The latest advice on dealing with difficult people

Hara Estroff Marano’s article in this month’s Psychology Today, called “The High Art of Handling Problem People”, acknowledges that dealing with difficult people is a special skill—and one that is becoming increasingly necessary in both professional and personal life.  
           Because difficult people come in a variety of forms, much of the article is devoted to describing the different modus operandi of individuals who are either hostile, rejection-sensitive, neurotic, or egoic.  Yet the author points out certain threads that are common to difficult interactions:
"Ever wonder how an encounter goes so quickly awry? Doubt your own perceptions? Feel thrown totally off balance by another person? Find yourself acting crazy when you're really a very nice person? Manipulation comes in many forms: There are whiners. There are bullies. There are the short-fused. Not to forget the highly judgmental. Or the out-and-out sociopath. But they often have one thing in common: Their MO is to provoke, then make you feel you have no reason to react—and it's all your fault to begin with! Feeling deeply discounted, even totally powerless, while having to jettison the original aim of an interaction is a distressing double whammy of social life—and a cardinal sign you're dealing with a difficult person. No, it's not you. It's them. And it's the emotional equivalent of being mowed down by a hit-and-run driver."

             As a self-help tool, the author recommends you stay composed in the face of unreasonableness to enable you to figure out exactly what species of difficulty you're facing before attempting to deal with it.  Further practical advice includes a list of “7 Ways to Defuse a Difficult Encounter” by Vancouver physician and PT blogger Susan Biali.  Is anything crucial missing from the list?

 http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201204/the-high-art-handling-problem-people

Canadian economy logs best job-creation month since recession

     Following months of stagnant or falling employment, Canada's economy just logged its biggest surge in jobs since before the last recession — adding 82,300 workers to the labour force in March 2012—or six times more than the previous seven months combined.  This unexpectedly strong employment report last week from Statistics Canada overturned a few prior months of modest employment reversals and was our biggest monthly jump since September 2008, just before the global recession.  The new jobs were broadly spread through multiple industries and even included modest gains in manufacturing and construction, two industries that have suffered recent set-backs.
     Bank of Montreal deputy chief economist Douglas Porter warned Canadians not to expect the same dramatic job gains going forward, noting that the unusually warm weather last month might have pushed forward some seasonal work.  The public sector's March gain of 21,000 workers also seems unusual, when both the federal and Ontario governments introduced budgets last week with spending restraints on the numbers or wages of public servants.  Yet Porter affirmed that the March employment gain "really does show that the job market has broken out of its funk."
     Still more good news:  the Bank of Canada’s quarterly survey of senior management from 100 representative firms, conducted over four weeks in February and March, found that business optimism in Canada is rising sharply, bringing better expectations for sales, hiring, and investment.

http://www.680news.com/news/national/article/348568--economy-has-best-job-creation-month-since-recession-adds-82-300-workers

http://www.680news.com/business/article/349644--optimism-grows-among-canadian-firms-expectations-for-hiring-positive

New study says women make better bosses

     According to a new study from Spain, employees think women are better bosses than men. 

     Reasons cited include that women managers tend to instigate more individualized employee feedback, more democratic decision-making, and more workplace channels for interpersonal communication.  The study’s author, Eduardo Melero, an economist and business professor at the Universidad Carlos III De Madrid, said in a statement:  “Women managers seem to be more inclined to use these types of practices, individually, as well as promoting them among the rest of the management team.  And as such, a management team with more women could be more effective.”

     Increased communication between management and employees could well yield such important benefits as enabling the company to make more well-informed decisions based on employee feedback and improving morale among staff who will feel their contributions matter more if management listens to their opinions.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/men-vs-women-managers
http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/2241-women-bosses.html

More reasons why sales is a potentially lucrative career for introverts

        Following last Tuesday’s post, I grew so fascinated with the potential of introverts to excel at sales that I did some more digging. My research turned up several more key strengths that could contribute to their sales ability, including superior composure and self-control, as well as excellence in building long-term relationships. Evidently, it might also help if the introvert possesses a strong belief in the value of the product or service s/he is selling. 
http://saleshq.monster.com/sales_careers/articles/98-an-introvert-in-sales

Why should you consider hiring introverts for sales jobs?

        Yesterday New-York-City-area sales trainer Paul Castain started another interesting LinkedIn discussion with the question: “Is sales an extrovert's profession or can an introvert do quite nicely too?” Comments thus far have emphasized the advantages that introverts bring to sales, including better listening skills, better at focusing attention on the prospect and asking questions, and better at handling disappointment. What seems to be emerging is a useful shopping list for hiring sales staff.

http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestionAndAnswers=&discussionID=93464804&gid=1832739&commentID=67512626&trk=view_disc&ut=3KDYMZNuruUB41

Employers are hiring more for attitude, rely more on networking & staff referrals

