Roy Lilley is a British businessman and author with over 40 years of experience in management. He has written extensively on topics related to health services management and dealing with difficult people. The document discusses various types of difficult personalities and provides strategies for managing conflicts and difficult situations at work. It emphasizes understanding the perspectives of difficult people, avoiding escalating conflicts, focusing on facts over gossip, and controlling one's own emotions during tense interactions.

1. BY: Roy
Lilley
Dealing with
difficult people.

2.  Roy Lilley lives in Camberley, a businessman
with over 40 years experience.
 Roy Lilley was a founder member of the
NHS Trust Federation and held the
position of Chairman of the Supplies
and Purchasing Standing Committee
and Chairmanship of the Standing Committee
on HR Issues.
 Roy is a frequent broadcaster and writer on health, current affairs.
 He is the author of over twenty books on health and health service
management.
 He has been a guest speaker on management and related subjects
at the Civil Service Colleges.
 He is a guitarist and magician and often uses these talents in his
presentations and has a bronze medal in ballroom and Latin
American dancing.

3.  It shows how to sort out a problematic
situation and helps find a solution.
 The book shows how to improve your
performance and also performance in a
team.
 It acts as a key to unlock difficult people
and influence them.

4.  someone who's always aggressive
 someone who doesn't listen or
continually rejects or hijacks your ideas
 or someone who's critical, impatient, and
superior.

5.  Difficult people are usually
a result of conflicting
personalities not because of
intentional behaviors.
 Might be due to different background,
education, perspective, ambition.
 By understanding them we can avoid the
bad times and horrible situations.

6. There are seven basic personality types:
1. Hostile, aggressive, belligerent , offensive
2. Complainer, grouches and the sourpuss
3. The silent unresponsive and the quiet one
4. The super agreeable
5. The Negativist
6. The know –all
7. The indecisive, the ditherer, the hesitant

7.  Bullies
 Frightening
 Alarming
 Downright terrifying
According to management guru Bramson, there are three types
of aggressive people:
 The Sherman tank:- abusive , abrupt, intimidating ,
overwhelming.
 The sniper:- good observers, does non-playful teasing, make
themselves look good and others bad
 The exploder:-rage-fuelling attackers, blaming others.

8.  Finding fault in everything.
 Fail to fix the problem.
 View themselves powerless, prescriptive, and perfect.
 They are trying to be defensive.
 They didn’t take responsibility for the things that are
done wrong.
The silent unresponsive and the quiet
one
 Use silence as a defensive weapon.
 Avoid reprimand.
 Distrusting of others.
 Lack of confidence.
Body Language: staring , glaring, folded arms.

9.  Reasonable.
 Sincere.
 Love the attention.
 Supportive to your face.
The Negativist
 Demotivating others.
 Criticizing group progress.
 Harm interpersonal relationships.
 Sceptic

10.  Bores , Dull, Tedious
 Provoke felling of anger , violence
 Very annoying
 Lack of self importance
 Likes being the centre of attention
The indecisive, the ditherer, the hesitant
 Not good at communicating their own thoughts to others.
 Unable to cope with stress.
 Masters in body language,moans,grunts eye contact.
 Sensitive

11.  Watch and take a notice
 Weather the person is dealing with any stress.
 to ask yourself that if you have been suffering from any
exceptional stress.
 adult-to-adult conversation.

12. Conflict :
 Direct disagreement of ideas,
 battle or struggle
 Opposition.
People react to conflict in five basic ways : two ‘p’ and three
‘Cs’:
 Put it off the conflict.
 Put up with it.
 Compromise.
 Carry on fighting.
 Collaborate.

13. People get promoted and become the bosses because of certain
reasons:
 anoraks and propeller heads.
 In family business, because their daddy so.
 Buggins turn.
Qualities of a poor boss- aggressive, selfish, arrogant, shout,
manipulate, scream.
How to handle:
 Let him boil, erupt and explode.
 Stay cool and deal with the issues on Your terms
 Never let them see you sweat
 Stay calm
 Don’t scream back
 Don’t get into argument
 If all fails try meditation

14.  Allow colleagues working closer together.
 Give them some space.
 Make good relationships.
 Don’t get personal.
 Divide your personality from problems.
 If they are shy there is a way to coax them , get them going or
smoke them out.
 Ask their opinion on a less important part of the overall
topics.

15.  If the difficulty is an egomaniac boss
 The egomaniac colleague
 Knocking the know-all

16.  If an aggressive manager is trying to dump on
your ideas
 If you’re landed with a project that will never fly
 If you’re being stabbed in the back

17.  If you are held back by an idle colleague
 A boss who loiters
 How you eat an elephant
 The criminally lazy

18.  The decibel dictator
 When you can’t do anything right
 When all else fails
 The firework colleague

19.  Successful organizations need all
sorts of people to function.
 Though fussy but every company
needs them.
 When these people become fussy,
nit- pickers, inflexible we have a
difficult person to deal with
 These sticklers for detail wont
realize they are being difficult.
 They tend to hide their lack of
vision behind a file or law.

20.  Surprisingly not detail or books.
 They thrive for a strong sense of achievement
 Every organization has rules but sometimes these
rules need to be creative.
 The perfectionist needs to be allowed to do
things less perfectly.
 Help them with a course of time management as
they tend to get lost in thoughts.

