Dealing With People You Can't Stand

Rick Brinkman: Oh it's very common. We all have people that we can't stand and technically speaking it's not the person as much as a certain behavior they engage in, like somebody could be whining or you could have a co-worker who is always being negative or a boss who is being a know-it-all and you can't seem to suggest an idea to them and it may appear to us that they're always like that but that's really because we only know them in a limited context and a limited relationship context being where are we, what's going on, a relationship of course, what's our relationship to that person? Let's take our know-it-all boss, we don't realize how passive they can be in a different context, maybe with their spouse or such.

Rachel Salaman: So that sounds like a lot of these situations could be turned around through a change in behavior, a change in attitude or better communication?

Rick Brinkman: Yes, absolutely. Communication is like a phone number, you need all the digits to get through and you need them in the right order. If you dial your country code at the end as an afterthought, the call does not get through properly. All digits are important, in a 10 digit number if you turn the six into a nine, it's only a 10 percent error but the call does not get through. Communication is equally specific so for example, staying with your know-it-all boss for a moment, there is a number, a strategy that you can do that's going to get them out of being a know-it-all and open their mind and then there's things that you'll do that'll push them deeper into that and so it's important to know what to do with each behavior.

Rachel Salaman: When you first wrote your book, "Dealing With People You Can't Stand," you identified ten different types of difficult person or perhaps we should say difficult behavior and now you have added three to those in the new edition and we'll talk more about them in a moment but first, could you explain what you mean by the phrase "the road to hell is paved with good intentions"? That's the title of an early chapter in the book.

Rick Brinkman: Right, well the people are meaning well by what they do, so for example let's take someone who is pushing aggressive, they talk over you, they run over you, they're in real get-it-done mode, they are trying to make things happen and so there's nothing wrong per se with making things happen but when they go too far and they attack or they run over people, that's what we call going to now the danger zone. Or for example why negativity has its roots in get-it-right, they want things to be done right and they have a high standard of perfection and when they look at what is and it doesn't measure up to what could be and then they let's say feel helpless about it, that's how whining sets in. If they're negative they're feeling hopeless about it and then unfortunately with whining and negativity, they go into generalizations, everything's wrong, nothing's right, it's always that way and they are trapped in their own generalizations because you can't problem solve a generalization. Specifics are the first steps to problem solving. Or take for example somebody who is being really nice and agreeable but you don't really know where they stand. You ask them can they get this done on Thursday, they go "oh sure." Are you sure you'll have it Thursday? Oh yes, no problem. Then Thursday comes around and it's not done. Well where they're coming from is get along, they're trying to please people, they want approval at all costs and there's nothing wrong with trying to please people but when it goes so far that they become a yes person and they are making commitments they can't keep, that's what we call the danger zone. So that's what we mean by the road to hell is paved with good intentions, people start out with a good intention but if it goes too far it creates problems for themselves and others.

Rachel Salaman: So it helps if you can remember that if you're being irritated by a co-worker, just to remember that they might mean well, it might be the starting point for getting into a better place with them?

Rick Brinkman: Oh yes, that's a big attitude adjustment and you mentioned a little earlier that you can change your behavior, change your attitude, those are two of your major choices. You can change your attitude and people keep doing what they do and you stop suffering around them or you can also change your attitude which then enables you to more easily change your behavior, just as you stated, if you keep in mind that your co-worker is coming from a good place. Like go back to the boss who is pushy and running over people, anything that moves forward fast, that they perceive as forward motion, any communication that's short and sweet, direct and to the point, bottom line, will definitely take them out of the danger zone and move them back into what we call the co-operation zone and in the co-operation zone we may be coming from different intentions, like one person wants to get it done, another one wants to get it right, another one wants to get along, fourth intention is get appreciated by people and when people are in the green zone, though they may be coming from different intentions, they're still getting along in this co-operation. Once they're not getting what they need from others and they get too stressed out they go into what we call the danger zone and that's when you get those thirteen problem indicators.

Rachel Salaman: In the book you include some really useful general advice about how to communicate, how to communicate well I suppose we should really say, can you tell us what you mean by blending and redirecting?

