It's 10 minutes to the end of the day and your boss has just come into your office and said there is an emergency meeting happening in 10 minutes and you must be there.
You are now are in a panic because you need to pick-up your daughter from childcare and they charge $1 for every minute past 5.
Have you ever noticed that the more difficult the situation is, the more you encounter difficult people? You try to explain to the boss your situation, but he just won't budge.
He tells you how important you are to the team and that you must be at this meeting.
This difficult situation has produced a difficult person - THE BOSS.
Most of us don't like people who impose their short-fused agendas upon us.
Words like insensitive, demanding, and domineering are used to describe people like this boss.
Descriptive terms like these are destructive to businesses and to relationships because all descriptive language does is depict or describe things as they currently are without providing any language of how to change the situation.
Descriptive language in this situation sounds something like this: "Can you believe that the boss will not let me go get my daughter? The boss just called an emergency meeting now creating a financial emergency for me.
" Typically when people use descriptive language in situations like this they begin to feel hopeless, angry, frustrated, or stifled.
But what if there were other ways to respond to this situation? What if you could use language differently to create a new possibility, a new future? 2 Quick Ways to A Positive Relationship With A Difficult Person First, avoid going to the break room or water cooler to talk about the mean and insensitive boss.
Here is some reality, when you want to do something it makes perfect sense to you.
It made perfect sense that you would need to miss the meeting in order to pick-up your daughter, TO YOU.
But when someone else wants to do something it doesn't always make sense to you.
For example, it didn't make sense to you that your boss would not let you go, but it made perfect sense to him.
Second, be a person of integrity by speaking directly to the person about what you did or did not do.
This conversation is not about blaming, but about taking responsibility.
The conversation may sound something like this; "I realize that you don't like short-fused items anymore than I do, so I appreciate that you are probably under a lot of stress right now because of this unexpected request.
I also know that there are times our business needs to be able to respond quickly to these short-fused situations and I want to apologize for not really developing a contingency plan for taking care of my daughter.
I know it is my responsibility, so please forgive me for getting mad at you when you made this request of me.
I appreciate that it is important that I be at this meeting, likewise it is also important that I pick my daughter up at 5 is there a solution we can create together?" This kind of conversation, one based upon fact and integrity has a greater chance of creating a powerful alliance than the one being created prior to the conversation.
But for it to really happen you need to make sure you are a person of powerful integrity.
My hunch is that you are probably a lot like me, sometimes I get lost in the moment.
Sometimes I speak before I think.
Sometimes I think and then speak and then discover my first thought is not always the best thought for that moment.
I long to be more powerful and extraordinary in my relationships with other people, especially difficult people so I am grateful for the people who stand shoulder to shoulder with me to help me accomplish this in my life.
Tim May currently serves as a Reserve Navy Chaplain.
He is the founder of Shoulder 2 Shoulder Military Coaching.
A company that is committed to enriching and strengthen people and military families to be more resilient.