Courses/Leadership & Management/Managing Difficult People
Managing Difficult People
A half-day course on handling difficult people and behaviors at work.
Overview
A half-day, activity-led course on recognizing and handling difficult behavior at work. Participants work through ten types of difficult people, the intents behind their behavior, and practical strategies: staying calm, assertive communication, active listening and problem solving. The pack gives a trainer everything needed to run the session in person or online: a scripted slide-by-slide plan, timed activities, handouts, workbook and certificates.
Format. Half day. Designed for classroom delivery and adaptable to live online sessions.
Who it is for. Managers, team leaders and employees at beginner level who need to deal with difficult colleagues, in groups of 8 to 20.
What delegates take away
- Identify the ten main types of difficult people and the intents behind their behaviors.
- Distinguish genuinely difficult people from people reacting to a difficult situation.
- Apply practical strategies for handling difficult behavior, including staying calm, assertive communication, active listening and a problem-solving approach.
- Recognize personal hot buttons and manage reactions when they are pressed.
- Reflect on your own attitudes, biases and behaviors, and reframe negative attitudes into constructive ones.
Course outline
Introductions, scene-setting and the three objectives that frame the session.
Participants define difficult behavior, examine why people exhibit it, and learn to tell a difficult person from a person in a difficult situation.
Dr Robert Bramson's classification covering hostile-aggressive types, confrontation avoiders, those who hold you back and know-it-alls, applied through a scenario-matching activity.
A quadrant model mapping the ten types by task or people focus and passive or aggressive attitude, plus a brainstorm on other difficult types such as the victim, the gossip and the micromanager.
Do's and don'ts, staying calm and hot buttons, focusing on behavior rather than people, assertive communication, active listening and a problem-solving approach, practised through response exercises and role plays.
Unconscious bias, reframing negative attitudes, a personal accountability questionnaire and a self-reflection worksheet participants keep for future use.
Objectives revisited through Q&A against the flipchart outputs from the opening activity.
What is in the kit
Slide deck
38 editable PowerPoint slides with speaker notes covering the full half-day session
Trainer notes
Slide-by-slide facilitator script with timed activities, Q&A prompts, suggested wording and online-delivery variants for each exercise
MIZAN Edition field guide
Updated research with sources, two GCC-context case studies, three new activities, an AI-era section and a 30-day transfer plan
Participant workbook
Editable Word workbook for delegates
Handouts
7 activity handouts: types of difficult people, type-spotting scenarios, response exercises, focus-on-behavior table, role plays, personal accountability questionnaire and a self-reflection worksheet
Certificates
Attendance certificates in digital and printable signature versions, plus a CPD completion certificate template and example
Feedback form
Course evaluation form for delegates
Sign-in sheet
Attendance register for the session
Online teaching guide
Guide to running the course as live online training over platforms such as Zoom or MS Teams
Pre-course preparation guide
Trainer preparation document for use ahead of the session
Dual formats
Every document supplied in both editable Word/PowerPoint and PDF versions
Editions
The license in one sentence
Buy once, deliver the course as often as you like to as many delegates as you like, edit anything, add your own branding — you only may not resell or redistribute the materials themselves. Every download is stamped with your name, tier and order number. Full license terms
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