Rick Brinkman: Yes, blending means meeting people where they are, it's about reducing differences so for example if you are traveling somewhere some time and you get in a conversation with someone and you discover, oh we grew up in the same place, in that moment differences are removed and you feel closer and that's blending. You're with a child and you come down to meet that at eye level, you are reducing physical differences, that's blending. You go out with a friend and you dress in similar style or wear the same sports team paraphernalia, that's blending. You're in a restaurant with a friend and you ask, "What are you going to have?" Now what does what they're going to have to do with what you're hungry and thirsty for? It doesn't have to do with hunger and thirst, it has to do with feelings of rapport, that's an example of blending and so it is meeting people where they are.

So again going back, let's say we have a get it done boss who is running over people, by speeding things up, by being bottom line and to the point, that blends with them. If on the other hand, going to the other extreme, we have a get along co-worker who is being very agreeable but we don't really know where they stand, then slowing down, being easy going and friendly, let's say we need something by Thursday we wouldn't want to be direct about it, we'd want to let them know, listen, I want you to know I know you've got a lot of stuff going on right now and if you don't think you can get this done by Thursday that's okay... "Oh no, that's okay." No, no, really, don't even tell me now, I want you to check your schedule as this is also going to require something from the other department, check with them, it's not a problem. So you've got to slow down, go easy going and that meets them where they are in the get along mode and by blending with people, that allows you to then lead them or redirect them to something else. What we do naturally when we're getting along with people, it's not really a technique, it's just that's what happens when communication is working.

Rachel Salaman: There was one technique I thought was really interesting in your book called the Pygmalion Power, can you explain this perhaps using the example from the book of the couple Betsy and Sooli and how Betsy used this technique effectively?

Rick Brinkman: Well Pygmalion Power is when you project positive on people, when you assume the best of intentions, whether or not that's really true so let's say with a little child that throws a tantrum, if you said to them "It's not like you to throw a tantrum," even though it may be like them, you are trying to separate them from that behavior. Let's say somebody is being negative and we say to them, "I appreciate you pointing out the problem so we can come up with the solutions," that's projecting positive on them, you are assuming they are coming from the positive intention of wanting to improve things. Now they may not be consciously doing that, let's say I have a co-worker – this was told to me by an engineer, he had a co-worker in his guest chair, a fellow engineer, quote/unquote "helping him" but the guy wasn't being helpful, the guy was being distracting. Now if he just turns and says "Frank, I don't have time for this right now," we run the risk of Frank going, "Fine, the last time I help him out" but if we want to project positive with Pygmalion Power we say, "Frank, thank you for helping, taking your valuable time to help me out." He's going to say "Rick, what are friends for?" and then we can say "What would really help me out right now is if I can be left alone to focus" and he'd go, "Yeah, sure." Now Frank may not be in the chair with the conscious intention to help, he is technically procrastinating on something he does not want to deal with in his office but when we say thanks for wanting to help me out, he's not going to say "Oh no, Rick, you've got me all wrong, I'm just a frivolous time waster." People will fall all over themselves to fulfill your positive expectations of them.

Rachel Salaman: Now most of the book is about these 13 types of difficult person or difficult behavior that we've been touching on and how to deal with them, how did you come up with the original 10 and why did you add these three new ones for the new edition?

Rick Brinkman: Well the original 10 seemed to be archetypes from... you know, we've been physicians, holistic physicians and counselors dealing with symptoms that nothing else worked on and we started dealing with people's relationship issues and finding out that with the development skills to handle it, their symptoms would go away, with life fulfillment issues which led to another book of ours called "Life By Design: Fulfilling What's Important To You," and it seemed that these 10 really covered the major archetypes. Then we did a follow up to "Dealing With People You Can't Stand" called "Dealing With Relatives" and in interviewing people we found eight major behaviors seemed to appear in relatives and of the eight, five of them clearly were variations of the theme in terms of "Dealing With People You Can't Stand." So for example in "People You Can't Stand" we had The Tank. The Tank is pushy, they're aggressive, they attack, they run right over you and in relatives we called this a General because they're taking over the family. "Oh you do this, you wash the dishes," it's like their personal platoon. They may not be attacking but they are in charge, so that was really a similar behavior. But then there were three that were more unique – the Martyr, oh poor me, I do everything for everybody, why doesn't anybody think about me? Or the Judge, criticism and then the Meddler and the Meddler is kind of like half-Judge and half-Tank in that they judge you that you're not doing the right thing and then that Tank, get it done, part of them takes over and meddles and does it for you. So we felt that those really deserved chapters of their own because they were unique strategies. With the General for example, the same thing you'd do with the Tank is the same think you're do with the General, it's really the same behavior.