        Recently Mark Murphy, an American researcher, leadership trainer, and author of Hiring for Attitude (among other books), discussed why many new hires fail quickly, why soft skills are so important now, and how the hiring landscape is changing.
        His research tracking 20,000 new hires found that 46 percent of them failed within 18 months. It also determined that, when new hires failed, 89 percent of the time it was for attitudinal reasons and only 11 percent of the time for lack of skill. The attitudinal reasons included lack of coachability, incompatible temperament, and low levels of emotional intelligence and motivation.
        Murphy comments:  “It’s not that technical skills aren’t important, but they’re much easier to assess (that’s why attitude, not skills, is the top predictor of a new hire’s success or failure). Virtually every job (from neurosurgeon to engineer to cashier) has tests that can assess technical proficiency. But what those tests don’t assess is attitude; whether a candidate is motivated to learn new skills, think innovatively, cope with failure, assimilate feedback and coaching, collaborate with teammates, and so forth.

        “Soft skills are the capabilities that attitude can enhance or undermine. For example, a newly hired executive may have the intelligence, business experience and financial acumen to fit well in a new role. But if that same executive has an authoritarian, hard-driving style, and they’re being hired into a social culture where happiness and camaraderie are paramount, that combination is unlikely to work. Additionally, many training programs have demonstrated success with increasing and improving skills—especially on the technical side. But these same programs are notoriously weak when it comes to creating attitudinal change.”
        Murphy’s findings coincide with many of my own ideas about the importance of soft skills and the need to pinpoint these elusive but all-important qualities in job candidates.  For example see:  Getting a grip on mission-critical “soft” skills:  5 simple steps http://www.printlink.com/resources_insight054.php
or Assessing Job Candidates Beyond the Technical Skills
http://www.printlink.com/resources_insight051.php

        Murphy predicts that, when hiring, employers will place an increasing emphasis on attitude in 2012 and beyond:  “Between the labor pool from China and India and the fact that there are so many workers sitting out there unemployed, we can find the skills we need. The lack of sharp wage increases in most job categories is further evidence of the abundant supply of skills. Technical proficiency, once a guarantee of lifetime employment, is a commodity in today’s job market. Attitude is what today’s companies are hiring for."
        He also says companies are finding their best people through employee referrals and networking rather than the regular channels. “They have started to realize that the high performers they already have fit the attitude they want and that these are the people they should be asking to help find more people just like them.”
        Forbes blogger Dan Schawbel adds:  “Given that data, it seems like candidates should be networking in every way possible—including social networking.” 
http://www.linkedin.com/newsactionBar=&articleID=5567224830140354576&ids=djwQcjgUczAQcPoQejsRdPoRdiMTcPATejgUc3kUc3oPczkTdzkRb3gTcjgOdPkUe3gRdzcRejkSdjkIdzsRd3kPc3gNc3cUd38OdPoRdiMSd3kMej4RdPsMe3AOdjoTdzkR&aag=true&freq=weekly&trk=eml-tod2-b-ttl-1&ut=2CEy-Xc8GKDB41

Growing problem of workplace rudeness exacts hefty economic toll

A recent survey by Robert Half International, the world's largest specialized staffing firm, asked employees to recount the "worst or wackiest" episodes of rudeness they've witnessed colleagues commit in the workplace. Respondents reported a long list of atrocities, everything from office temper tantrums, to texting or answering cell-phone calls during meetings, to grooming in public, to stealing food from the communal fridge.

Although workplace incivility is an under-reported problem, it’s on the rise, according to Lew Bayer, president and CEO of Civility Experts Worldwide of Winnipeg, Manitoba, who comments:  “Many of us have become so accustomed to it, in fact, that boorish behaviour in the workplace goes by unnoticed, or doesn't even seem that rude any more.”

"Our research shows that people are so tired and busy and stressed that they're picking their battles when it comes to rudeness," says Bayer. "They might not say anything about sloppy dress or bad breath, but take a stand about rudeness that shows disrespect for time or for property -- wasting paper, keeping people waiting, spending 40 minutes in a meeting that should've taken 15, borrowing things without asking, returning items in a state of disrepair, using someone else's intellectual property."

In their book The Cost of Bad Behavior: How Incivility Is Damaging Your Business and What To Do About It (2009), American business professors Christine Pearson and Christine Porath say the problem of workplace incivility has been compounded by North America’s increasing tolerance of rude behaviour.  A decade of research led them to conclude that petty incidences of workplace rudeness are exacting a "staggering economic toll," but that few business leaders know how to tackle the problem.  They write that people who experienced incivility "intentionally lowered their productivity, cut back work hours, lost respect for their bosses, put in minimal acceptable effort, and sometimes even left their jobs -- all because of disrespectful words or deeds."

Their book cites a 2005 Gallup poll in which 95 percent of American workers reported experiencing incivility from co-workers.  And although Canadians enjoy a global reputation for superior politeness, Pearson and Porath found that the bad workplace manners reported by Canadians were even worse:  fully 99 percent of white-collar Canuck employees said they had witnessed incivility at work. One in four reported being exposed to it daily.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/miss--manners-134657433.html