21.  They expect long hours , commitment, sweat etc.
 With such bosses delegate parts of the jobs if you
can.
 Incase it gets too much tell him/her .”Boss, I
know how much store you set by accuracy and
delivery, but there is just too much on for me to
promise to give either, or perhaps both. Can we
talk about breaking the job or getting some
help?”

22.  Deal with it head on , don’t manipulate further.
 A manipulative boss?-”Boss I know you’ re a fair
person, but what you have decided here has caused
me real problems”
 Appealing to his nature is better than complaining or
arguing

23.  If you spoke about a project few months back saying it was a
good idea and it crashed.
 Out of the blue sky the word is "the project was yours, your
fault etc”
 The best thing is to reboot and run fast to sort it out to cut the
gossip.

24.  This could be a chance of a lifetime or you being
manipulated.
 The call is yours!
 We enter with the assumption that the other party
is honest.
 The key to doing a deal is that everyone benefits.
 Figure the deal from your side but more important
from the other side of the table.
 Golden Rule 1.A promise if felt right for the project
"do it” if in doubt let go.
 Golden Rule2.Doing deals calls for records, minutes
and agreements. They need not be formal.

25.  You know you’ re a dream boss but beware of
flatterers who use these charms to get ahead in
jobs.
 Try”Thankyou.Its nice to be appreciated but I
think we should get on with the job”.
 Beware of personal undertones that might
accompany flattery.

26.  Stubborn people who refuse to budge use a
fulcrum point for them called “facts”.
 For shifting the stubborn it works like magic.
 Problem still persists. Try recruiting some allies.
 A stubborn customer.

27. Ways to measure morale and signs of its down run:
 More flash points and arguments between staff.
 Sickness and unplanned absence level rise.
 Informal groups appear.
 Gossip leading to rumors.

28.  Acknowledge their anger.
 Then ask a question.
 Finally repeat back to them what they
have said.

29.  Score days off sick either side of a weekend with 10
points.
 Score days of sick either side of a bank holiday with
12 points.
 Score single days off sick during the week, with 8
points.
 Score linked mid-week days off sick with 2points a
day.
 Score days off for long term sickness with 1 point
per week.

30.  Gossip has to be one of the most corrosive influences on
corporate culture. It has two sources.
 The first is careless talk.
 The second type of gossip is started by people who don’t have
any facts.
 The way to answer the gossip is by confronting them by
FACTS.

31.  A good communications strategy is the answer to
gossip.
 A good management, timely communications and a
commitment to openness can stop gossip dead in its
track.
 TIP: if u need to get some information
communicated through the organisation fast? Treat
it like gossip.

32.  Communication
 Once clarified, translate
it into an order, a
specification, or a
record.
 you want it when.
 Avoiding trouble: get it
in writing.

33.  Appoint someone with special responsibility to look
after a valued but difficult customer.
 Give the customer a reference point, easy access, a
direct phone number, and a named person.
 Remind them how good you are: spell it out on an
invoice.

34.  Screamers come in all shape and sizes.
 First rule with screamer is don’t join in.
 Screamers are juvenile.
 You won’t silence a screamer,
but you can wait until they run
out of steam.
 Points to be kept in mind:
 On the phone.
 In public.
 When screamer is the boss: let them scream, it is the platinum
rule when the screamer is the boss.

35.  Listen: use body language and physical prompts to
show you are listening.
 Sympathize: it doesn’t signal that you have
surrendered.
 Don’t justify;
 Make notes;
 Agree a course of actions;
 Follow through.

36.  Make organisation rule for e-mail and warn all staff
about it,
 Make it clear that e-mail is not confidential,
 Stamp out digital gossip,
 Set up in-house e-training to help staff understand
the rules,
 Install one of the new programs,
 Decide on archive policies now.

37. The test of real managers is their ability to manage
change. It takes leadership, courage and ability to
make a change.
Change…..
Q. Why do people hate change?
Ans. There are four C’s in change:
 cress;
 confused;
 cast-off;
 chaos.

38.  Manage aggression face to face
 Demonstrate your understanding
 Walk away if your feeling threatened
 If you are angry, focus on the ire and find a question
to ask
 Become a mirror, or a tape recorder and repeat the
same words they have used to upset you.

39.  Accept your anger but don’t shift the responsibility
for your emotions to someone e
 To manage a conflict, picture yourself putting each
side of the argument into the scales.
 Take pride in controlling your temper by getting a
tight grip on self-control.
 Letting someone know how you feel might make
you feel better
 Don’t lose your coolness. Choose your words with
care.

40. If talking of difficult people depresses you think
of the people who make you happy, the folk
who delight you the ones who you look
forward to seeing and who light up your life.

41.  Don’t take difficult people
personally.
 Don’t try to change difficult
people; it usually won’t
work. You can only change
the way you react to difficult
people.
 The system (not you) needs to
work at removing difficult
people.
 Don’t let difficult people suck
you in or change you.
 Don’t try to merely appease
difficult people
 If someone is being rude to
you tell him “I ‘ m not quite
sure what you meant by that
remark. Can you explain it
to me please?”
 Avoid having a row.
 ‘Be clear’ a conflict will not
be effectively resolved if
there is no facility for
emotional release.
 Always use the word we.
 Just give their ego a little
polish.
 Try to change the mindset
of others if you will never
change the boss.
TIPS……