Rachel Salaman: Now you point out that all of us are difficult people to someone at some time, are we usually just one type or can a person be difficult in lots of different ways, depending on the situation? Can we be multiple types?

Rick Brinkman: Oh exactly and it's as you said, it depends on the situation, what we call context and it can also depend on relationship, who you're with. So you could be really aggressive in one situation and, well I did a program for the Defense Department when I was at the Pentagon and what came up in a discussion there with that audience is one person who was really aggressive, attack, but when he was brought to the White House he became a giggling schoolgirl, totally changed his behavior, the people who were with him were just stunned, they had never seen him like that, they could not believe he could act so wishy-washy and star struck, so to speak, so it definitely changes according to where you are, what's going on and who you're with. I interviewed a CEO for an onsite program recently and she told me she definitely is a Tank at work but when she comes home to her husband she becomes a whiner about everything that's going on at work. Her husband cannot fathom how can she possibly run a company being such a victim/whiner but he doesn't see her in all her Tank glory. Even the people we're closest to, we don't see them in all their habitats, we only have a limited amount of exposure based on relationship and context so the answer is a resounding yes, you can be completely different from one situation or one relationship to another.

Rachel Salaman: And being aware of that I suppose helps us take a less confrontational position if one of our co-workers is difficult, we have to remember that perhaps they are completely different at home.

Rick Brinkman: Exactly and then if you know the strategy, you help them get out of it. If you don't know the strategy, more often than not what we do seems to push people deeper into the behavior. Like whining, the last thing you want to do is solve the problem for them, if you try to problem solve they are just going to whine and feel helpless about that or with negativity, negativity is the first cousin of whining. Where whining is a feeling of helpless, negativity is a feeling of hopeless. It's got all the sureness and arrogance of a know it all seduced by the dark side of the force and one of the worst things you can ever do if somebody is being negative is try to tell them it's not so bad because when people are negative they have a polarity response, polarity means opposite. Two year olds have a polarity response as a developmental phase – time for bed, I don't want to go to bed, time for bed, I don't want to go to bed. So if you say all right, but you've got to stay up all night, they go "But what if I get tired?" they go opposite.

Teenagers can have a polarity response as a developmental phase and when people are negative they have that too so if you try to tell a negative person it's not so bad, and you could do so with good intention – this goes back to the road to hell is paved with good intentions – let's say you have a family member and you care about them genuinely, so you try to tell them it's not so bad, you offer solutions but ironically you sink them deeper into the quicksand of how bad it is but if you know that there's a polarity response, first of all you could not invoke it but second of all you could kind of jump in playfully and go, "You're right, it's hopeless, I don't know why we bother, we might as well end it all right now, nothing is ever going to work" and they are going to go, well, you're right, but all you have to do is this. All of a sudden they will tell you a solution, it's amazing how consistent that works with negativity. However it does not work with whining, when people are whiney they do not have a polarity response but when they're negative they do, so it's very important to recognize where these behaviors are coming from, what's going to work to make it better and what's going to actually backfire and make it worse for you as well as the other person.

Rachel Salaman: Well since you mention the whiner, how should you deal with someone like that?

Rick Brinkman: Well the overall goal is to get them to problem solve and really the strategy for whining is your first step with negativity so you are going to have to listen to them, step one, unfortunately but then there'll be a signal that it's time to interrupt them and that is when they repeat themselves. You may have noticed that when people whine or are negative they tend to do it on endless loop tapes, they'll go around and around and around as many times as you let them so as soon as you're hearing something that you've already heard, that's your signal to go "Excuse me interrupting, let me make sure I understand." You give them a complete summary of what you heard so far, that blends because it lets them know you've listened to them, then you roll up your sleeves and you start clarifying, asking questions to get them to be specific. Now what you have to be ready for next is called generalization slopping where they switch one from another, so you ask what's wrong and they'll go "everything's wrong." You go, okay, but what specifically? They go, "It's everything, all of it." You go, okay, but when does it occur? "It happens all the time." Who's doing it? "Everybody." What have you tried? "Everything." This is par for the course and you need to be ready for it because the normal human response to switching of generalizations is just to bail out by offering a solution. You do not want to bail, you want to outlast them at this phase, even if that requires the recycling of questions already asked. So you stay with it.

