Dealing With Poor Interpersonal Skills
Your Interpersonal Skills Coping Mechanisms
- No matter how much you’d like to see them change, change is an inside job. Understand that wishing won’t make it so. It’s your interpersonal skills that need to change.
- Once you accept this fact, things will get easier because you won’t have false hope every time you interact with them.
- Know that their behavior does something for them. They wouldn’t keep doing it if it didn’t.
- There is a game being played. If one does this…then the other does that… If any one person stops playing his/her role, the game will end. If they are rude and you get mad, that’s the game. If they are rude and you walk away without reacting, the game has stopped. If they don’t get what they want or expect, it is no longer fun or productive. So, stop playing their game and the game ends.
- See if you can reframe their unacceptable behavior. Does she do it because she is insecure? Does he do it because he thinks it’s funny? Uncovering the cause may help you see the problem in a new light and take the edge off.
- As much as is possible, limit the amount of time you are around them. E-mail rather than meet face-to-face, stay at a hotel rather than using their spare bedroom during the holidays, begin to turn down their invitations. In a work setting, with a boss or coworker, this is harder to do, but you can still decrease the amount of time you spend with them.
- Figure out what’s different with the people they do get along with. If you are the standout in the crowd, consider that maybe the problem lies with you and perhaps you can make a few changes to ease the situation.
- Take a personality test and identify your individual behavioral style. See if you can peg their style. Read about how to best deal with styles that are different (and maybe antagonist) to your own. It could be that you are crossing styles and don’t know the best way to handle them. In other words, find out how you can change to interact with them on their terms and make it work.
- And if none of these things work for you? See the humor in the situation. Let it roll off your back.
One of the modules in the SyN Office Professionals Certificate Program is on interpersonal skills. Learn how to cope with all kinds of people in your life – the good, the bad, and the downright ugly.
