Katie: Welcome back to the BusinessMakers Overtime Show heard here and online at theBusinessMakers.com. We're back in Chapter 3 ready to talk about something that some people are not so anxious to talk about.

Esther: It's kind of hard to talk about this.

Katie: It really is. And where we're going with this is, we want to kind of get into the nitty-gritty of working with difficult people. Working with, for, around, whatever, chances are, people in your workplace may not always 100 percent of the time be the most shining examples of humanity that you wish them to be.

Esther: Yes. Not everyone's as wonderful and shining as you.

Katie: Exactly, we think you're great. (Laughter) And we would never avoid you at the water cooler, ever. (Laughter)

Esther: No. We wanna hear all about Muffy and Buffy and the crazy things they are doing at home, rolling over, and bring out the pictures, and -

Katie: Who won American Idol? (Laughter)

Esther: Who - oh yeah, oh God! Jonas Brothers, Justin Beaver, let's talk about all these things. These are actually things that I've been spoken to about in the office for sure.

Katie: Oh Lord! Yeah, uh-huh. (Laughter)

Esther: Beaver fever!

Katie: Wow, I don't - that's a - I don't even know who that is. (Laughter)

Esther: Justin Beaver, oh good. Don't ever find out.

Katie: Okay, I'm fine. I'm totally okay.

Esther: (Laughter) Don't avoid - 'cause now that you've heard the name, you're gonna hear it every waking moment of your life. Now that you've heard of it from me, it will begin appearing to you in your dreams.

Katie: Ah, it's gonna follow me. (Laughter)

Esther: Beaver fever, believe me. Kid, it's unavoidable.

Katie: So we found an interesting on Forbes.com entitled "Top Tips, Nine Ways to Talk to Someone That You Can't Stand". Now we may not go through step-by-step through those nine ways. That's what your eyeballs are for at Forbes.com. But we did like the fact that it really is important of course that you wanna have a positive productive company environment and sometimes there can be some stinkers around that maybe do good work, but that just on a personal level, you may just rubbed by each other the wrong way.

Esther: That's right. Like you said, that doesn't mean they're bad people, it's just sometimes - I mean I think one of the things that the article mentions is kind of people's insecurities and their self-consciousness at work and trying to measure up to everybody and that can manifest itself in some pretty ugly ways, like bragging and putting other people down and inappropriate jokes, you know, all of these things are manifestations of people's self-consciousness or their ego.

Katie: Yes, exactly.

Esther: You have to deal with that stuff at work, you know, work is not all work. You don't sit at your desk and - or most people don't sit at their desk and just look at their computer screen all day or they're interacting with people on a fairly regular basis, so -

Katie: Yeah, I hope so. (Laughter)

Esther: Ya gotta deal with it.

Katie: Yes. (Laughter) So definitely my top tip whenever I am either talking to somebody, you know, in a managerial role about how to deal with a coworker or just things that I try to do myself on a personal level, is to separate the problem, the issue at hand from the human being that it surrounds.

Esther: Yes.

Katie: I mean like you said Esther, it's not that people you don't get along with all the time are not decent, amazing people. I mean maybe out of the workplace they may be the most fun, you know, guy or gal in the world.

Esther: And you could be best friends.

Katie: You really could!

Esther: In other circumstances.

Katie: You really could, but the fact that you are self actualized enough to realize this is what's happening and this is separate from this person, that's really gonna go a long way; and number one, I mean definitely keeping your patience because you don't wanna blow up, you don't wanna, you know, really make a situation any worse. But keeping you sane too, I mean it's something that can be overcome. You don't have to change the person and actually you cannot change a person, but you can work on the behavior and try to come to some sort of agreements, further progress, you know.

Esther: Absolutely.

Katie: Oh yeah.

