The Difficult Person
Meeting with supervisory and management staff in Ann Arbor for a staff development session was literally a Woody Allen movie moment. Picture a strong confident quick thinking manager and a quiet worried supervisor having difficulty moving through a required progression program, in other words his job was on the line. At the beginning of the session the twelve supervisors and one manager were asked to picture the one person with whom they were least effective and they were invited to associate all politically incorrect descriptors about the person in the situation. At the end of the learning session participants were asked to reconsider their “difficult person” and could they reframe them in terms of information processing differences. We then asked if anyone cared to think out loud.
The troubled supervisor volunteered and called out his manager’s name. The room filled with nervous laughter and then they realized he was serious. You could feel the oxygen drain from the room as the supervisors pushed back in unison from the conference table to distance themselves from the situation and from the poor fool. It seemed as though there were two spotlights focused on opposite ends of the table as the manager and supervisor faced each other. The conversation went something like this:
S: You are my difficult person
Peanut gallery: nervous laughter
M: No no, go ahead, I chose you too
Peanut gallery: Collective gasp
S: I don’t understand what you expect of me. I need more information and details then you were giving me. I understand now that you didn’t have it to give to me, you weren’t setting me up. I have been avoiding any situation where I’d run into you because I never knew what was coming next.
M: I totally see that now, I didn’t get it before. I had to ask myself why I think so highly of your peer who has a similar style, one that I appreciate, and yet I didn’t appreciate it in you. We have to go to lunch.
S: That would be great.
Fast forward six months during which time they both met frequently and worked on better understanding each others needs. The supervisor did not lose his job. He became the go to person for his manager as well as for his fellow supervisors. He went from being the classic underperformer to a willing and able leader.
