My Thoughts
The Art of Not Losing Your Mind: Why Some People Are Just Hard Work (And That's Actually Okay)
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Look, I'm going to be straight with you. After twenty-three years in corporate consulting, I've realised something that might shock you: difficult people aren't necessarily broken people who need fixing. Sometimes, they're just wired differently, and frankly, some of them are bloody brilliant at what they do.
This revelation hit me during a particularly brutal quarterly review session in 2019. There I was, sitting across from Marcus - a software engineer who could debug complex algorithms in his sleep but couldn't seem to communicate without sounding like he was personally offended by everyone's existence. My immediate instinct was to "fix" him. Make him more palatable. More... normal.
Wrong approach entirely.
What I've learned since then is that dealing with difficult behaviours isn't about changing people into carbon copies of what we think professionalism should look like. It's about understanding the mechanics behind the madness and working with it, not against it. This might ruffle some feathers, but I genuinely believe we've become too focused on creating workplace harmony at the expense of actual productivity.
The Myth of Universal Workplace Compatibility
Here's where I'll probably lose half my readers: not everyone needs to get along swimmingly. I know, I know - it goes against everything we've been taught about team dynamics and collaborative environments. But think about it for a second.
Some of the most innovative teams I've worked with in Melbourne and Sydney had members who could barely stand each other personally but respected each other's work immensely. The tension actually drove them to produce better results because they were constantly challenging each other's assumptions. Compare that to those overly harmonious teams where everyone agrees on everything and innovation dies a slow, comfortable death.
The key insight? Difficult behaviours often mask valuable skills that your organisation desperately needs. That person who questions every decision might be your best strategic thinker. The one who seems antisocial could be your most focused contributor when left alone.
Types of Difficult We Actually Encounter
After working with over 200 companies across Australia, I've noticed patterns. Real patterns, not the textbook nonsense you read about. Let me break down what you're actually dealing with:
The Perfectionist Who Drives Everyone Mental These people will send back your "final" draft seventeen times. They'll spot the Oxford comma you missed and somehow turn a simple email into a doctoral thesis review. Infuriating? Absolutely. Valuable? You bet your quarterly bonus they are.
I worked with Sarah at a logistics company in Brisbane who would literally redo other people's spreadsheets because "the formatting was inconsistent." Her colleagues wanted to strangle her. But when audit time came? Sarah's department had zero discrepancies. Zero.
The Challenger Who Questions Everything This is the person who will ask "but why?" in every meeting, even when the answer seems obvious. They're the ones who slow down decision-making processes and make everyone else feel like their ideas are being attacked.
Plot twist: these people prevent more disasters than they cause. A mining company I consulted for had one of these characters - let's call him David. David questioned a safety protocol that had been standard for five years. Turned out that protocol had a fatal flaw that nobody else had spotted because they'd stopped thinking critically about it.
The High-Energy Chaos Creator You know the type. They interrupt meetings, jump between topics, and seem to have the attention span of a caffeinated goldfish. In traditional corporate settings, they're seen as disruptive and unfocused.
But here's what I've observed: these people often see connections that linear thinkers miss entirely. They're natural systems thinkers who just happen to communicate in a way that makes everyone else seasick.
The Framework That Actually Works
Forget the corporate training manuals for a minute. Here's what actually works when you're dealing with difficult behaviours:
Step One: Stop Trying to Change Their Core Personality This might sound counterintuitive, but bear with me. Personality traits are pretty much locked in by adulthood. What you can influence is how those traits manifest in your workplace environment.
Instead of trying to make Marcus less direct in his communication, I helped his team understand that when he said "This approach won't work," he wasn't attacking them personally - he was identifying technical problems early. Frame shift: problem solved.
Step Two: Create Clear Behavioural Boundaries There's a difference between accepting someone's working style and tolerating genuinely disruptive behaviour. You can respect someone's need for perfectionism while establishing deadlines that prevent endless revision cycles.
One strategy that's worked brilliantly: give the perfectionist a specific role as "quality controller" for final deliverables, but make it clear that draft stages are off-limits for their interventions. They get to use their superpower without driving everyone else to drink.
