Professional People Skills: Handling Frustrating Nudges
by Kate Nasser | 8 Comments »
Handling frustrating people in your personal and professional life is not the same thing. In your personal life, handling those that truly frustrate you, in other words your nudges, can be as simple as walking away from them.
In a professional setting, it requires people skills (also known as soft skills). In truth, you could use these skills in your personal life too.
Handling Frustrating People Image by:JohnBell
In your professional life, the people skills for handling frustrating nudges also:
- Preserve your professional image
- Address the work issues and accomplish a goal
- Foster teamwork and good relations
The professional people skills approach begins not with a skill; it begins with an attitude. The frustrating feeling often comes from a deeper feeling — loss of control. Identify the deeper feeling to change your attitude. The professional people skills flow easily from there.
A Short Story. I was scoping a project and it was the third meeting. Another consultant was involved. She is a wonderful at innovation and creative problem solving — loads of big ideas. Yet she never lands. She dreams yet struggles with delivery. My frustration started to mount. I could feel my body tensing. I wanted to scream out “more ideas?” and of course couldn’t, wouldn’t and didn’t.
The New Attitude. I took a slow breath (which relaxed my body and composed my mind) and told myself that success was still within my grasp: Self-Empowerment! With the deeper feeling addressed, I said to the clients and the other consultant: “Given the deadline for completion, shall we move ahead with finalizing our approach — or shall we continue to brainstorm new ideas and change the deadline?”
Summary.
Identify why you are frustrated, address that feeling internally to change your attitude, and the professional thing to say will be on your lips.
Who is your frustrating nudge? What type frustrates you? I welcome your stories and techniques in the comments field below.
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, uses her professional skill and experience to teach and counsel teams and leaders, for success with teamwork, customer service, and leading change.
Kate,
I had to read this twice. I think you were talking to me this morning.
“A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week. ” –Patton (I used to command tank units)
Sometimes I just don’t understand when people try to convince me to “keep things in committee”. Let’s do it. Let’s go. If you have enough to get started and your facts and assumptions are valid, go for it. The landscape may change a little bit as you move forward, but it always does. You need to remain flexible as you move ahead. Not rigid as you sit still.
Have a great weekend!
-Matt
Hi Matt,
Your thought: “You need to remain flexible as you move ahead. Not rigid as you sit still.” is a great quote. It helps all understand that being action oriented doesn’t mean you are inflexible. Great inspiration. I think I will tweet it as a #BeOriginal quote for you on Twitter.
Kate
Thanks Kate.
Some people really love paralysis by analysis. That really bugs me.
Kate,
You’ve hit the nail on the head here. Attitude is the difference, and what we can control. We can choose to let the frustration we’re feeling create negativity and hamper the communication process. Or, we can choose, like you did in your example, to readjust our mindset, let go or set aside the feeling of frustration, and choose to keep things productive and moving forward. A lot of the times it’s just a matter of acknowledging to ourselves that we’re frustrated and DECIDING to focus on the situation or the other person’s need, rather than dwelling on our own frustrations.
Exactly Shannon. As soon as you empower yourself to make a choice — choose to keep things productive and moving forward — you breed even more positive focus. Sidetracking into frustration leads you into more frustration.
Many thanks for your adding your voice to this discussion.
Kate
Loved the post, Kate! I wholeheartedly agree that understanding ourselves provides insight into our interactions and responses to others, whether that’s dealing with frustration or another emotional reaction. Yet, it’s a sign of maturity that many adults, unfortunately, lack.
We can’t really seek to understand another’s thoughts and motives until we understand our own, though. Feeling a close connection in a business partnership can be due to feeling affirmed or “on the same page,” while being frustrated in the partnership is about the other person being different than ourselves or our expectations. In either scenario, understanding the reasons behind our gut reactions will help us respond appropriately.
Thanks for the thought-provoking post!
Thank you Tara for visiting the blog, offering your insights — especially this statement: “We can’t really seek to understand another’s thoughts and motives until we understand our own.”
Very true. Have a super weekend.
Kate