Dealing with Difficult People: How to Deal with Nasty Customers, Demanding Bosses and Annoying Co-workers

by Roberta Cava

Proven strategies for handling stressful situations calmly and professionally. Difficult people are the ones Make us lose our cool
Force us to do things we don't want to do
Prevent us from doing what we want or need to do
Use coercion or manipulation to get their way
Make us feel guilty if we don't "go along"
Make us feel anxious, upset, frustrated, depressed, jealous, inferior or defeated
Make us do their share of the work. A difficult person, in short, is someone who creates difficulties for others. Dealing with Difficult People is the revised and updated edition of the international best seller, updated to reflect recent changes in the workplace and designed to benefit anyone who has ever had to deal with angry, rude, impatient or aggressive people. Roberta Cava draws on years of human resources experience as Dealing with Difficult People offers proven techniques for working better with others, reducing stress and anxiety, and increasing confidence and enthusiasm in all professional relationships.

Genres: Nonfiction, Self Help, Business

224 pages, Paperback

First published December 16, 1999

About the author

Roberta was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba and has lived in Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta. She emigrated to Australia in 1998.
Roberta has been dubbed the Dealing with Difficult People specialist since the early 1980s. She has an extensive history in the field of Human Resources and is the author of twenty books. Her book Dealing with Difficult People has been an international best-seller since 1990. She wrote it because she saw so many people struggling when they tried to deal with difficult bosses, clients and co-workers.
Dealing with Difficult People has been so popular internationally (with 22 publishers, in 16 languages) that she has been asked to present that seminar to over 51,000 participants in Canada, USA, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines.
She has written several sequels to that book:
Dealing with Difficult Spouses and Children;
Dealing with Difficult Relatives and In-laws;
Dealing with Difficult Situations – at Work and at Home;
Dealing with Domestic Violence and Child Abuse;
Dealing with School Bullying; and
Dealing with Workplace Bullying.

Reviews

[Miss A · Rating 3 out of 5]

Recent m-am lovit de astfel de persoane, care au încercat să mă scoată din starea mea constantă de zen (ceea ce nu-mi place). Fără prea multe comentarii, a fost o carte potrivită, la momentul potrivit, pentru mine.

[Anca Gîlcă · Rating 3 out of 5]

Noțiuni de bază, limbaj simplu, exemple din viața reală. E o carte potrivită de oferit cadou persoanelor mai in varsta sau tematoare in ceea ce privește cartile de dezvoltare personală ca nu ar înțelege ce scrie de fapt acolo.

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good basics about communication, identifying different types of personalities and how to work with them.

[GoldenjoyBazyll · Rating 3 out of 5]

I throw one of these books into my reading list periodically because we all need the professional vitamins. Even the best of us need a new way of looking at things so we can be better to be around each and every day. Being a supervisor is not an easy job (those of you that supervise people in the work place... kids at home.... social/ civic groups/ etc know what I am talking about).... you can NEVER make everyone happy- you can only try to be clear and fair consistently. Because of this.... at some point in time... all of us becomes difficult to manage. We all have an idea of how we think things should be and every so often something rubs us and we rub back. This book really looks at personality types. There is a questionaire at the end that helps you assess what type of personality you are and those you work with on a daily basis. Sometimes by understanding a personality type you can adjust your own behavior so as to make problems occur less frequently in the work place or just in life! It all boils down to communication- communication- communication!

One thing I know for a fact... the only person you can really control is yourself so.... why not!!!!

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, this one was not as great as Glass' book. While it did provide some instruction, many of these techniques are particularly instinctual and natural in my opinion. Glass is more real about telling you what to do - her give em hell and yell technique is funny and her only no no is name calling and throwing things. This book does have specific personality types, but is pretty much the same as what Glass describes. Plus, most likely you will encounter bosses with numerous characteristics (if they are really bad)....

[Jackie · Rating 3 out of 5]

There wasn't much new here. Anyone who has spent any time in the corporate culture of leadership workshops and communication seminars has heard most of these over-simplified tips.

Overall it was a nice refresher on basics but not really helpful.

I should also admit that I skipped a couple chapters that weren't relevant to the issue I'm trying to deal with and skimmed a lot of the chapters that I did read.

[Elizabeth Bienas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up at the library and read through it within a few days on my lunch breaks. I enjoyed the category breakdown of customers. There are also some good, applicable concepts here for people who client-face daily like I do.

[Leah Coffin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tended to frame its problems and solutions from a managerial perspective, which I found confusing, since it sometimes shifted focus. Also, the different types it listed seemed to have a lot of overlap, and probably could have been condensed a lot. Still, lots of useful information and a quick read.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I've started reading this book I was pleased by the first chapters, but after reading forward the concepts were very common. Still the personality descriptions still make me think I'll want to read this book again.

[Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is focused on relationships in the workplace but great info on the different types of people that i come into contact with throughout my life.

[Krishan Kumar · Rating 2 out of 5]

OK