These informal remarks have been provided to FAWCO by Nancy Slessenger and are drawn from her speech at the 2005 FAWCO conference in Birmingham under the topic “Lion-Taming Without Getting Mauled or the Easy Way with Difficult People.”
Dealing with difficult behaviours when your people are volunteers
It's always more difficult with volunteers. You don't want to offend people because you might lose their goodwill. Volunteers are hard to come by, after all.
Having said that, the principals are just the same as they are in any organisation. People behaving badly annoy other valuable members and by not tackling issues you can annoy your reasonable people too. Don't let the fear of tackling the problem get in the way of doing something about it. Here are some straight forward tips for dealing with bullying and negative behaviour that work and generally don't result in ill-feeling.
I'm taking these behaviours from the two sessions I ran at the FAWCO conference in 2005 in the hope that they will be useful to you.
Bullying
This comes in all shapes and sizes. Just to be clear let's define what we mean here. These are the behaviours that we are talking about:
· A strong focus on their own needs.
· Negative assumptions about others.
· Telling others what to do, rather than asking.
· Blaming others for problems and events.
· Giving their opinions as facts.
· Delivering personal insults in front of others (or in private).
Dealing with Bullying
Usually this behaviour is coupled with a lack of sensitivity. That means that hints won't do any good.
So you need to be really direct. You need to get them to think about the needs of others in the situation. Often they won't listen if you tell them these things. So you have to get them to think for themselves. The best way to do this is to ask questions. Here are some standard ones you can modify to suit your own situation:
How do you think XXX felt when you YYYY?
What do you think our reasons for doing XXX were?
What do you think is important to us about YYYY?
How do you think it comes across to others when you XXX?
Do you remember how you spoke to YYY in the meeting last week? (Remind them if they have forgotten) What impact do you think that had?
Once you have got them thinking about it and realising that they have caused some problems then you need let them know how you would like them to behave:
Next time you would like YYY to happen please just ask Angela and she'll be happy to help.
If you have some concerns about the plan, please just say ‘I have some concerns, could you explain the reasons for this?' and we'll be happy to talk about it.
The key
With bullying you are dealing with very childish behaviour. In fact, if this person were a three year old, you'd probably know exactly what to do. You'd make it clear where the boundaries lay, and you'd stick to them. This is exactly what you need to do whether you are dealing with a three-year-old or a 53 year old.
One last very important point
Never use the word ‘why' when you are dealing with a person who tends to use bullying behaviour. The reason for this is that they can take it as an attack, rather than a query. That then leads to an aggressive response back, probably exactly what you don't want.
Negative behaviour
This can be particularly annoying and de-motivating for people. It's the kind of behaviour where a person always gives lots of reasons why something won't work when anyone has an idea.
Strangely this is easier to deal with than you might think. You need to be more negative than they are. It sounds frightening, but it works.
Here's an example:
Negative person (NP): ‘That will never work.'
You ‘There's no point in even trying; we're doomed. In fact, let's close down the whole branch. There's nothing that can be done.'
NP: ‘Well, I'm sure there's something that can be done.'
You: ‘No, we should give up now.'
NP; "I think we could....'
Alternatively, and even more effective, you pre-empt the response. After all, you know what they are going to say before they say it.
You ‘I know there's no way this could ever work...'
Or
‘This is a totally ridiculous idea but....'
Or
Give your idea and then ask:
‘Now, give me ten reasons why that won't work.'
This usually completely stumps them.
In general
Difficult behaviours are only difficult because what we normally do doesn't work. So if you are really stuck just try something different, or find someone who can deal with the individual and find out what they do.
There are more resources on our web site, many of which are completely free. In particular there is a downloadable book on how to deal with bullying.
Best of luck
Nancy Slessenger
