Dealing With High Conflict Employees

Course overview

Conflict seems to be at the center of some people's lives. Every challenge, every dispute and every argument becomes a fight to the death. They feel like their very existence is at stake. High Conflict People (HCPs) are driven by deep, unacknowledged fears. Their whole lives are organized around these fears. This seems normal to them and believes that everyone else thinks the same way they do. When most people think of high conflict people, they think of bad behavior. However, people afflicted with High Conflict Personality (HCP) are not aware of their own behavior. HCPs can be difficult people with whom to work, live and resolve conflicts. They can be rigid, angry, attacking, criticizing, lying, spreading rumors, manipulative, self-absorbed, attention-getting, self-sabotaging, and sometimes violent. Most people respond to this bad behavior by giving negative feedback: criticizing, lecturing or threatening the HCP. Some people publically humiliate them, call them crazy/stupid/evil/immoral, or ask them lots of questions. They often give this negative feedback instead of understanding their HCP behavior and setting real limits on their behavior. Understanding their maladaptive characteristics and conflict patterns makes them easily identifiable and once they are identified, it would be easier to deal with their fear-based logic and manage the conflict. To be able to tolerate and effectively deal with people suffering with high conflict personality, one must be able to have basic knowledge on the cause and pattern of thinking of such disorder. The goal seems to be to get them to stop their bad behavior, by verbally motivating them to have insights into how bad they are acting. The high conflict behavior of HCPs is not driven by logic and self-awareness. It's driven primarily by unconscious defensiveness. Hence, the study of their behavior, characteristics and the reason behind such psychopathy are essential tools for acceptance and compassion to a high conflict person.