How to Deal with Difficult People at Work - Vanessa Van Edwards

Notes from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCNbq-WwEUI

Who are the zombies?

Zombies are people who drain you, worry you, push boundaries, ask too much from you, etc. The people who drain the life from you. Figure out who these people are. This is important because these people are the ones who drain your mental capacity and inhibit you from doing certain things. After identification, you can begin to optimize.

Different types of "zombies" in your life could include:

• Downer

  • Always negative

• Shirker

  • Never live up to their responsibilities/promises

  • All talk no action

• Energy vampire

  • Always take the energy from you

  • People who are exhausting to deal with

• Tank

  • Dramatic

  • Normal most of the time but when under pressure they blow up

• One-upper

  • Just try to one-up everything you say

  • Know it alls

What makes people happy at work?

Relationships with co-workers = #1 factor to what makes people happy at work. It leads to support, easy collaboration, enjoyment of the time you're there, feeling more engaged, better teamwork, and completing more goals.

On the flip side, bad relationships lead to decreased productivity, decreased levels of happiness, worse teamwork, limited creativity, slower completion of goals, and lowers overall engagement.

This is why making sure your relationships with people you work with is so important.

Platinum rule + personality types

Firstly you need to know the platinum rule (an iteration of the golden rule): "treat others as they would treat themselves." This rule gives you a perspective shift into how others think, as opposed to the golden rule which is always solely through your perspective.

One tool you can use is personality. (According to Vanessa, the Big 5 is the only personality test backed by scientific research (which after light googling is true)). Put the people you know (in this case the zombies) on this scale with the 5 traits, openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, as either low, medium, or high. From this, you can better understand, predict, and fix their behavior.

Additional side note: personality is not (really) a choice. 35-50% of our personality is genetic. Even details like our faces indicate certain aspects of our personality.

You can make people less difficult by optimizing for how they are wired. Additionally, assume the best, prepare for the worst.

Difficult people cannot be changed, but they can be optimized.

Openness: how you approach ideas

People with high openness are generally exploring and love new ideas and the unknown. People with low openness on the other hand like predictability, routine, habit, and tradition. Typically you can gauge someone's openness just by asking them whether they would do x thing that is completely novel or y which is something they have done for a long time/are used to.

Someone with high openness is caged through a routine. People with low openness are forced into newness.

Questions you can ask yourself when dealing with difficult people are: are you accidentally challenging their openness & how can you optimize for their level of openness?

Generally, if people are outside of their openness level, they will be more difficult to work with (discomfort).

Optimization for low openness:

• Start with what isn't changing

• Use data to make change worthwhile

• Honour routines

Optimization for high openness:

• Give them small moments of new

• They should not be your routine people (people doing routine tasks)

• Leverage the fact that they are explorers.

Conscientiousness: how you approach planning

Traits of high conscientiousness:

• Detail-oriented

• Want steps

• Want schedule

• Want lists

• Lost without structure

Traits of low conscientiousness:

• Want big ideas

• Easy-going

• Doesn't want schedules or lists

• Boxed in by details

Optimization for high conscientiousness:

• Give them agendas

• Let them run the details

• Ask them to plan, take notes, and run projects

Optimization for low conscientiousness:

• Use software or tools to be conscientious for them

• Let them go with the flow when possible

Extroversion: how you approach people

Traits of high extroversion:

• Teamwork

• Open workspace

• "Cheerleaders"

• Difficult when lonely, unheard, or lack belonging

Traits of low extroversion:

• Less chatting

• Quiet workspace

• Prepared/planned social time

• Observer

• Become difficult when overwhelmed

• Drained and exhausted by people

Optimization for high extroversion:

• Let them be a "cheerleader"

• Do frequent face-to-face check-ins

• Let them coral teams, talk to people, and network for you

Optimization for low extroversion:

• Give them prep time and downtime

• Prepare them for people time

• Never call them in the spur of a moment, figure out their preferred medium of communication

Agreeableness: how you approach teamwork

Traits of high agreeableness:

• Team builders

• Win-win

• Cooperation

• People pleasers

• Difficult when you enable their people-pleasing and put too much on their plate

Traits of low agreeableness:

• Analytical

• Unbiased opinions

• Want research

• Default to no

• Difficult when don't give them data & force them to say yes

Optimization for high agreeableness:

• Let them say no

• Don't over-ask

• Don't force them into quick decisions

Optimization for low agreeableness:

• Let them research

• Teach them teamwork

• Leverage their decisiveness

Neuroticism: how you approach worry

Traits of high neuroticism:

• Long forms of the serotonin transport gene thus -> greater response to negative events

• Experience negative emotions and experiences more strongly

• Worriers

• High anxiety

• Likes to think through all possibilities

• Difficult when afraid

Traits of low neuroticism:

• Hands-off

• Laidback

• Stable

• Calm

• Difficult when they don't understand when others are scared

Optimization for high neuroticism:

• How do they worry?

• How do they self-calm?

• How can you help?

Optimization for low neuroticism:

• Let them lead in a crisis

• Let them calm others down

• Let them be the rock