Robert Gillan

Dealing with Difficult People

I had no idea that so many people had so many difficult people in their lives ! The session was scheduled for twenty people but attracted twice that number. That presented us with an immediate problem with the number of photocopies available. Seldom can any presenter have been blessed with two such angels as Fabiana Parano and Mercedes Moore who took it upon themselves to leave the session in order to drive around Buenos Aires in search of photocopying facilities. That gesture spoke absolute volumes. It spoke volumes about the calibre of human being that was gracing the conference: it spoke volumes about the utter professionalism of the organisers and it spoke volumes about the whole tone of the conference.

The subject of why it is that so many people are so different and why it is that we have such difficulty with certain people is certainly a burning issue. The hope of the session was to point out that we each have a particular set of Working Styles and Personal Styles and these are often at variance with the Styles of our colleagues (or families !!) By understanding our own Styles and those of our colleagues it was to be hoped that we might be able to see our "difficult people" not as threats but as fellow human-beings. We therefore filled in a number of questionnaires designed to identify these Styles. To judge from the response of many of the participants these questionnaires provided a number of very unexpected insights and opened a number of minds as to precisely why it is that we think of people as "difficult."

If we are indeed to learn with confidence and to have confidence in the way that we are then self-knowledge and knowledge about others is an essential ingredient in that confidence. If the participants have left the conference with the ability to see their "difficult people" in a new light, with the ability to see them as human beings, each with their own sets of hopes, fears and aspirations, then the session will have fulfilled its purpose and will have made their environments all the more conducive for learning.