Step Three: Match Tasks to Natural Inclinations This is where most managers get it spectacularly wrong. They try to force square pegs into round holes instead of redesigning the holes.
Your challenger? Put them in charge of risk assessment or process improvement. Your high-energy chaos creator? Give them innovation projects or client troubleshooting where their rapid-fire thinking style becomes an asset.
When Difficult Actually Becomes Problematic
Now, before you think I'm advocating for complete workplace anarchy, let me be clear about something: there's a line between difficult and destructive.
I've seen too many organisations excuse genuinely harmful behaviour under the guise of "that's just how they are." Bullying isn't a personality quirk. Consistent undermining of colleagues isn't "challenging thinking." And someone who creates more problems than they solve isn't being misunderstood - they're being counterproductive.
The 70% Rule Here's a guideline I use: if someone's contributions are valuable 70% of the time, and their difficult moments are manageable with clear boundaries, they're worth the investment. Below that threshold? You're probably dealing with a performance issue, not a personality quirk.
The Emotional Intelligence Angle
This is where things get interesting. Most advice about dealing with difficult people focuses on managing them. But what about managing your own response to them?
I'll admit it - for years, I took difficult behaviours personally. When someone questioned my recommendations or pushed back on my strategies, I interpreted it as a challenge to my expertise rather than what it usually was: someone doing their job through their own lens.
Developing emotional immunity to difficult behaviours isn't about becoming callous. It's about recognising that other people's communication styles aren't about you. That perfectionist isn't targeting you specifically - they're just being themselves consistently across all interactions.
The Unexpected Benefits
Here's something that might surprise you: teams with well-managed difficult personalities often outperform homogeneous "easy" teams. Why? Because they're forced to communicate more clearly, think more critically, and develop stronger problem-solving processes.
A financial services company in Adelaide that I worked with had what they called their "devil's advocate department" - basically where they'd placed all their challenging personalities. Instead of trying to fix them, they leveraged them as an internal consulting group for major decisions. Other departments would deliberately run proposals past this team to stress-test their ideas.
Result? Significantly fewer costly mistakes and more innovative solutions.
The Remote Work Revolution
COVID changed everything about difficult behaviours. Suddenly, that antisocial programmer who struggled in open offices became incredibly productive working from home. The perfectionist who drove everyone crazy with constant interruptions could focus their energy more effectively in virtual environments.
Some difficult behaviours are actually responses to environmental stressors, not inherent personality flaws.
This realisation has huge implications for how we structure work. Maybe that person who seems chronically difficult in meetings is actually struggling with sensory overload in conference rooms. Maybe the one who appears antisocial is just an introvert who gets drained by constant face-to-face interaction.
Implementation Strategy
So how do you actually implement this approach without causing a workplace revolution? Start small and build momentum.
Phase One: Identify Your Difficult Stars Look at your team objectively. Who delivers results despite being hard to work with? These are your test cases. Document what makes them valuable alongside what makes them challenging.
Phase Two: Experiment with Task Matching Try reassigning responsibilities based on natural inclinations rather than traditional role definitions. Give it six weeks and measure the results - both in terms of output quality and team stress levels.
Phase Three: Develop Behavioural Contracts Work with individuals to establish clear agreements about how their skills will be utilised and what boundaries exist around disruptive behaviours. Make it collaborative, not punitive.
The key is consistency. Don't implement this approach for some team members but not others - that's how you create perception of favouritism and undermine the entire system.
Final Thoughts: Embracing Productive Friction
I've changed my mind about a lot of things over the past two decades in consulting. But this shift in perspective about difficult behaviours has been one of the most practical.
We've spent so much energy trying to create frictionless workplaces that we've forgotten friction often produces the best results. Some of the most successful projects I've been involved with had teams that clashed regularly but channeled that energy into better outcomes.
The goal isn't to eliminate difficult behaviours - it's to harness them productively while protecting everyone's wellbeing. It's a delicate balance, but when you get it right, you'll wonder why you ever tried to fit everyone into the same mould.
Your difficult team members might just be your secret weapons. You just need to figure out how to aim them properly.
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