What are some ways to manage a difficult team member using mindfulness?

In my experience validating your emotions is crucial on identifying ways to channelize them. Most people react to situations based on emotions, so in most cases when they try to suppress them whithout fully processing them it creates a huge internal conflict. So I often ask myself these questions. What am I feeling? Why am I feeling this? How can I move on from this?

Team members become difficult to manage when they don't feel safe or secure. In my experience, first step to manage them would be listening carefully and with intent. Listening not to respond but to understand. When they feel heard, situation becomes gradually better.

The behaviors of others bother us the most when those behaviors remind us of things within ourselves that we don't like. Being mindful of your own triggers, desires & needs can help you to remain calm and not react to the other person. It will also allow you to hear what the other person needs and either help or redirect them as necessary. Mindfulness can also help you to not take the other person's behavior personally and know they are acting out their truth, not yours.

I like your idea about listening and particularly about seeking to understand rather than using that time to prepare a response. In effect, when people listen to understand they are giving up the agenda to the other person. We all have experienced being listened to and not being listened to. A world of difference. Listening, really listening is a gift to the other person.

Tuning into the physical sensations in your body can help identify and recognize emotions. For example, doing a body scan from head to toe can help connect you to your body to develop a deeper understanding of your emotional experiences. Naming the emotion and stating why you're feeling it can help to defuse the overwhelm. Finally, asking yourself what is it you need can help clarify and acknowledge your feelings before confronting or communicating with a team member.

In my industrial placement year, as a Business Studies student, I worked in the customer care team at Esso Petroleum HQ. In this job, I was looking after customer complaints. What joy. But here I learnt an invaluable life skill. And that was to listen attentively and actively to the disgruntled customer and then the next one and the next.... Almost ALL of the time when that very upset, angry person at the end of the phone had finished their vent they changed. Why? Because they had been heard. Listened to fully. Not interrupted or judged or shouted back at but allowed to speak and be listened to. Little did I know at the time but I was practicing mindfulness and it benefited both parties.

Listening also includes a part of understanding. Before responding, make sure that you are both on the same page as to what each other defines key words or meanings as. I once responded to a difficult team member who was complaining a customer was being "mean" to them. I went to the customer and addressed the issue with them and couldnt find where they were mean to my employee. When asked further, what the team member meant by "mean" was not even close to my personal definition of the word. So listen with the intention of understanding and if you react to a comment or word, make sure both parties are defining it the same way. Perspective can be everything

To know the fact, identify the problem, plan a strategy and solve it in a skillful manner. Active listening and empathy works wonders when dealing with humans, and it will help us work and step into the real issue.

Pay respect to others point of view. Then you can understand what to tell actually. Remember one thing in the time of listening try to be calm and cool as well as relaxed.

I would also add to this, it is important to have ways of politely closing down conversations that are not relevant to the work place. Many individuals I work with find they become counsellors to those who they manage. I would kindly point people in the right direction. I would also suggest setting polite boundaires before a conversations starts. It might be that we say, 'okay, so that I can make sure the time we have is useful to you, we have XYZ amount of time and what would be useful for us to discuss in this time?' It might be then you can suggest some of the topics are discussed, some are put on the agenda for the next meeting and some are signposted elsewhere.

Mindfulness allows us to put a gap in between the action and the reaction. Prior to responding to a challenging team member, utilize the mindfulness gap to ensure the response is directed to the correct aspect of the communication. Is the response to the communication, or the person. It is not uncommon for the “difficult” teammate to soften when they feel heard. Even if there isn’t softening, structure has been added to the communication.

Use mindfulness to become more aware of your responses to difficulty and conflict. If you tend to avoid difficulty mindfulness practice can help you learn to lean into uncomfortable thoughts, feelings and situations leading to better long-term outcomes. If you tend to ruminate and overthink situations or catastrophise, mindfulness can help you to let some of these thoughts go and respond more objectively.

Mindfulness helps to pause, reflect, and respond instead of reacting impulsively. When you practice mindfulness you learn to observe your thoughts, feelings, and emotions which helps you to deal with other people's behavior without judgment and respond mindfully to solve problems instead of blaming or complaining.

Being neutral, logical, impactful and in favour of the work culture will help gain a positive impact on the employee as well as the institution.

One way that I think it is useful to think about this is the Parent Adult Child strategy. In a social interaction there are three ways we could act. The parent or teacher is someone who talks down to another. The child is someone who responds with raw emotion. The adult is someone who assumes they are talking to a reasonable person. I would always try to take the stance of 'If I were an adult talking to another adult, what would I say?' It does not matter how they respond, always think about how you would respond to an adult.

Mindfulness leans on staying in the Here and Now, when we find a whole person "difficult", we are projecting a lot about what might happen, or we are holding on to a resentful behavior from their past. If we bring ourself to the, right here and right now, the person isn't thinking about us, and isn't an issues at all. Stay there where you are at.

Mindfulness promote compassion However it should be your strength and not weakness So know what is acceptable and unacceptable and politely refuse to put up with unacceptable

Setting boundaries will help you and team members live in peaceful manner and work efficiently without creating and conflicts.

