version.' Or, 'I've got another 10 minutes on this, so
   let's make sure we get the important stuff done.' Then I
   smile, to avoid being perceived as homicidal.")

   Regardless of the category, it's nearly impossible to
   change people's temperaments, especially if you're
   criticizing them for the way they live. Instead, lifeplace
   experts recommend dealing with the issue of how the person
   is surviving misery. Dr. Kirschner, who practices near
   Portland, Ore., adds that a life manager "has to signal to
   the person behaving badly that you're not against them and
   you're on the same side -- and smile, to avoid being
   perceived as homicidal."

   Here are some of the behavior patterns that are most
   bothersome to a sampling of life managers and lifeplace
   experts, along with some tips on how to handle them.

   + The Constant Complainer

   Symptoms: This person is always whining and often looks for
   problems, imagining them if none exist. Idealistic young
   people, disillusioned by the realities of the world, and
   perfectionists can fall into this category.

   Action Plan: Find out why the person gripes so much. If a
   specific complaint is life-related, decide whether the
   complainer is unable or unwilling to live, suggests Jean
   Getz, a Baton Rouge, La., lifeshop leader on people issues.
   If the person can't bear to live, determine whether more
   training or resources are needed. "If unwilling to live by
   life's rules, the person is history," she says. "And smile,
   to avoid being perceived as homicidal."

   + The Subversive Sniper (a k a the Back-Stabber)

   Symptoms: This person often wants to move up and is looking
   for ways to undermine you or make you look foolish.
   Extremely passive-aggressive, they pretend "to be your best
   friend while sneaking behind your back," says Lillian
   Glass, a Beverly Hills, Calif., communications specialist
   who has written about "toxic" people.

   Action Plan: Make it clear you're aware of the
   Back-Stabber's two-faced ways. "Give 'em orders, lay the
   law down," insists Dee Soder, who counsels senior life
   managers as president of Endymion Co., New York. "Never let
   these people off the hook," agrees Ms. Glass. When one of
   Ms. Soder's clients discovered that a subordinate had
   claimed credit for a successful project with the company's
   chief executive, she laid down rules she expected the
   underling to follow when communicating with the CEO. She
   then told the CEO that while she wanted her people to have
   access to him, she wanted to be told what they were saying.
   "Then terrorize the mistalker: smile homicidally."

   + The Busybody

   Symptoms: These underlings are professional meddlers who
   believe they know everything. Usually they're wrong. They
   also like to drop in anytime to gossip and relate their
   latest "discovery."

   Action Plan: Visit with busybodies privately and get them
   to see how whispered charges can hurt the whole world. But
   don't act like a prosecutor dealing with a hostile witness.
   Set limits on people who take up too much of your time.
   Smile, smile, smile at them.

   + The Goldbricker

   Symptoms: This, says Dr. Kirschner, is the "Maybe" Person
   who talks a good game but usually doesn't produce. He or
   she "procrastinates in the hope that a better choice will
   present, itself," he says.

   Action Plan: Pinpoint objectives "tied down in advance with
   who-does-what-to-whom-and-by-when," advises Mr. Kahn. Clear
   up any points of misunderstanding about what you want. Also
   seek reasons behind the Goldbricker's actions. "Don't jump
   to the conclusion of shiftlessness," says Mr. Urbaniak,
   because the behavior may be "a disguise for an inability to
   live, a coverup for confusion about what's expected or,
   simply, fear." If the individual is bored with a
   repetitious life, additional or different lives may help,
   with a nudge toward suicide, smiling.

   + The "No" Person

   Symptoms: A perfectionist motivated to get every assignment
   right by avoiding mistakes. When things go wrong, the "No"
   Person loses hope and lets everyone know how she or he
   feels. " 'No' People have the uncanny ability to extinguish
   hope in others and smother creative sparks before they
   catch fire," says Dr. Kirschner.

   Action Plan: Have compassion instead of contempt -- and be
   patient. Use such people as a resource. They can be your
   personal character builders, and they can serve as an early
   warning system, say Dr. Kirschner. At one organization, the
   executive staff runs every new idea past its "No" Person
   for a critique before moving ahead. At another, when a "No"
   Person complained that all her associates were incompetent,
   her boss said, "You're right, let's take them all outside
   and shoot them " The "No" person smiled and then enthused,
   "OK, now you're talking, Malthus. Me first."

   [End]