Concept
Diagnosing a Difficult Person
Diagnosing a difficult person means asking, before you act, whether their demeaning behaviour is a one-off episode or a lasting pattern, how much it actually costs you, and whether you might be part of the problem, the first step in Robert Sutton's approach to people who make others feel small.
Sutton, a Stanford professor of management science, has written about demeaning people at work for years, and his survival guide begins with diagnosis rather than tactics. The first distinction is between a temporary episode, someone who behaves badly on a terrible day, and a person who reliably belittles, interrupts and blames others over time. The two call for very different responses: generosity for the first, protection for the second. The second question is severity. How often does it happen, how much power does the person have over you, and how much is it hurting your work, health or sleep? A rude stranger in a queue is not the same as a boss you see every day. The third question is the uncomfortable one: are you reading the situation fairly, and could your own behaviour be feeding it? People under attack often see hostility everywhere. Writing the answers down turns a fog of resentment into a problem you can choose a strategy for.
A real-life example
Melis, a junior architect in Antalya, is sure her project lead, Ozan, despises her. She writes the incidents down for two weeks. Three are clear: he mocked her drawings in front of the client and twice cut her off mid-sentence. Two others, on rereading, were just a busy man being brief. Seeing the real pattern, smaller but real, she plans a response to the three, not to all five.
How to use it
- 1Write down each recent incident with the person: what happened, when, who saw it.
- 2Ask whether it is a pattern or an episode, how much power they have over you, and what it is costing you.
- 3Ask one honest question about your own part before you choose what to do.