Let's just step out of the whiner for a moment and look at the bigger picture of what's going on here. When people are whining or negative they're stuck in the generalization point, so what I mean by that is if we drive someplace and we stop for two or three red lights in a row, we say all the lights are red today. If we meet two or three people in a bad mood, we say everybody's in a bad mood today. Well the same thing is true of whining and negativity, there's two or three that become everybody, all the time, everything. Now people can have an acute case of whining, meaning in general this person is not a victim whiner but, you know, a few things went wrong today and they've got a 48 hour whining virus. Or somebody could do this much more globally, they've had major disappointments in their life and now they are running their whole life based on this, so this is the etiology of whining and negativity, so going back to our whining strategy we first listen to them, then as soon as they repeat themselves we give them a complete summary so they know we've heard them. Then we start asking questions, we know they're going to do generalization slopping so we're just going to stay with it and as we stay with it, they are going to get more and more specific until all of a sudden we're looking at specifics of a real problem and at that point we would ask of them, "What do you think we should do about that?" and a lot of them will go, "Well I guess we should..." and they'll bring in something that totally makes sense and you'll be amazed at why didn't they just say that before?

The reason is that human beings can only pay attention to seven, give or take two, things at any one time consciously. If I'm looking at the generalization that everything is wrong, there's nothing left for problem solving. Once I'm looking at specifics I can come up with something that's realistic. Now the other thing that could happen at that same point in strategies is they want something maybe that's valid but is unrealistic – "I'm doing the work of three people, I want two more people." Well if you know that's not going to happen then you have to say well, I understand why you want that because of this and this, however we both know that Ebenezer is not going to go for that, so in that case, what do you want? And you state the limitations and stay in that loop until what they want becomes realistic.

Other people at this stage will discover venting – "I just need to get it out of my system" and then you have to say, oh you're venting, all right, good, you've got five minutes, go! But it's very important you formalize that because the difference between venting and wallowing is venting is done with intention to feel better, venting has a time limit and venting has permission of the ventee whereas with wallowing, it goes on and on with no intention whatsoever, no time limit and no permission. So you have to be ready for that and then as a solution takes form, all right the fourth step. Let's just summarize, the first step is listen to them until they repeat themselves, the second step is give them a summary so they know they've been heard, third step is stick with clarifying, asking questions to get them to be specific and the fourth step becomes integrating them in the solution process as best you can. I mean if you are a supervisor, you assign, if you're a friend, you suggest but you want them actively involved in the solution so it addresses their feeling of being helpless and the fifth step is always leave them with something to look forward to and next week we will meet at two and do this, that will be the next step. That's your five step strategy with whining.

Rachel Salaman: You mentioned that the whiner might be subordinate to you, what happens if the whiner if your boss? Do you still apply that five step strategy the same way?

Rick Brinkman: Yes, that's the beauty of it, in none of the strategies are you making people wrong for how they're acting, you're just understanding where they're coming from, what need is not being fulfilled in them and you're helping them get out of the trap, although maybe your language could change depending on relationship. Going back to a yes person, you could talk about intimacy at home and you'll be talking about teamwork at work, but the essence of the strategy is exactly the same and that really makes it easier because once you get what the strategy is, whether it's for whining, for yes behavior, you can apply it in virtually any relationship.

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Rachel Salaman: Well most of what we've talked about so far has been about face to face communication but your book also gives lots of tips about email and phone communication and you talk about losing something and gaining something when the face to face element is taken away, could you just talk a little bit about that?

Rick Brinkman: Sure, let's take the phone for example first of all. I remember I was doing a seminar for Adobe's tech support and one of the tech supporters said when he's on the phone and the client's upset and he starts to take things personally, he gets out of his chair, still working with the client on the headset, and he starts doing yoga positions because he finds that when he's in one of those positions he can't take anything personally. Now if you're in a face to face interaction and suddenly you go into a yoga position, you're going to stop the person in their tracks in confusion, where you can hit a mute button, breathe and compose yourself or if you change your facial expression to a smile – I'm just changing my facial expression right now and I'm sure your listeners can hear the difference. I'm not trying to change my tone at all, I'm just changing my facial expression and my tone is dragged along with it. Your tone is very intimately wired to your body, and especially your facial, expressions so whatever you do, if you smile with your face, your tone automatically goes with it, that's the advantage you have on the phone.

