Tips for working with 'difficult' people.

Hi guys. Happy Monday. Perfectly on time tonight. So tonight, we are kind of extending on this week's podcast episode. So this week's podcast episode was on tips for dealing with, I don't want to say "difficult" in quotes, difficult people, which sometimes is a nice way of being like an a-hole, right? Or sometimes maybe there's more underneath the surface as we're going to talk about. So I'm going to kind of review what I chatted about in the podcast. I'd love I would love you guys to throw your two cents in. Obviously no naming names, right? We have to like talk in code here, but I know that we've all been in the situation because as a special education teacher, as a parent, as a clinician, as a paraprofessional, as a BCBA, we have to work with a lot of adults all the time. Every day you are working with adults and working with adults is really hard. Like, really hard. It's a lot of different personalities. People are under their own different stressors. A lot of people's jobs are really hard. People are overworked, understaffed, have huge caseloads. So there's a lot of different dynamics that go on in schools and in clinics and things like that. And we don't get a lot of training, and there's not that many professional development opportunities for improving your teamwork skills. And I know from when I was in the classroom and from consulting, I get to talk to a lot of teachers now, so often the hardest part of the job is working with the adults. It's not about the kids, it's not that the kids are hard, it's all of the other adults. Who, throw a little like emoji hand or a me too if working with the adults is the hardest part of your job. Even if you have, you know, some pretty challenging kids on your caseload or in your classroom, Sometimes it's still having to collaborate with different personalities, having to, you know, coordinate people's schedules, deal with kind of all of those things that can be the most challenging. And that really is what weighs on you the most. If you've ever felt burnt out— Tracy raised her hand, she feels me— if you've ever felt burnt out, overworked, stressed, like totally done, a lot of times it's because of the adults that we're working with because it is so, so challenging. So I thought this would be kind of a great podcast episode and then kind of wanted to continue the discussion here because I know this is something a bunch of you are like, "Yeah, me too." A bunch of you are, you know, are dealing with too because I'm sure if you counted today, you dealt with at least 20 adults, you know, parents, lunchroom staff, security guards, bus drivers, case managers, social workers, SLPs, paraprofessionals, administrators, like The list goes on. Like, 20 is a minimum. So that means you're working with 20 different personalities, with 20 different agendas, with 20 different sets of reinforcers. Like, that's a lot to navigate on a regular basis. So if this is hard for you, do not feel bad because this is hard for everyone. Like, everyone. You know, big-time CEOs that run huge companies spend thousands and thousands of dollars on coaches and training and mentorship to like learn how to be good at this. So this isn't something that naturally comes easy. So if you feel on the struggle bus about this, I mean, know that your struggle bus is filled with your colleagues virtually around the world because this is something that's really hard. But it's something that's really important because we have to work effectively with all these people. You need to have good relationships with the parents in your classroom. You need to have a good relationship with your principal, with your SLP, with your OT, with your paras. So it's important that not only do we not drive ourselves crazy, but we are effective when working with people and we're able to work together because that's what's best for our students. So kind of the first thing I think, because it's easy to kind of live in the like, oh, when you have like one person in particular, like if you're watching this, I bet there's like one person in your head that you're like, oh man, she's the one, she's the one that's hard to work with. So it's easy to kind of live in that, like, they're just the worst, because it's easy. So I think the first thing is starting to reframe your mindset. And this sounds so silly, and I actually talk about this a lot at my behavior PD about with our kids, when, you know, kids get kind of stuck in this negative narrative. We need to change the narrative about people that we work with in our own heads, because if we walk into a meeting and we're like, oh my god, this case manager, she always gives me such a hard time, and she's always this and she's always that. And then we leave and we're proved right. She was difficult. She was hard to work with. She was overbearing. And we're like, yep, I knew it. I knew it. That case manager's hard to work with. And it's because we went in expecting that. And then every time there was one little ounce of that, we're like, yep, that was it. I knew it. So I think the first thing is kind of catching yourself when you like walk in with a negative attitude. And it's so easy this time of year because we're so overwhelmed with everything holiday and everyone's kind of burnt out, you know, when you're like, "Oh my God, so-and-so's going to be at the meeting and they always are one-upper and I hate them and I hate that they are one-upper." Be like, "You know what? They are just really passionate. They are just really passionate about their job." You know, replace that in your head, replace it with passionate, replace it with eager, replace it with willful. They're just really opinionated. So even that simple thing of like, it seems so silly, even if you like don't believe it yet, but just catching yourself and being like, "Nope, they're not a pain in the butt. They're just really opinionated." And just tell yourself