Difficult People or Situations

Course Description:

Most organisations recognise the value of taking a whole-person view of their staff. They realise that what happens to people outside work can have a profound impact on how they perform at work. Stress can be a difficult burden to carry, and without the opportunity to discuss pressures and to resolve situations, we sometimes just carry on until we reach breaking point. At this point it may be too late. You must be able to deal effectively and appropriately with your staff and their problems, so the techniques should be an essential part of your toolkit of management skills. People can be very difficult and the issues are not always easy to define or quantify with so many intangibles like emotions, feelings, perceptions and values getting in the way. Many managers find it difficult to deal with difficult people and situations that involve both work and personal problems. This course will help you to analyse common problems and discover the techniques needed to deal with them effectively such that you build them into your management skill set.

The course will benefit all those who encounter difficult people and situations on a daily basis.

By the end of this course delegates will be able to:

• Develop effective communication skills.
• Practice Active Listening.
• Recognise the impact of perceptions.
• Influence people and negotiate successfully.
• Explore Transactional Analysis and develop more Assertive Behaviour.
• Identify difficult people and manage them more effectively.
• Explore and resolve difficult situations in the work place; conflict, change, demanding workloads and managers, high stress levels.

This course includes the following modules:

Perceptions and Communication

• The communication cycle
• Barriers to effective communication
• Active listening
• Perceptions and the Johari Window
• Body language

Transactional Analysis and Assertiveness

• An introduction to Transactional Analysis
• Exploring the effect of stimulus and response
• The importance of an assertive stance

Influence and Negotiation

• How to influence
• The power of negotiation

Recognise difficult people

• Recognising types of difficult people
• Strategies for managing difficult people

Difficult situations in the work place

• Conflict and the causes of conflict
• Managing conflict
• Understanding change as a constant
• The causes of stress and how to manage
• Difficult people in the workplace - understanding and controlling insensitive managers and colleagues