In this introductory segment of "Dealing with Difficult People Pt 1," Dr. Walter V. Murray uses a golf metaphor to reframe how leaders view challenging interpersonal interactions. He argues that people are not inherently "difficult" (the ball) but that the difficulty often lies in the variables between the person and the desired outcome (the course contours) and, crucially, in the perceiver’s own stroke and perception. By focusing on the ball rather than the terrain, managers waste effort blaming the individual instead of analyzing the interaction dynamics. Murray introduces the "perception paradigm" – the idea that perception is a critical variable that shapes how we interpret and engage with others. The segment concludes with a call to subscribe for further exploration of this paradigm and practical strategies for handling difficult staff or team members.
Chapters
People are like golf balls. You sometimes, you do your best to get them into the hole and you miss. But do you think it has anything to do with the golf ball? My ability to get this ball into that hole-in-one out here on the Murray golf course. Do you think it has anything to do with the fact that this is a difficult ball? Or maybe my stroke— maybe, maybe my stroke is not right. What do you think?
Difficult ball, bad stroke. Let's find out.
Hole in one. Hole in one. What does that tell you? Well, I don't know what it tells you other than the fact that I'm a darn good golfer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Tiger Woods, where you at? My point is this: sometimes in life when we negotiate and interact with others, we tend to blame the ball, i.e., the person, as being difficult, when in fact it just might be our stroke. There are so many variables that come into play between getting the ball from contact to the hole that it's almost unreasonable to blame it all on the ball. In fact, the ball has probably the least culpability in this entire equation of getting the ball from point of contact to the hole. There are no difficult people only difficult interactions, i.e., difficult disagreements with people. How are you contacting? How's your point of contact? How's your stroke as you interact with people navigating through difficult disagreements?
A good golfer doesn't spend a bunch of time focusing on the ball just before he gets ready to putt. What does he do? He spends most of his time focusing on the course between the ball and the hole, right? He looks at the variables the contour and the curves of the course. Should he putt to the left? Should he putt to the right? That's what his focus is on, not the ball. That's at the very last minute he focuses on the ball, and for a fraction of a second he focuses on the ball. Most of his preparation time is spent looking at the contour and curvature of the course between the ball and the hole. Now, I'm no great golfer, and I'm not calling anybody out for a shootout at the course. Let's get that straight. But I want to link that analogy to dealing with people, what we call difficult people. I want to link that analogy to what to dealing with what we label as difficult people. The hole, the hole represents the task, the objective, whatever it is that you need to work with this person on to accomplish. That's the hole. The ball is the person. Between the person and the ball, there is just a ton of variables contours and curvatures that exist between the ball, that'd be the person, and the hole, that would be the objective. But here's what we do. Unlike a great golfer who spends most of his time focusing on the curvature of the land and the course between ball and hole, looking at the variables, we spend most of our time looking at the what? The ball. Ball is so difficult. Can't work with this ball. I wish this ball was more, uh, whatever. Focus on the ball, ignoring the variables that exist between the ball and the hole. And then we wonder, why can't we work with this person? One of the most critical variables that exist between person and objective is perception. Perception. I call it the perception paradigm.
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