"The literature suggests that traditional conflict management strategies (CMSs) will not be effective in contexts that involve interactions with the difficult personality,  someone for whom the rules of rational conduct do not apply." - A quote from a research abstract regarding conflict in organizations & working with difficult people

In every organization there are three groups of people:  the overachievers, the backbone, and the group we fondly refer to as the “buttheads”.  They get in the way of your goals, and they certainly have a negative effect on the rest of the employees that are trying to make progress.

In virtually every organization that we have worked in, someone has already been brought in to work with this issue, and little or no progress was made.  Most sessions are designed to get participants to get along through ineffective simuations or artificial techniques.  Most participants do not fully participate, and the difficult employees certainly do not see a compelling reason to change their behaviors.

We can demonstrate onsite or train your leaders on the strategies and resources that have been taught to more than 6,000 leaders and that are currently used to make the management of difficult and resistant employees easier.  Participants benefit from a greater understanding of current applied research and techniques that are quick, effective and easy to use.

"I spoke to you regarding some individuals I had to meet with that were fairly difficult. You gave me some wonderful advice. I was certainly nervous to try a different approach, but I’m glad I did. I went to work and decided to meet with those individuals right away since your suggestions were so clear in my mind.

I was straight to the point…when certain things were said by the individuals I just pushed past it and continued saying what I had to say. At the end I said that is all I have, we can certainly talk later if you would like. That brought it to a nice close and the individuals left my office. They did choose to come talk to me the next day…which was alright since they had a moment to think about what we talked about and they were in a better frame of mind at that point. I think I was usually too nice and wanted them to talk and talk which always seemed to get to an uncomfortable point. This was way easier.

Thank you for your advice."

~ Quote from a recent friend of Big River Group