The following post is republished from AccountingWEB UK, a source that delivers topical, practical content to accountants and accounting professionals.
Probably one of the worst aspects of being in practice – or indeed of any working environment – is having to deal with difficult people. Sole practitioners who operate without staff and who are very choosy about their clients may only encounter difficult people in HMRC. At the other extreme, a manager in a larger firm might encounter difficult colleagues, junior staff, partn well as fellow professionals in other firms and employees at all levels in HMRC.
Most of us have to deal with difficult people at work. How difficult a person is to deal with depends on our self-esteem, self-confidence and our professional courage. Dealing with difficult people is easier when the person is just generally obnoxious or when the behavior affects more than one person. The task becomes much tougher when they are attacking you personally or undermining your professional contribution.
Your basic options
One way or another you have to decide whether to ignore the difficult behavior (perhaps you will rise above it); to confront the person; delegate your dealings with them (whether to a colleague, a junior person or a more senior one); or remove the need for interactions (whether by you or them leaving the position that gives rise to the difficult interactions).
Ignore the behavior
This is easier said than done, and may come across as submissive or non-assertive. It is rarely the best solution except on those occasions where you will not need to interact with the person again. In such cases you may get what you need or resolve matters simply by ignoring their challenging behavior.
Confront the person
This requires you to be assertive and to avoid the temptation to be aggressive. This means you must accept that however difficult the other person may be, they still have rights and so do you. When you are assertive you recognize that you are entitled to information, clarification or a reply but that your entitlement is no greater (or less) than the other person’s entitlement to respect, politeness and honesty. When you act aggressively, you deny the other person their rights.
The other option is to act submissively or non-assertively, which means you deny your own rights. If this is your default position then you would probably benefit from some assertiveness training. It’s hard to respect non-assertive professional advisers.
Of course, this is easier said than done. Many of us have worked for an aggressive boss who we think revels in their ability to bully us. This may force us into a non-assertive stance. It will rarely enable us to get the best outcome.
Assertiveness is a skill. It’s not natural for everyone and can take practice to strike the right balance so that you do not come across as aggressive. Being naturally assertive is a skill worth developing.
Delegate or share
I’m a firm believer in keeping the end in mind, by which I mean focusing on the desired outcome.
Let’s say you are having difficulty securing the desired (fair) outcome in negotiations with an inspector at HMRC. Might someone else in the firm have ideas that could help resolve things? Is it more important that you be seen to have resolved things alone or that you/the firm secures the best possible outcome?
If a difficult client is taking too long to produce the necessary papers or to respond to your enquiries, perhaps someone else could go to meet them face to face or simply to collect things?
Removal
The drastic solution is to resign and move on, arrange for the difficult junior staff member to be moved on (following due process of course), or to tell the client that you no longer want to act for them (yes you can!).