that. That simple shift kind of does start to reframe the way you approach interactions with people. So I'm going to go through the few strategies that I talked about in the podcast episode. If you already listened to it, let me know. I'll put the link in here as well later. I think this would be a good one to share with people. So when I was recording, getting ready to record this episode, you know, there's a lot out there on like common team working strategy, teamwork strategies, and a lot of them sound like, okay, like, yeah, sure, I'll try that. So I thought it would be interesting to kind of think about the ABA principles at work within common teamwork, collaboration, leadership strategies. Because you remember, ABA is about human behavior. It's not about special ed behavior. It's not about behavior for kids with autism. It's about human behavior. So that'd be interesting to think about the ABA principles that are at work underneath some of these common collaboration strategies. So the first one is be calm. And this is one that when someone tells you like, you know, you have to be calm, you're like rolling your eyes, you're like, okay, whatever. I always quote this meme that I saw a long time ago that said, never in the history of people being told to calm down has anyone ever calmed down. Like, right, you've never— you're super pissed and someone's like, hey, you need to calm down. You're not like, Okay, I will. No, like, it makes you more mad. You're like, you calm down. But if we think about this, with our kids, we model the behavior that we want our kids to do. We need to do this in interactions with adults. We want to model how we want adults to interact with us. So if we don't want adults to overreact, to snap, to be, you know, overly emotional, to yell. We can't be doing those things. If we want colleagues of ours to speak respectfully, to give us a turn to talk, to let us state our opinion, to talk quietly, to talk respectfully, then we have to do those things too. And that is hard, but people tend to match your responses. If you'll notice, if you are in kind of a heated conversation and you lower your voice, like even the volume of your voice, the other person will lower their voice too. So that's kind of the first one, is to model the way you want to be treated. And I think that's a good kind of universal one that works in a lot of scenarios. The next is try to understand the intention behind the behavior. All behavior has a reason. And I say this a lot in terms of negative behavior of our students, but it's the same with our colleagues and with us. People have a history of learning. They have baggage they're bringing to the table. So we want to think about what's going on underneath the surface. And I know sometimes— sorry, I have frosting on my shirt today— sometimes we don't want to do that because we're like, they should just be normal, they should just collaborate, they should just be part of the team. But if we think that about our students, we're stuck. And if we think that about our colleagues, we're stuck. If we have that quick assumption of, they're just rude, they're just lazy, they just don't want to do their job. First of all, that's an easier assumption to make than digging deeper and seeing what's going on. So one example I thought of, and throw your hands up or say if you've had the kind of this situation too, is maybe if you are correcting someone that you work with. So whether it's you're a teacher and it's a paraprofessional, or you have a student teacher, or you're a supervisor and you're kind of observing and giving some error correction to one of your staff members, and you provide some error correction in, you think, a very respectful, polite way. It's like just something minor, and the person that you're correcting becomes defensive. And then you, as the person giving the correction, kind of steps up to that. So you become defensive on why you were correcting, and suddenly we're in an altercation. But if you think about where that person you were correcting is coming from— let's say it's a teacher correcting a paraprofessional, and the paraprofessional becomes defensive. Their history of learning might be that they've been working really hard and they haven't gotten a lot of feedback, a lot of praise, a lot of appreciative statements. They don't feel like their hard work is being seen. So when someone comes and tells them they're doing something wrong, they're going to want to overcompensate and be like, hey, but what about this other stuff I'm doing that I'm not being thanked for? It's like communicating a reinforcement deficit. They're not getting enough reinforcement normally in their day. And then when an error correction is added, it's like, oh, whoa, whoa, no. I have to, I have to stand up for myself and be like, hey, I do this and I do this, 'cause I already wasn't feeling seen or heard, or like anyone saw all the stuff I was doing. So now when you come in and tell me I'm doing something wrong, oh yeah, now I gotta stand up for all that hard work I'm doing. So as we're seeing it as, oh man, they're being so defensive, they're saying, I'm really just standing up for all the hard work. So if you can kind of start to dig and look at some of those behaviors a little deeper, and maybe, has anyone been on the other side of that, of getting corrected on something where you like feel really wronged? Because I know I have, you know, if you are corrected by someone and you don't feel like it's in an appropriate way, or you don't feel like the error correction is appropriate, or you don't feel like they've trained you the right way or been, you know, respectful in the right way, I've definitely been in that position where I was corrected on something that I was never trained on. And then you're like, how was I supposed to know how to do that? You know, that definitely doesn't feel good. So that number 2 of kind of understanding the