Bringing It to Life #2: Dealing with High Conflict Personalities in the Workplace

It’s All Your Fault: High Conflict People

Bill and Megan continue their “Bringing It to Life” series, discussing how to identify and manage high conflict personalities in the workplace. They provide insights and strategies for leaders to improve workplace culture.

Bill and Megan aim to help listeners learn skills to keep conflict small and maintain healthy work environments. In this episode, they focus on limiting the damage caused by toxic employees.

Recognizing High Conflict Behavior Patterns

• Bill explains the typical behavior patterns of high conflict personalities. These include blaming others, black-and-white thinking, uncontrolled emotions, and taking extreme actions.
• Megan notes that toxic employees can split work groups and harm morale. Their behavior tends to be rigid and repetitive.
• They discuss methods to identify whether one or more employees are exhibiting these disruptive patterns.

Managing High Conflict Employees

• Bill and Megan explore options like coaching, setting limits, and imposing consequences. They note that firing toxic staff may be necessary.
• They stress the importance of intervening early before the situation escalates. Allowing bullying and chaos enables bad behavior.
• The hosts explain how removing one high conflict person can calm tensions and shift workplace culture.

Questions we answer in this episode:

• How do you spot high conflict behavior patterns?
• Should you keep or fire toxic employees?
• What happens after a high conflict employee leaves?

Key Takeaways:

• Look for patterns like blaming, black-and-white thinking, uncontrolled emotions.
• Don't wait years to address high conflict employees.
• Removing bullies can transform workplace culture.

This practical episode provides valuable insights for improving morale and productivity by minimizing the damage caused by high conflict personalities. Bill and Megan offer useful strategies to create a thriving workplace.

Links & Other Notes

• WEBINAR (FREE)
  • Register here: Bullies in the Workplace — May 10, 2024
• BOOKS
  • Our New World of Adult Bullies
  • It’s All Your Fault at Work! Managing Narcissists and Other High Conflict People
  • BIFF at Work: Your Guide to Difficult Workplace Communication
• NEW WAYS FOR WORK COACHES TRAINING
  • Coaches Training
• ARTICLES
  • Fire or Keep High Conflict Employees
• Our website: https://www.highconflictinstitute.com/
• Submit a Question for Bill and Megan
• All of our books can be found in our online store or anywhere books are sold, including as e-books.
• You can also find these show notes at our site as well.

Note: We are not diagnosing anyone in our discussions, merely discussing patterns of behavior.

• (00:00) - Welcome to It's All Your Fault
• (00:36) - Bring It to Life #2: Impact of HCPs on the Workplace Culture
• (01:06) - The Scenario
• (06:54) - One or Both?
• (09:38) - Contagious
• (13:05) - Resistant to Change
• (15:23) - Productivity
• (18:30) - Aftermath
• (30:17) - Reminders & Coming Next Week: High Conflict Divorce

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