Esther: I think one of the things that I try to do in these situations is to control my anger, to control how I'm feeling because that is the only thing I can control, and kind of try to change my perspective on it. You know, think about the positive things about the person. Think about the good work that they do. Think about how helpful they have been in the past. Things that will control my anger because the article calls it a poison - a slow poison.

Katie: Yes.

Esther: Anger in general is just not something good to hold onto and if you're going into work every day in survival mode, you know, trying to avoid this person or, you know, ignore this person, and then when you have to interact with them it's like this explosion, like, "Ahhhh, I can't stand him or her!" You just need to let go of that. You have to think about it in a professional capacity and try to be positive about it because the anger is what's going to drive you crazy at work every day and you cannot be negative at work. You can't be having this negative energy at work, everyday. How would you get anything done?

Katie: Exactly. It just kind of consumes you -

Esther: It does.

Katie: - after a while.

Esther: One little interaction can set something off and make you so frustrated for the rest of the day. You can't have that to be productive.

Katie: Exactly, exactly. And for me, I mean taking that to just a different level, if I can find some sort of commonality, some sort of common ground that I have with someone, even if it's ridiculous as the fact that we both like to eat pancakes at Denny's you know. I mean like something that we know like we can identify each other as like, "You're okay, because you're kind of like me in really maybe small, miniscule, minute way.

Esther: I won't see you at 3:00 in the morning.

Katie: (Laughter) I'd better be nice to you. (Laughter) Who knows what could happen.

Esther: Exactly.

Katie: (Laughter) And I know from experience that sometimes it just takes you sucking it up and maybe trying to engage them in a different setting. I mean maybe it's like, "Hey, did you bring your lunch today? Let's just go out in the courtyard and we're gonna have lunch together," or "I overheard you talking that you really dug this magazine. I subscribe. I just got a copy. I just wanted to drop it off." Like sometimes that can go a really long way and for some people, you just need to steer clear of them completely or not, you know, you don't appear fake, you wanna be very genuine. But I mean finding that common ground, it's a nice thing.

Esther: And some people are overly talkative or they are over-sharers -

Katie: Yes.

Esther: - in the office -

Katie: Oh Lord.

Esther: - and that can be a very difficult situation. You know you wanna make sure that you don't engage these people on a regular basis. I think the best thing in that situation is just not to ask questions. Just to kind of smile and nod as much as you can, and don't perpetuate the behavior by asking more questions and then goading them on because the more you ask, the more - you know their personality, you understand what type of person they are. And that doesn't mean they're a bad person, it's just not the time or place to be talking about your side business or, you know, your photography or your -

Katie: - hot date that you went on last night.

Esther: Yeah, we don't need to know about your hot date.

Katie: No!

Esther: We don't need to know any details about your hot date. We don't even wanna know what you wore or how your hair looked. Keep any and all details about personal situations to yourself -

Katie: Yeah.

Esther: It is unnecessary. We do not wanna know.

Katie: (Laughter) Unless you brought me back a piece of cheesecake from that great restaurant, I don't care! (Laughter)

Esther: Exactly. And then you could just leave the cheesecake on the desk and walk away.

Katie: Exactly, we're fine. (Laughter)

Esther: We're good.

Katie: So Esther, I love the approach that you have when you're dealing with people that keep going, and going, and going. The table tapping approach whenever you're in a meeting, and we've all been in the meetings. I'm still completely impressed and I still have not had the guts to do it myself, but it'll happen.

Esther: Oh, well you have to - what Katie's talking about is in a meeting you have to have this designation beforehand. You can't just go into the meeting and start banging on the table. Basically, when I'm in a meeting, we decided this in our department that you have five minutes, and when you're getting close to your five minutes, I knock once on the table. If you have reached your five minutes you get two knocks. And then you start getting nasty looks, and then - just kidding. (Laughter) No, but there's a regression. That way it keeps everybody on track. Yes, I'm the taskmaster and I have my watch out and I'm looking at my watch going, "Mmm, you're getting close to your five minutes," you know -

Katie: Yeah.

