Author: Davin Cotton
Title: Managing difficult people
Details: Hodder & Stoughton, 2014, 122 pages
This book is a short informative piece with some useful, practical tips on managing difficult people.
This book is good for managers, especially if they are just starting in their careers. Still, there are handy skills in the book for experienced managers around finer details of non-verbal communication and how to maximise its impact.
The book is covering a seven days course with exercises around essential skills to people management;
• understanding and preventing challenging behaviour
• developing skills for managing difficult people
• more advanced skills for managing people
• managing specific types of challenging behaviour
• feedback that works and critical conversations
• managing conflict
• getting support and escalating issues
• extra: surviving in tough times
This book will give you some very useful tools for motivating your teams and the importance of rapport building with your team members, including little tips around mirroring body language. These tips can include breathing in synch with the other person when in a conversation as the synchronised breathing creates a closeness with the other person.
The author also talks about the importance of positive language, avoiding the words, nothing, never, can't won't, no, and replace these with positivity and possibilities.
The book's most interesting part is the conflict resolution part; the book explains some reasons why conflict can arise in teams. This section also talks about the Thomas Kilman instruments, assertiveness, and negotiation in difficult situations. Cotton also talks about the potential reasons for conflict that might arise from cultural differences. This is an increasingly important element in the life of the international world we live in.
There are many different feedback models details in the book, EEC, EENC, CASE, with examples of when to use them from general feedback conversations to giving feedback in a more serious situation.
At the end of each chapter, there is a knowledge check quiz to embed the learning and check to understand. The layout of the book is easy to follow; there are many thought-provoking exercises in the chapters.
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