Now in written communication, the advantage is that time is on your side, it's not a true interactive medium. Now I find it very interesting that I've been teaching communication since 1980 and we've been writing to each other for hundreds of years but we never had as much misunderstanding and conflict in writing until the digital age so what's the difference here? Well let's go back to a time of yesteryear when you had to write with a typewriter, time was basically built into the writing system, you know, you put a piece of paper in there, wait a second, I don't think it's straight, release it, okay, crank it up, match the edges, lock it in, turn it back, no that's no good, get another piece of paper in there, get it straight, okay, lock it in, correct, correct, correct. You've sent about two emails in this amount of time. There is so much time in the process of writing that one or two things always happen, one is we either just get interactive with people, just get on the phone or go talk to them because it was way too much work to write or if we stayed in the process of writing, so much time passed that we'd arrive at the point on our blood sugar curve. We would read, we would reread, we would edit.

You see the problem with writing in general, but especially in email, is that it leaves us able to hallucinate freely as to how we think the other person sounds when they say it and our hallucinations are based on our blood sugar curve, our stress level and everything else we've got going on that day. Now this is a great irony of communication – tone of voice is taken more personally than any other part of communication, we project, we hallucinate, we project a tone on an email and then we end up taking our own projection personally. So you have to keep in mind that first of all you do not know how people sound, absolutely not, you are making it up. You may be right, half right, but you're making it up. Then the second thing you have to consider is, is email the best way to proceed, should I really continue this? Just because an interaction began in this email format does not mean it should continue in this format.

My advice to people, you know it's time to bail on email if you suspect emotional content. If you think they are having some sort of strong emotional response, if you're having an emotional response to whatever, hallucinating about, pull the ripcord on email, go interactive, you'll save yourself a lot of trouble. If you have to clarify, if you have to ask more than X questions, X is one, yes or no, if it's any more complicated than that, you really need to go interactive. Clarification requires us going back and forth, double checking that we're on the same page. If we leave it in writing we don't have those checks and we think we're on the same page, we're not even on the same book. Then you also know it's time to bail on email if you write something and you have a little bit of a concern about how they might take it, then that's a mental signal that it's definitely time to bail on email and so if one of those things is a factor, your response to them is I think is very important, let's get together and discuss it or what time's good for you to talk on the phone, and you just set up an interactive moment and refuse to continue in email.

Rachel Salaman: I think some people get into bad habits with email, even to the extent that they forget that they could pick up the phone.

Rick Brinkman: It's absolutely true. I've met some people at a company where Friday is no email day, you're not allowed to email your co-workers, because it's being misused. Each form of communication has its advantages, all right here's the advantage of writing – if you need to document information, here's the facts, here's the figures, here's a summary of what we discussed, that's what writing's for. If I have to inform people and they are geographically diverse, I've got my group in London, I've got my group in New Delhi, I've got my group in New York, okay I've got to put that in writing so that everybody gets the same communication. So as a communicator, you have to decide all right, what's my goal first of all and that's one of the first things we tell people in the book, you've always got to decide what's the goal in this communication, what am I going for and then that leads you to the next question which is okay, what's the form that's going to deliver what I'm after or am I just going to create a can of worms for myself that I've got to deal with?

Rachel Salaman: So what do you think would be the most usable of those tips we've talked about? If someone wanted to take away maybe three main points from this interview what would you suggest?

Rick Brinkman: Well I would suggest that you make it your goal to always let people feel understood first before you try to tell them anything, if people feel understood the doors to their mind go... and they're wide open. Usually we are much too much in a rush to say what we have to say, I personally think you should metaphorically grab people by the ankles and hold them upside down and shake them out until they've said everything they want to say or can possibly say and then there's nothing left to do but hear what you have to say. Really it's a matter of simply first listening and you're nodding and grunting and giving them meaningful looks and then backtracking, something we mentioned, that's when you summarize back what somebody says to you and that lets them know that you've listened to them and then asking questions to find out more, which any time you ask questions shows you care and when you put listening and caring together, that gives people a feeling of being understood, that would be number one.

