Difficult People at Work: Action Strategies for Dealing with Challenging Personalities

Description

This book helps professionals deal with difficult or even dangerous colleagues, employees or superiors. Some people poison the working atmosphere, make other people ill and cost their companies a lot of money. Often the cause lies in a psychological disorder, we are then often dealing with narcissists or psychopaths, but usually the destructive behavior is not (yet) based on a psychological disorder. This book introduces a collective term for such people - it calls them "toxic people" - and helps both those affected and those responsible in companies and organizations to recognize them, to protect themselves and others from them, and to take promising action against them. In addition to information on the typical characteristics of "toxic people," their motives are explained and concrete strategies for action and examples of tried-and-tested assistance are provided. A new chapter provides vivid, exciting case studies from real-life situations. A book for managers and those affected as well as personnel developers, trainers, consultants and coaches in companies and organizations. This book is a translation of the original German 2nd edition Schwierige Menschen am Arbeitsplat by Heidrun Schüler-Lubienetzki and Ulf Lubienetzki, published by Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature in 2017. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by the service DeepL.com). A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content, so that the book will read stylistically differently from a conventional translation. Springer Nature works continuously to further the development of tools for the production of books and on the related technologies to support the authors. Preface Contents About the Authors 1: Toxiker?! What You Need to Know in a Nutshell 2: Slow Poison: Work Is Turning into a Living Hell 2.1 Is This Still My Company? 2.2 Icy Times at Work: Conflicts Are Suddenly on the Daily Agenda 2.3 “Work Makes Me Sick!”: Psychosocial Stress in the Workplace 2.4 Are We Cooperating, Operating Side by Side or Working Against Each Other? 2.4.1 The Toxiker and the Company as a Whole 2.4.2 The Toxiker as an Exectuive 2.4.3 The Toxiker and Their Supervisor 2.4.4 The Toxiker and Their Colleagues 2.4.5 The Toxiker and Further Company Staff 2.4.6 The Toxiker and External Relations 3: Toxikers: What Drives Them? How and at What Cost Do They Reach Their Goal? 3.1 The Dark Side: The Toxiker’s Personality in the Spotlight 3.1.1 The Machiavellian Personality: I Will Succeed—No Matter What! 3.1.2 The Narcissistic Personality: I Will Be the Center of Attention—No Matter What! 3.1.3 The Psychopathic Personality: I Will Reign—No Matter What! 3.2 So There’s a Method to the Madness: A Selection of Toxic Types 3.3 The Toxic Process or: How Toxikers Manipulate Their Environment 3.3.1 How Does One Gain Personal Power? 3.3.2 Act One—Analysis—or: The Search for the Weak Link 3.3.3 Act Two: The Power of Manipulation 3.3.4 Act Three: On the Prowl 3.3.5 Act Four: Submit or Be Destroyed 3.4 What Costs Do Toxikers Cause? Apparent and Hidden Costs 3.4.1 Toxic Conflicts Are Destructive and Expensive Dealing with the Toxiker and Toxic Conflicts Continuous Stress of the Individual and Consequences Consequences of Toxic Destruction of the Individual and the Team Companies’ Ineffective Reactions Cost Money and Prove Futile 3.4.2 Toxikers Exploit and Damage Companies 4: Detoxify Your Workplace: Promising Action Strategies 4.1 Finally Enjoying Work Again: What Needs to Be Different? 4.2 First Aid and Perseverance: Which Strategies Make Sense? Resilience 4.2.1 Love It: Come to Terms With the Situation 4.2.2 Change It: Tackling and Altering the Situation Prevention and Follow-Through: Guidelines for Executives Prevention and Support: Guidelines for Colleagues and Subordinates 4.2.3 Leave it: It’s Just Not Worth the Effort (Any Longer) 4.3 When the Going Gets Tough: Argumentation Aids for Parting Ways with Toxikers 4.4 Prevention: How Can We Protect Ourselves From Toxikers in the Future? 5: Toxic Constellations and What We Can Learn From Toxikers 5.1 Success by Toxicity: At Least for a While 5.1.1 The Caesars 5.1.2 Gordon Gekko 5.1.3 Richard S. Fuld 5.1.4 James Bond 5.2 Places Only Toxikers Can Survive in 5.2.1 Politics 5.2.2 The Arts, Culture, Fashion 5.2.3 Media 5.2.4 Finance 5.2.5 Advertising 5.3 Toxic Dream Teams 5.3.1 The Fashion Designer and Their Entourage The Sun King and Their Devoted Entourage 5.3.2 The Top-Level Politician and Their “Stirrup Holders” 5.4 What I Can Learn From Toxikers 6: Toxikers at Work 6.1 Toxikers Don’t Always Win 6.1.1 Personality and Luck Lead to Success 6.2 An Atypical Case: The Toxiker in the Startup 6.2.1 Being in the Focus of the Toxiker 6.3 Toxic Double Pack 6.3.1 Self-Conscious Distance 6.4 Exercising Power 6.4.1 When Suddenly Everything Changes 6.5 The Right Man For the Job: A Toxic Puppet 6.5.1 Toxiker in a Toxic Company: Get Out of There! Bibliography Index