In my experience, setting your own boundaries is key to success as a leader as well as a team member. Awareness and being mindful of what is disruptive vs productive for yourself as well as the group leads to a much stronger group dynamic. I have been in positions where I didn't set the boundaries and tried to appease the difficult employee with understanding, cooperation, pleasing ect. The person only pushed harder until it got to a point that it became confrontational for myself and the team. Become aware of your boundaries and what is ok and not ok with you. Address with the problem person individually first and consistently. R

Boundaries are not meant to control or manipulate others, but rather to take responsibility for our own well-being and happiness. When we are in a work environment, we must consider our social role within it and our individuality. If we are not willing to conform to and abide by the social expectations of that role, we might easily violate the boundaries of the organization. If we fit the role, however, we also have boundaries the organization, co-workers, etc. cannot violate. I consider "moving the goalposts" a violation of boundaries in this context as well. It's important to maintain a sense of boundaries so that when ourselves or others drift, we can gently return to center and respect the boundaries of all concerned.

Being aware of the culture of organization can help you know how to respond in a certain situation. Keep the custodian of the culture informed of it, it'll help culture of the organisation mature and provide you necessary support in handling the situation

One of the best sentences which set me free was "I just need to find a way to work with these people" refering that I can't and don't need to change them, just to find a sutable way to work with them which made me free of seeing everyone trough mindfull glasses (accepting idiotism among people) and observing two main aspects; 1. From a work perspective is amazing, as a person not that much. 2. From a work perspective is amazing, I would also spend some free time with. Third option does not exist like "from a work perspective is hard" since no one cares, you just need to find find a way *aka get the sh*t done! ?? P.S. give everyone a chance to change and grow, with a proper guidance we do change! Be the one ??

Seeking help will let you learn and manage difficult situations and people...it will add strength to your task by acknowledging the problem area and have highlighting it.

With "support" we have two kinds of people. Let's call them "talkers" and "solvers". Talkers like to talk because misery loves company. Talking allows people to establish a better relationship to their suffering, making it a useful coping mechanism. Solvers like to solve the problem that led to the suffering and see little point discussing it. The solution is the coping mechanism with the solver. So, it can be helpful to find out what type of person you're speaking with and address the situation accordingly to seek or provide meaningful support.

Maybe this extends beyond the scope of a professional discussion but mindfulness was how the Buddha integrated meditation into life and became enlightened. So it bears repeating that practice makes proficiency. We can practice this in anything we do, literally anything. That's the idea of it. Work is an excellent place to practice it because you have a routine, systems, protocols, and we'll have the mental bandwidth to practice. If we turn our mindfulness to our work, we increase our productivity. If we maintain our boundaries and serve our social roles, we can also make personal progress during work with constant practice.

The practice of mindfulness is to make it who you are not just what you do. It becomes a habit, the go to reaction in all situations. If you can in each situation be mindful of your thoughts, feelings and situations, then your actions will follow. Our lives are the summation of what we think, what we feel and how we act.

Practicing mindfulness will help gain clarity, and sensitize to be in a calm and understanding manner to deal with any situation. It helps us to see the problem from a distant view point ,and thus look at it as a third party ...to get better solutions.

When teaching individuals about mindfulness, I always point to the fact that we have busy lives. Mindfulness practice is not something that we need to set aside a particular amoutn of time to each day, although research does suggest this can be hugely beneficial. What is useful it to try to be mindful as much as possible. Mindfulness is basically using our senses to be aware of the present moment. So as often as possible throughout the day, bring your awareness to your senses. What do you see? Here? Smell? Taste and feel? Keep aware of it for a few seconds, or longer if you can. The more you practice the more you will be able to control difficult emotions and thoughts when you want to. Good luck!

When facing difficult people or situations, practicing mindfulness helps us avoid the pitfall of clouding the situation with our own difficult emotions, such as defensiveness or aggression. In this way we can engage with a clear head, focusing on solutions opposed to simple reactions.

In my experience, this is where your own personal practice really comes out. Your ability to stay grounded, present, non-judgmental and compassionate is tested. Mediating beforehand can help, reminding yourself to stay anchored during also and responding to them vs. reacting is another key component.

Difficult team members are like training ground for mindfulness. You are able to put your learning into practice Only through application and practice you make mindfulness a way of living and a part of your personality

It’s always better to be calm while handling a tricky team member. Most of the time these resources turned out to be the key project resources as per my experience??. Their way of approach might be somewhat annoying, but conceptually they may be right. Being judgmental or personal won’t help us out. More over all the fingers are not alike.

What I have noticed when a team member is attempting to manipulate me in a direction that is advantageous for them (which is something that triggers me) responding mindfully is challenging. So a boundary I have created for requests is that I recieve them through email. This allows my response to be mindful due to the nature of email. I recieve the request and can respond as I need to- separating my reactions to possible tones or inflections and sticking to facts and the added benefit of transparency and compliance.