Bill Eddy

Working with difficult people is bad, but it could be worse. You could be working with the worst of the most difficult — high-conflict personalities — aggressive, dramatic, uncooperative individuals who avoid blame but don’t avoid conflict. They generate it, focusing their conflict on an employee, supervisor or co-worker.

Bill Eddy makes it better. His 14 years as an attorney (out of USD) and 12 years as a licensed clinical social worker (out of SDSU), are textbook qualifications for his position as senior family mediator with the National Conflict Resolution Center (formerly the San Diego Mediation Center).

In fact, Eddy wrote the book — “High Conflict People in Legal Disputes” — as well as “Splitting,” for those going through a high-conflict divorce.

High-conflict people may be aberrational but they are not rare. If you are employed, you probably work with one. Eddy says they constitute 15 percent of the general population. Instead of developing teamwork and building morale, high-conflict personalities focus on finding an adversary. Rather than encouraging associates, they focus on eliminating them.

“When you take that approach, you alienate your friends as well as your enemies and you lose whether you’re the CEO or in the mailroom,” Eddy says. “It’s a tragedy because a lot of high-conflict people are brilliant but they risk losing everything they built.”

The high-conflict person’s focus on win-lose is pathological. “These people have patterns of behavior,” he says. “They’re not just going to change.”

It is not for a business associate to fix, but it can be worked with. The first challenge is recognizing the high-conflict person. “It’s not obvious at the start. Often these personalities are sugar-coated at the beginning,” Eddy says. But there are still signs. “There’s a tendency to avoid responsibility and to put the blame on others.”

Eddy recommends employing empathy, attention and respect — with limits. “Focus on connecting with the person. That’s counterintuitive, but they are the persons you need to soothe because they are so defensive. Confronting them only escalates their defensiveness.”

Another challenge is responding to misinformation from high-conflict persons. “If you don’t respond and clear it up, it’s going to gain momentum,” Eddy says. He advises making the response in a like manner, whether e-mail, memo or letter. “It doesn’t have to be confrontational,” Eddy counsels. “They distort information usually unconsciously.”

Finally, set personal limits on dealing with high-conflict people. “Don’t get too engaged with them. Keep a friendly distance,” he says. In the case of a high-conflict co-worker, Eddy advises talking to a supervisor about setting limits. The same techniques also will serve to help employees manage a high-conflict supervisor.

— Terence J. Burke