Achieving Success with Difficult People

In this lesson, you will begin to build a database about not only your difficult people—those who are different in communication style from you. You will also enhance your skills in reviewing and resolving problems with these people.

This lesson discusses four types of hostile people. These are people who want to control everything and everyone but have no self-control. This group is called Hostile-Aggressives.

In this lesson, you will learn appropriate options for interacting well with those who are stubborn or critical—people known as Negative-Thinkers.

This lesson focuses on the appropriate way to effectively deal with aggressive individuals. You will learn how to recognize these people and share space with them.

In this lesson, you will take another look at another personality type called Relators. Plus, you will learn ways to effectively handle the difficult subcategories of this type.

Some of your difficult people probably also feel that you're their difficult person, but you may be totally unaware of this. Do you feel that ignorance is really bliss? You will go through some exercises in this lesson that should help you figure it out.

In this lesson, you will work toward improving your own flexibility skills: confidence, tolerance, empathy, positivity, and respect. To help, you will answer a few questions about each of your own skill sets as you move through the lesson's materials.

In this lesson, you will learn that a certain set of characteristics is essential if you want to relate well with others. As you will find out, you must first improve your versatility skills to maintain a positive attitude, and then learn to view obstacles and problems as "opportunities."

After finishing this lesson, you will understand what assertiveness is and what it isn't. You will begin to see why assertive behavior is so important to your success in getting along well with others. You will also carefully examine your own level of assertiveness and identify which of your skills need fine-tuning.

This lesson focuses on simple, yet powerful assertive-communication techniques. You will learn to use self-disclosure appropriately to share information about yourself—your thoughts, feelings, and opinions—to build relationship trust and common ground.

After this final lesson, you may be surprised to discover that your listening skills need improvement. Listening well is a complex process, and your own selective filtering often keeps you from real understanding.