Productivity Philosopher

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Productivity Philosopher

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THE ULTIMATE METHODOLOGY — EXCELLENT PEOPLE People skills enhance technical skills & stop profits/careers falling through the cracks in activity "Only three things happen naturally in organizations: friction, confusion, and underperformance. Everything else requires leadership."

"Project management delivers nothing. People deliver projects."

Peter Drucker ("The Practice of Management")

Neville Garnham ("Integrative Leadership")

BOOK REVIEW We appear to have reached an era when quick quips are the sound bites that substitute for conversation in many situations when listening is not undertaken effectively. This can carry through into the workplace. Often these quips are less than helpful in moving projects, business units and organisations positively forward, while keeping stress minimized. There is little doubt that managers lose staff in terms of their Dr Amy Cooper Hakim own behaviours generally and specifically towards particular staff or staff in general. "It's easy to boss employees around, but you can't boss family around if they're working in the business!" - so one traditional business owner proffered to media I saw recently. Nevertheless, we do need to understand that there are different business models in which staff retention is high and churn is among managers who don't provide the necessary resources for staff to perform and deliver outputs expected of them. In an age when career length is estimated to be less than three-years, this book "Working with Difficult People" revised and updated by Dr Amy Cooper Hakim is a must read for the serious student of human behaviour in the workplace, which too often carries forward and is embedded into other areas of life - public and private. It is also an excellent book for such students to revisit, but is also a useful reference in the workplace or privately for people to refresh their understanding about adverse human behaviour that undermines many activities. With more than 50 years' experience of people in the workplace, as my eyes scanned the pages my mind raced through the corridors of memory and put faces, if not names, to most of the difficult people-types identified. I believe I could identify having had experience with virtually every type of difficult person mentioned in this book. There are too many to single any one type as prevalent in all organisations or multiple difficult-people-types occurring in organisations. However, many of them become particularly difficult when they coalesce into meetings from which one expects to achieve overt commitment in decision-making rather than head-nodding acquiescence. The reality is, as I quoted in my book, in the words of Dr Lynika Cruz from her work "Beggars Can't Can Be Choosers", "The truth is we mostly don't know what's going on in other people's minds. We don't know why they do things and sometimes even when we do know, their reasons feel harsh." As a qualified MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) trainer myself, I can attest to the challenges in getting people to mind-shift. People can become very difficult when they do not themselves understand why they say and do the things that they say and do. We all need to learn appropriate & adequate skills to deal with difficult people when we do come across them. Nevertheless, if you expect that there will be lots of difficult people in an organisation, you will surely find them! So I'd ask any student of this work or those using it as a reference to be mindful of the authors' words in the introduction: "Instead of focusing on what is wrong with a person or relationship, recognise what is right. And focus energy on the many positives instead of harping on the negatives." Give people half a chance through your understanding and rapport with them and they will amaze you! "Working with Difficult People," now updated for new generations by Dr Amy Cooper Hakim, is highly commended for its insights into people in the workplace and recommended for all who wish to learn more and deal better today with friction-causing situations in many organisations, public or private, large or small enterprises.
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