Storytelling: Working With a Difficult Person
If you have ever encountered the interview question: “Tell me about a time you had to deal with a difficult person.” (Amazon Prep: Think Earns Trust).
Most of the time, this problem boils down to a lack of trust. Maybe you are new to the team and haven’t earned it yet.
Most typically, you recently joined the team, and the other party is always wary of new people.
Or historical baggage is at play, the PM before you screwed up in the role, and you have headwinds not of your making.
Perhaps, you had already earned trust but lost it, and the other party suddenly seems to be difficult.
More often than you might expect, the power dynamics shifted and the other party was threatened by you, but you never saw yourself as a threat. (You lost trust due to external forces - think new promo.)
Other times, you both lose trust at the same time due to differences of opinion.
Maybe one of you said something that hit a nerve, and you missed the initial reaction. Quickly thereafter, the other party starts pushing back on everything, thus coming across as difficult or demanding.
The Twist
When telling your story as a product manager, you must take ownership of all of the above. After all, your job is to keep the team moving forward together. Solving all communication problems is part of your job description. Even if the lack of trust that wasn’t your fault is your responsibility, you must fix it because you own that for the team.
Never, Ever
Never blame your partner in this story. You must show empathy and show how you identified the problem and mitigated it.
Example Framework
This came from a discussion with one of my clients.
Mitigation: Framework for Building or Regaining Trust
Active Listening
Quick Wins
Understand Influences
Celebrate Wins
Let's walk through each of these:
Active listening is a miracle cure for many problems PMs face. Find ways to get your partner to talk and listen. Don’t try to jump in or justify or advise, just listen. Take it in. Note it. Empathize. Gather data to figure out what triggered the problem(s) so you can mitigate it.
Find a quick win you can accomplish to start proving you can be trusted. That might mean finishing a document, dealing with a problem brought by an outside party, or anything that shows you are getting something done this other person needs.
Learn who is influential in this person’s world. You can (1) get to know that person (2) seek advice or (3) get their support for an idea to help smooth things over.
Celebrating wins makes everyone feel good. If your difficult partner is an engineer or engineering manager, celebrating the team’s wins and giving others credit goes a long way to earning trust.
Next time you get a question about a difficult person or a disagreement with your engineering partner, consider this approach. (You might also find it works well in your personal life as well.)
Real Life Example
Once, my promotion was announced while I was on vacation. My engineering partner went from being the perfect partner to the most difficult person I have ever had to deal with (ever). overnight, even before I was back from vacation. While I was on vacation, I got demanding and threatening emails. I returned to find this person had taken every opportunity to speak ill of me. To me, it felt insane. I didn’t deserve it, but it was now my responsibility to fix it.
TL;DR - My 15 years of experience were exponentially more than this engineering partner. The fact that I suddenly had an equal title threatened them. Before the promotion, their “lack of experience + bigger title” made my “experience + lower title” zero threat. When I suddenly had an equal level of a title, they were threatened.
They probably didn’t know what triggered it, they were in full fight-or-flight mode. They stopped working with me and made my life a living hell. My manager and I dealt with it using active listening. Ultimately, I had done nothing wrong, but I was the product management leader so their personal issues became my problem to solve. In a perfect world, someone in engineering would have called it out, but they chose instead to circle the wagons and defend this person. In the end, I have a most interesting, “difficult person” story about earning trust that I lost trust due to no fault of my own.
When I first started trying to tell the above story, I had a number of sleepless nights. I couldn’t figure out how to tell it because I was so frustrated by having lived through it. Ultimately, I realized telling the earns trust and active listening aspects as well as demonstrating that I took ownership of something that wasn’t fair shows I am self-aware of the situation and my responsibilities.
