How to work with difficult people
Most of us will find there are people in our lives who just won’t agree with us, no matter how compelling, desirable or practical our argument is. We’ll give you some tips around how to engage with these people which will help with your influence.
Sometimes, you meet someone for the first time and you feel like you have known them for forever. Something just clicks! However when people are unable to create rapport with each other, then communication halts or will have little effect.
Those with a ‘sameness’ Meta-Program will easily build rapport with another person as they sort for similarities in attitudes, values, beliefs and behaviours. While those with a ‘difference’ may find it difficult to build rapport as they think about and express what is different between them.
Matchers will look for what they themselves and others do right. They will support and encourage others towards achieving. While mismatchers will point out what you have not done right and what you have yet to achieve. A mismatcher may express the attitude that nothing the other person does is ever good enough and therefore it will be hard for them to establish a connection.
Interestingly though, when we feel we don’t get heard, we focus on the difficult person instead of turning inward to review, reflect and grow ourselves to gain better outcomes or become more effective communicators. If you’re not up for self-reflection and gaining insight, warning, don’t read any further!
Firstly, I’d like to say a bold statement: ‘The power of our communication sits with us.’ What I mean by this is that we, no-one else, operate our minds and bodies, and therefore we create our own individual views of the world and how we respond to it.
But it’s so much harder to take accountability for our communication so we dump all of this responsibility over at the feet of the other person. This is to do with self-preservation and what social psychologist Fritz Heider refers to as ‘self-serving bias’. The self-serving bias is defined as people's tendency to attribute positive events to their own character but attribute negative events to external factors.
So in the example above, when we don’t get heard, instead of looking at ourselves we look at where we can place the blame on the other person. This is so we can maintain our self-esteem or distort our perception in a favourable manner towards ourselves.
How we see the world is determined by our unconscious filters. We do this by internal representation (within our mind) and this directs our behaviour. It is based on many things and has accumulated over time, through the experiences we have had since early childhood. In Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) terms, these are perceptual filters and are called Meta-Programs. People use these filters to sort and make sense of the world. Meta-Programs are on auto-pilot. Throughout your life the same way of thinking has been repeated over and over again, that eventually it became comfortable and solidified as a state or way of responding. You are probably not even aware that you choose to respond the way you do and it doesn’t just apply to our behaviours, it also applies to our thoughts, feelings, beliefs and attitudes. One Meta-Program is matching or mismatching. Matching for sameness and how things relate, or mismatching for difference and how things don’t relate.
The Matcher:
Tends to initially agree with what you are saying and communication is cohesive
Stays on topic, doesn’t direct or redirect the conversation
Finds similarities in their situation and experiences to yours
Looks for sameness, has a tendance to agree or want to share, to show that they have empathy
Tends to be agreeable and not rock the boat
What are the reasons for this? In part it may have to do with their desire to be liked and respected by people. It could have developed through the accumulation of their cultural capital; education, social or physical appearance, or something they learned from their youth or family life. It may even be influenced the wider community culture. It all relates to how they’ve trained their brain to work.
The Mismatcher:
Finds (indeed, looks for) ways in which your argument is flawed
Responds with an exception to the rule and uses ambiguity
Responds to you by saying “Well, actually….”
Bounces from topic to topic
Seems to want accuracy and detail
Uses opportunities to show how smart they are
Depending on their personality and level of people skills, mismatchers may vary from being interesting to annoying. There is a lot to be gained when a mismatcher sees the differences first and then builds commonality. More self-aware or mature people know when finding fault is helpful and when it is useless or damaging.
Working with Mismatchers
Get them to wear the black hat – see the problems and why it won’t work – and use them as fault-finders. Looking for gaps or inaccuracies is at (or near) the top of the list for mismatchers, so use their skill to gain value to your projects.
Bring them in at the end of a brain storming activity and ask them to point out any areas of improvement.
For extreme mismatchers, try using reverse psychology. Tell them to do the exact opposite of what you want them to do. Phrase your requests and ideas in the negative.
Try using these phrases before suggesting anything:
“You are probably not going to like this…”
“You are probably not going to agree with this..”
“I had an idea that probably won’t work, but I wanted to see what you thought…”
“I don’t know if this is something you’d like to be involved in…”
Remember, the term matcher and mismatcher is a Meta-Program used to help us understand how we see the world. While we can gain understanding and ultimately communicate more effectively, it is not to be used as a label to slander someone with. Importantly, both matchers and mismatchers add value. Being able to identify the difference will improve your relationships and help to manage interactions with difficult people.
So remember…
Matching = Sameness
Mismatching = Difference
The relationship filter of sameness and difference is only one of many of the Meta-Programs. Being aware of the Meta-Programs yourself and others use will increase the effectiveness of your communication and empower you to build connections. So ask yourself, “Do I first see the differences or the similarities?”