I think keeping in mind intent, intent is a very good one. You always know it's time for a statement for intent, if you don't want people taking things the wrong way, so for example say one person is upset about something that's happened with their spouse the other day and this point their intent is to clear the air, good intent, they're not all upset, they just want to clear the air so they go to their spouse but they don't speak their intent, they just start by saying, you know, yesterday when you did that I was a little upset because da-da-da and immediately their spouse hears a sound in their mind like this [alarm sound], we are under attack, this is not a drill. Misunderstanding. If we don't want the spouse to misunderstand, oh there's a signal for positive intent, we say listen, I love you, I care about you, I hate there's something blocking our communication, I would like to clear the air. Now they know where you're coming from. Home is not where you go when you're trying to be nice to people. Put it in the email format, if we don't want people to misunderstand an email, then the first line in the body of the email should be a statement of intent, a statement of purpose, what do I want from you in relation to this in this email? So that's a very important one, intent.

Then the third and this is something we haven't really discussed yet in this interview, is criteria. Criteria are reasons, they could be reasons for or reasons against. This is in the book but I remember once in my office I was with a couple, it was the end of the visit, everybody was feeling really good and she suddenly turns to him and says, honey, let's go to the rose gardens and he goes, nah. She goes, okay. I go, wait a second, what's your intent right now, why did you bring this up? She says, well we're feeling closer than we have in a long time, we have an hour before we have to pick up the kids, I thought it'd be nice to spend some quiet time together. He goes, "Oh that's a great idea but outside it'll be too hot, too buggy, how about the cafe we've been meaning to try?" She says, sure. Now does she really care about going to the rose gardens specifically? No, what she cares about is spending time, that's the intent, the rose garden is just a way to fulfill that, just an idea. Well how does she come up with that? That's through running intent through relevant criteria so for example, they only have an hour before they have to pick up the kids so time is a factor here, it's got to fit within an hour. Maybe geography is a factor because it's on the way home, maybe budget, it won't cost us anything, maybe atmosphere, it's a romantic quiet place. All these things are criteria so she sends her mental computer on a search of the database, what fits that intent and fulfills those criteria, up pops rose gardens. He immediately thinks buzz, nah, but if he adds his criteria, once he knows the intention, oh spend time together, a great idea, he adds some criteria which is be indoors, away from bugs and heat and it becomes the cafe. So whenever people have ideas, whenever they have a point of view, that is your clear mental signal that you must find out their criteria, if you don't know their criteria you really don't know what they're talking about and where this is life and death is when you face the know it all, because the reasons the know it all believes their ideas are the gift from God are based on their criteria. The reasons they're sure your clearly inferior ideas will not work is based on criteria. So if you can find out the know it all's criteria, you redirect them and say Anne, if you consider if we do it this way because it will take care of this, this, this, this and you go down their criteria list like a checklist, that is something that you just gathered by letting them feel understood first, so you are backtracking, clarifying to find out why they think what they think and then you show them the reasons they think what they think will also be satisfied by this other method, you turn them into an ally instead of an adversary.

So in answer to your question, what are certain takeaways, these are a big three that will save you a lot of trouble and prevent a lot of conflict. Number one, let people feel understood first; number two, know when to utilize statements of intent and your strongest signals any time you're worried about people taking them the wrong way and then any time ideas or points of view are present, you know it's time to find out people's criteria. Then turning that around, if I want to be a clear communicator, I would want to state my intent first, then my criteria and then my idea. So going back to the couple, if she was communicating very clearly at the beginning she would say honey, we're feeling rather close, we have an hour before we pick up the kids, I thought it would be nice to spend some quiet time together, what would fit within an hour, be on the way home, won't cost anything and be a romantic quiet place? What do you think about going to the rose gardens? That would be a very clear communication on his part but turning it around, it is anybody's job to make sure communication works so if I'm let's say the husband and I'm receiving an unclear communication which is spontaneous, let's go to the rose gardens, instead of me first going nah, I would go, mmm, rose gardens, why do you want to do that? Then I would find out her intent – oh spend time together, okay, but what makes you say rose gardens? Then I'd find out it's on the way home, it won't cost anything, it fits within an hour, a romantic quiet place and I go, oh, those are important although I'd hate to be distracted by heat and bugs, what do you think about the cafe we've been meaning to try? Now I'm throwing in another criteria and we live happily ever after.

Rachel Salaman: Dr Rick Brinkman, thank you very much for joining us.

Rick Brinkman: It was my pleasure.

Rachel Salaman: The name of Rick's book again is "Dealing With People You Can't Stand: How To Bring Out The Best In People At Their Worst" and it's co-written with Dr Rick Kirschner. You can find out more about the book and access a number of other useful resources at www.dealingwithpeople.com. I'll be back in a few weeks with another Expert Interview, until then, goodbye.