How to Work With Difficult People
LIVE Event + Recording & PDF
Why do I do these?
I wanted to share my core motivation behind these sessions. I believe it matters. And I believe it is very unique.
I do everything I do because I want to help great people get ahead and learn the rarest and most potent skills to do so.
Your life is on a branch of the multiverse. I want your life (and career) to be on the highest branch possible, filled with more opportunities, success, and quality of life.
How to Work With Difficult People
Everyone has a difficult person. A peer who shuts down every good idea. A report who won't move without instructions. A boss who calls rigor "overthinking."
Most people respond the normal way: avoidance, frustration, passive aggression, or open conflict. It's understandable. But it feeds the monster. Next time is just as bad, or worse.
Here's what almost nobody processes: "difficult" isn't one problem. People are difficult for very different reasons, and the reason decides what works. Some won't. Some can't. Some are cognitive misers. Some are dysregulated. Treat them all the same and you'll fail with most of them.
This session is a workshop, not a lecture. We'll work through real and hypothetical cases, including yours, and show what great looks like whether the difficult person is your report, your peer, or someone senior to you.
What you'll learn
The four families of difficulty, and how to diagnose which one you're dealing with
The three tools that fix this time and next time: rotating, resetting, and standards
Exactly how to apply each tool to each family
How to hard reset a conversation without it turning into a confrontation
What to do when the difficult person is senior to you and the bigger tools aren't safe yet
How to become the adult in the room, the person leaders notice when things get hard
The Structure
These 90-minute Friday sessions are a blend of original material, discussion, Q&A, and take-home materials. This one leans heavily toward live cases, so bring a difficult person (anonymized) you'd like to work through.
Afterwards, you'll receive:
The recording of the session
A PDF of the presentation and the four families framework
A discount for 1:1 coaching