It's All Your Fault at Work!: Managing Narcissists and Other High-Conflict People

by Bill Eddy

No, it’s not just your imagination—more and more people in the workplace today have high-conflict personalities. Co-workers, clients, even bosses are behaving in narcissistic or bullying ways, choosing targets and then placing blame on them, treating them with disdain, or otherwise acting in aggressive, inappropriate ways. Some go so far as to spread damaging rumors, harass, or directly sabotage their targets, among other extreme behaviors. These are not people who are just having an occasional bad day; these are people who display a repeated pattern of high-conflict behavior. And they aren’t just difficult; they are the most difficult of people. They can make your life at work stressful, frustrating, and extremely challenging. The good news is that their behavior is not about you—it’s about them. What’s more, you can learn strategies and techniques to deal with them more effectively at work. Based on Bill Eddy’s high-conflict personality theory, he and co-author, L. Georgi DiStefano, expertly define the problem so you can recognize potential high-conflict people (HCPs) in your own work life. They describe the key characteristics of HCPs and the typical behavior patterns of five main types of high-conflict personalities. Then they walk you through their proactive approach for minimizing conflict and keeping interactions with HCPs as peaceful as possible. You’ll learn about—and see examples of—how to use a simple, proven four-step method to help calm HCPs, analyze your options, respond to hostility, and set limits on extreme behavior. While you cannot ultimately change someone else’s personality, you can adapt your own behavior and respond to the person in different ways that make things better at work for yourself, the high-conflict person, and your organization.

Genres: Psychology

234 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 16, 2014

About the author

Bill Eddy is a lawyer, therapist, mediator and the President of High Conflict Institute. He developed the "High Conflict Personality" theory (HCP Theory) and has become an international expert on managing disputes involving high conflict personalities and personality disorders. He provides training on this subject to lawyers, judges, mediators, managers, human resource professionals, businesspersons, healthcare administrators, college administrators, homeowners’ association managers, ombudspersons, law enforcement, therapists and others. He has been a speaker and trainer in over 25 states, several provinces in Canada, Australia, France and Sweden.

As an attorney, Bill is a Certified Family Law Specialist in California and the Senior Family Mediator at the National Conflict Resolution Center in San Diego. Prior to becoming an attorney in 1992, he was a Licensed Clinical Social worker with twelve years’ experience providing therapy to children, adults, couples and families in psychiatric hospitals and outpatient clinics. He has taught Negotiation and Mediation at the University of San Diego School of Law for six years and he is on the part-time faculty of the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at the Pepperdine University School of Law and the National Judicial College. He is the author of numerous articles and several books, including:

High Conflict People in Legal Disputes
It’s All YOUR Fault! 12 Tips for Managing People Who Blame Others for Everything
SPLITTING: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder
BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, Their Personal Attacks, Hostile Email and Social Media Meltdowns

He is also the developer of the “New Ways for Families” method of managing potentially high conflict families in and out of family court. He is currently developing a method for managing potentially high conflict employees titled “New Ways for Work.”

Reviews

[Zoe · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read the book for a work situation. This book's approach to dealing with such people is to tell the victims to "empathize" with them. I don't subscribe to such beliefs that these narcissists are all just wounded children waiting to be understood. I think they are immature adults who prey on people with strong empathy skills.

This book is not for me.

[Robyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although this book presents some helpful ideas and presents a very practical and credible strategy for dealing with so-called High-Conflict People, much this book is both repetitive and redundant. It could have easily been digested into a single chapter or article.

[Ultra Lady · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book presents the CARS method to deal with difficult, high conflict, people. Part of it is common sense, but I enjoyed seeing a very structured approach to staying calm and diffusing the situation with empathy and a constructive way forward, followed by the setting of boundaries. I've seen this method cited in another book, so it seems to be as useful as it appears to me. Thank you!

[Yunling · Rating 2 out of 5]

CARS
C 搭起橋梁。不反駁不反對也不照單全收。傾聽讓對方冷靜，但也不用一直聽
A 分析選項。小贏10%，避免陷入明明我們對，以當時情況歸納出最佳選擇
R 有效回應。簡短、充分、態度友善、立場堅定。
S 設立界限。解決衝突最忌諱想完全制勝。能有效抑制不再越界，改變行為動機才有長效。

EAR: empathy,attention, and respect

[Mike Van Heusen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book provides a good insights on different toxic personalities, but the stories cited were irrelevant. Also, the CARS method suggested to deal with those personalities in my personal experience only the "C" for connect works. The remainder of the letters "Analyze, Respond, Set Limits" are impractical

[Lois · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read and reread parts of this book several times. It is really insightful if you are working closely with a person who has a different personality and work style as you do.

It focuses on what you can do to change your own communication style, which is invaluable.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

I brought this to help me at work as I work in Customer services, I think the techniques in this book will really help me with my job. After reading through this I have been using the CARS and BIFF technique to some degree already. Learning this may even help in your personal life.

[Liz Tomaszewski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wish I read this 20 years ago

[Amber Barber · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fairly simple approach they are prescribing here, but powerful. Most of the book is dedicated to recognizing the types of 'difficult' people, then discussing how you can use their CARS approach to deal with/ cope with them. A relatively light read, but something that I've already started using at work.