intention is big. Number 3, this is a big one too. A lot of these things are things I talk about with student behavior, and it's all applicable to our adults, guys. Third is focus on what's in your control and what's actionable. So there are a ton of things that happen in your day and with the adults that you work with that are purely outside of your control. You just can't control it. There are certain things you can, and there are certain things you can take action on, but there are other things that you can't control. So the example that I shared in the podcast was maybe you have someone on your team, on your IEP team, that is very overbearing and they tend to overtake the whole meeting and talk the whole time. No one else has time to kind of give their spiel. They kind of overtake every conversation with mom and dad, and it's really frustrating because you've done your work, it's supposed to be a team, and it doesn't feel like a team. You cannot control that person's personality or how much they talk. Like, you can't run over and like put your hand on their mouth and be like, "You're done, Janice, you're done." Like, as much as you'd like to, and as hilarious as that be, that would be, you know, you can't. So instead, what you can control is you could talk to the case manager and say, "Could we have an agenda for the meeting?" You could ask the case manager if we could have time limits for how long each person could talk. Could we have an order of what people talk in? Those are things you can control. You can't control, you know, how much she's talking, but you could put in other steps. Other things are maybe if someone you work with has a lot of stuff going on outside work. You can't control that. You can't control their life. But what you can control is acknowledging that you see that. Like, hey, I know your mom is really sick. You let me know if you need a break. You let me know if you need to step out for a phone call. You can acknowledge that. That's the action you can take. You can't control that they have baggage at home, but you can control how you relate to them about that. Molly and Jennifer said they feel like that all the time about the correction. I mean, it is hard, right? Molly said, this happened to me this week with me and my para, and we both got negative feedback from the district. And that sucks. Like, it feels, you know, getting negative feedback is hard, so your instinct, of course, is to stand up for yourself. So if you've been on the receiving end, you know. And even if you think you're coming into a conversation or a situation with, you know, a para or someone else being really respectful, you don't know what their history of learning has been and if they've kind of had a yucky situation with that in the past. Okay, so number 4 is a good one. Ignore the nasty. So I hope— actually, maybe I do hope I'm the only one here. But I've been unfortunately in situations where things just got like nasty, like not okay. People went below the belt, people were really unprofessional. And the purpose of that behavior, again, if you think about the intention, is to get a reaction from someone. Like when someone goes real nasty, it's because they want you to react. So don't give into that. Don't give that legs. Like step back. When someone says something really nasty to you, What do you want to do? You want to say something nasty back to them, right? Like, "You said this to me, like, I'll tell you what I think about you." And suddenly it's a power struggle, and suddenly you're just as bad as they are. So this takes a lot of self-control, but let's think about this from the ABA perspective. What do we do with an attention-seeking behavior that's maladaptive? We use planned ignoring. We're not ignoring the person, we're ignoring the behavior. And when Janice in that IEP meeting says something real nasty, We shut our mouth. You think I'm going to do some planned ignoring? You can just think that in your head. You are not letting them get away with it. You are not being a doormat. That's what we think. We're like, "I'm being a doormat. I'm letting them talk to me this way." No, you're not. You're not pressing the button. You just walk away. You have my full permission to say zero words, turn around, and walk out. That is the best thing to do. And it's not reinforcing the behavior, and it's not getting yourself in more trouble. Then the whole situation divides. So hopefully, maybe hopefully no one's ever been in a situation where it's gotten nasty. But unfortunately, you know, emotions get high, things happen. In that situation is literally the best thing and really the only best option to just shut your mouth and walk away. That's it. And a lot of times, you know, hopefully what will happen is that person will come to you later and be like, "Oh my God! I'm sorry. I lost my damn mind. I don't know what happened." And then, you You can graciously accept their apology and move on. And look at it, ABA worked, your planned ignoring. So the last one, a big one too, and I think this one is so important for schools. So who has a school teachers' lounge where all people do is talk? Like, not like, "How was Bravo last night?" Like, they gossip, right? Gossip is like rampant in schools. People just love it, like all the time, and it's bad news. So gossip is trouble because gossip is almost always reinforced. So if you want to talk smack about someone— let's talk about our pretend friend Janice over here. Hopefully I'm not telling someone— hopefully no one's name is Janice that I'm offending. So our pretend friend Janice, who's the one that's the over-talk— takes over IP meetings, talks, you know, overbearing. Angela Kulcsar talks the whole time, gets nasty, and we want to talk bad about her. We want to gossip. We want to vent, right? We use vent as like a nice way to say gossip, and it's the same thing. So we, when we decide we're going to gossip, we select who we're going to gossip