Esther: - that's something we implemented and it is becoming kind of a joke. It has become kind of a joke like, "Okay, your time's up, knock, knock."

Katie: But that takes the edge off of what may be a really uncomfortable situation.

Esther: Yes, it definitely does, because some people will go on forever if you don't (Smack)

Katie: Exactly.

Esther: And that's just a personality, it's no big deal, but it does make people frustrated.

Katie: It does. Nobody wants to be in the meeting if they know that Billy Sue is gonna - Billy Sue? (Laughter)

Esther: Who is Billy Sue?

Katie: That's a very confused employee.

Esther: That's a name.

Katie: (Laughter) If Billy Bob is gonna be, you know, just talking, talking, talking, like everyone's gonna shut up. (Laughter)

Esther: Our producer John is dying. Billy Sue.

Katie: You know what, this may be a shock John but I am not perfect. (Laughter)

John: Ya'll Billy Sue!

(Laughter)

Esther: This person had some very confused parents.

Katie: Exactly. (Laughter) So, something else that I know a lot of people struggle with, and at times I have too in former positions, people that are kind of - whenever they get maybe in the public eye, whenever they feel like they're being confronted, they get really bullyish and they get really aggressive and it's just like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Like where did this come from?" Just because there's another person in the room.

Esther: Right.

Katie: And I know that the success that I've seen trying to work around those kinds of really confrontational, which I'm not a confrontational person at all. Like I've grown to where I can handle it, like you know, I don't back off, I don't run away, I'm not like, "Okay, okay, okay!" But it's not fun. Confrontation -

Esther: It doesn't come natural to you - naturally.

Katie: No, it really doesn't; and some people I get that they're a much different personality type or that this is a reaction that they have. But what's really made a difference for me is realizing that sometimes you need to give people a way to back down gracefully. So some people cannot say that they are wrong. Sometimes people cannot - it's very hard to say, "I'm sorry or I see your perspective, let's work on it further." But giving them a way to save face, giving them a way to leave the meeting feeling like their self esteem, their pride, their honor has not been attacked, that's a tough thing to do, but a very valuable thing. And hopefully they'll remember that next time you're in front of your boss and someone goes off on you and they're gonna be like, "Whoa, whoa. It's cool, we're gonna work it out. Let's back down."

Esther: Right. I think there's a lot of blurring between, you know, work and professional lives right now and the fact that our workplace sometimes houses some of our best friends, you know, or at least good friends. You know, you become friends with your coworkers and that can create some situations, so I think it's good to have boundaries and it's good to understand, you know, how people like to be talked to and communicated with. So this has been some very eye opening advice from you Katie; thank you.

Katie: Yes well (Laughter) they did it.

Esther: So I guess that about wraps it up for this week.

Katie: I think so.

Esther: Show 37.

Katie: Whoo-hoooo!

Esther: Awesome, man.

Katie: We're getting up there, man.

Esther: Time is flying.

Katie: Over the hill almost. (Laughter)

Esther: I know. That's right, we are over the hill. So thanks for joining us today. We really appreciated you spending a little time with us today and hope you'll join us on Facebook at Facebook.com/overtimeshow and Twitter.com/overtimeshow as well. You'll find us in both of those places. Please share with us, post links, post whatever you like. We're there, we'll see it, and we will respond.

Katie: We love it. And we especially love it when people are talking about their challenges, their solutions, their interesting tips and tricks; and, if you have an interesting business and you think that we would be a good connection, drop us a line, you know.

Esther: We're always looking for great entrepreneurs to interview on the show.

Katie: We are, we love good stories, and we love good business, and we know that you probably have both of those, so let's do it. Let's talk!

Esther: Let's do it. You've been listening to the BusinessMakers Overtime Show heard here and online at theBusinessMakers.com. I'm Esther Steinfeld -

Katie: And I'm Katie Laird.

Esther: We'll see ya next week.

Katie: See ya.