The mere mention of ”difficult people” brings knowing looks to our faces. These people won’t go away, so you need to deal with them effectively before they cause any real damage. Easier said than done!

First, learn to recognize difficult people. Some key characteristics: they’re never satisfied, they don’t communicate easily with others, they can be argumentative and unreasonable, and they often use their power to obstruct.

You can’t change them, but you can change the way you deal with them.

Back when I worked at an airport, I needed approval from Fred—who was always hard to pin down—on a pricing strategy. He wouldn’t get back to me, so Idrafted a memo to force him to decide and placed it on his chair before he arrived at work. When I phoned him for his reaction and he said he hadn’t received the memo, I asked him to get up off his chair—look at what you’re sitting on! A potentially irritating situation turned into laughter. The lesson here is be overly nice and cooperative with difficult people. Let them bother others, not you.

I once got a call from an airport manager asking me how I’d gotten a fellow named Cliff, famous for avoiding new tasks, to volunteer for one. Cliff represented his unit on a task force I led. He said that a certain off-airport baggage check-in procedure ”couldn’t be done,” so I told him that an airline was actually doing it and suggested that he might call the airline to find out how. Cliff agreed to doit—and sure enough, he did. My answer to his manager’s question was to assume that even a difficult person is really trying to do the right thing. Appeal to the better angels of his nature.