to. We gossip to someone that we know is going to receive our gossip. So we go to our teacher bestie down the hall and be like, guess what Janice did in today's IEP meeting? Of the whole 60 minutes, she talked 52 minutes because I timed her and blah blah blah blah blah. She's the worst. And what does the other person say? I know, she is the worst. They agree with us. And what happens? Our gossip is reinforced. So then we want to gossip more. So it grows and grows and grows and grows. Well, is gossip helpful? Like, has gossip literally ever been helpful or productive? No, never. It's destructive. It causes like this whole negative narrative, keeps you thinking about it more. It develops kind of bad concept, you know, potentially misconceptions of someone with other people. So keep it private. Limit the gossip. If you have to vent, go talk to someone else that doesn't know anyone, but keep that gossip to yourself. Like, keep everything going on to yourself because The more you talk about it and are reinforced for talking about it and receiving reinforcement for talking about it, the more you're going to want to. And that's just a slippery slope where it starts to snowball. I'm reading these comments here. Tony says, "I have a super defensive 8/9. I tell her and thank her and appreciate her all the time. When I give her feedback or constructive criticism, she gets super defensive. And I find myself trying to validate her and then nothing else gets accomplished." So I think sometimes, you know, we want to— I always like to ask people how they like to receive feedback. Like, I ask people, "Do you want me to give you feedback in the moment? Do you want me to give you feedback later when we're alone? Do you want me to give you feedback at the end of the day?" Because sometimes people don't like to get feedback right in the moment, where other people maybe don't like to get feedback later. They just want to know right away. So I think that could be something to do, like, "Hey, you know, can you—" When would you like to get feedback? And to sandwich that feedback with like the praise, the feedback component, and the other piece of praise. And I also think asking a lot of questions instead of directly telling your feedback can be really helpful. So maybe if like a lesson didn't go very well, instead of going over and pointing out what didn't go well, be like, hey, like, what do you think went well in that lesson? Like, what do you think you could do differently? What happened with Johnny? Why did he seem out of sorts? Like, how could we use a mini schedule next time? Like, what do you think? Would help? And so you really kind of want them to get to that answer on their own. So sometimes that can be really effective too, on, you know, really making sure that they think of that idea, not you, because then it's their idea they're following, not your idea, which people like to follow their own ideas. Tracy said, my parents love to gossip and try to drag me into it. That is a slippery slope, right? It's dangerous to give in to that, and especially you as the teacher, with your team, you want to kind of be that model. And if you kind of participate in the gossip, that sets a tricky precedent too. And it's, you know, we're human. It's human nature to, after a bad day, want to vent and want to gossip and all that. But it's good to kind of really set up those boundaries on what type of things you will talk about, what type of relationship you're going to have with your team. Because again, think of it like Has gossip ever helped a situation? Really, it doesn't. So, you know, kind of engaging in that with your team, what good could come of that? Probably nothing. What bad could come of that? Probably a lot. So it's good to kind of like, Tracy, that you're thinking long-term, like, oh no, like that's not something I necessarily wanna be a part of. So those are my 5 tips for working with difficult people. I'm not gonna say dealing with them, we're not saying difficult, we're saying, eager, willful, passionate, overly opinionated, right? So be calm, try to understand their intention, focus on what's in your control and what's actionable. What's next? Ignore the nasty and keep it private. So we kind of went through and talked about why like behavior analytically all of these things make sense and these things do work and how we want to be really working proactively to have better relationships with the people we work with. Marie says, "I write down every night the good shots, the bad ones, and this is where I vent. I gossip to my notebook." I love that. Gossip in your notebook. No one else has to see it. It's relieving, but it's not dragging anyone else into it. So journaling is a great way to kind of get stuff off your chest in a way that's not going to be toxic or kind of snowball into something bigger. So I hope you guys liked chatting about difficult people. I hope you have success working with your difficult people. This is not, you know, something that changes overnight. This is something you got to work at constantly. And I find, I know with myself, I need a lot of prompts and reminders. So maybe even writing one of these down on like a Post-it, putting it on your desktop, like, "Be calm," or, you know, "Not everything's in your control," or "What's the intention?" just to remind you. When you have those interactions to step back and think for a second before you just react instead of responding. So if you— I will throw the link for the podcast episode in here. Also, we still have our 10 Quick Wins for Behavior Change going out. I threw the link in the comments here. That's also kind of a fun thing for working with people, your colleagues right now, to kind of get everyone on the same page with your behavior management plans. It's a nice little thing to pass out. So I threw that link in the caption of this story. Hope everyone has a great week before Christmas, and I'll talk to you later.