|
Courses >
Personal Enrichment > Achieving Success with Difficult People
Syllabus:
All
courses run for six weeks, with a two-week grace period at the end. Two
lessons are released each week for the six-week duration of the course.
You do not have to be present when the lesson is released, but you must
complete each lesson within two weeks of its release.
A new
section of each course starts on the second or third Wednesday of each
month. If enrolling in a series of two or more courses, please be sure
to space the start date for each course at least two months apart.
| Week One |
| Wednesday - Lesson 01 |
In
our first lesson, you'll find out the answers to four very important
questions that impact the success of your relationships with others.
The answers to these questions will help you identify your preferred
communication styles. By the time you finish this lesson, your skills
for achieving successful relationships will markedly increase.
|
| Friday - Lesson 02 |
In
this lesson, you'll begin to build a database about not only your
difficult people (those who are different in communication style from
you), but also enhance your skills in reviewing and resolving problems
with them. You'll learn to see things from others' viewpoints based on
their needs, values, beliefs, experiences, skills, knowledge, and
self-interests. You'll also learn to use a well-structured approach to
carefully review all aspects of difficult situations by answering these
questions: who? what? where? when? how? and why? And by
answering these questions, you'll review specifically who your
difficult people are, what they're like, how you typically react to
them, and their response to your actions. These answers will enhance
your ability to find solutions to conflict rather than defeat.
|
| Week Two |
| Wednesday - Lesson 03 |
Today,
we'll discuss four types of hostile, pushy, and rude people—with the
emphasis on "hostile." These are people who want to control everything
and everyone but have no self-control. This group is aggressive and
unfriendly, and is appropriately called Hostile-Aggressives and/or Sensors.
You'll learn how to analyze your own interactions, and see why some
people are so concerned with "getting their job done" that they pay
little attention to relationships with others. By observing others
closely, you'll learn to read their identifying characteristics, and
once you can identify which type of person you're dealing with, you'll
be able to choose appropriate reactions to their hostile behaviors.
|
| Friday - Lesson 04 |
In
today's lesson, you'll learn appropriate options for interacting well
with those who are stubborn, tight-lipped, and critical—the people
known as Negative-Passives and/or Thinkers. By comparing your
own group of Thinkers and Sensors, you'll soon see why Thinkers are
much more passive than Sensors. They're also more organized, precise,
and thorough. You'll easily recognize Thinkers you know because they're
perfectionists—always moving slowly and cautiously. By the time you
finish this lesson, you'll know some specific approaches you can use to
deal with this group.
|
| Week Three |
| Wednesday - Lesson 05 |
In
this lesson, you'll learn and practice appropriate options for dealing
effectively with aggressive subcategories of Intuitors whom you'll
learn to recognize because of their fashionable and stylish
appearances, as well as their stimulating, cluttered, and friendly
workplaces. You've probably experienced what happens when Intuitors
aren't getting their needs met. They become neglectors, empire
builders, and prima donnas. And by the time you finish this lesson,
you'll know how to deal with each one.
|
| Friday - Lesson 06 |
Today,
we'll take another look at Relaters and see how they differ from
Intuitors, who are also people-focused. Plus, you'll learn ways to
effectively handle the difficult subcategories of Relaters. You'll see
from examples that Relaters are more passive than Intuitors, they
concentrate more on pleasing others than Intuitors do, they're very
attentive to the needs of others, and they set high value on
friendships and being accepted by others. But if their needs aren't
met, they may become approval-seeking to the extreme. We'll go over how
to deal with them in today's lesson.
|
| Week Four |
| Wednesday - Lesson 07 |
Some
of your difficult people probably also feel that you're their difficult
person, but you may be totally unaware of this. Do you feel that
ignorance is really bliss? You wouldn't if you value relationships with
others as well as personal and professional success. If so, you need to
know whose difficult person you may be. We'll go through some exercises
in this lesson that should help you figure it out. The greater your
versatility, the more likely you are to experience win-win
relationships—those in which the needs of everyone in a relationship
are met.
|
| Friday - Lesson 08 |
In
this lesson, you'll work toward improving your own flexibility skills:
Confidence, tolerance, empathy, positivity, and respect. To help,
you'll answer a few questions about each of your own skill sets as you
move through the lesson's materials. You'll also select and use
techniques and processes to increase or improve your flexibility
skills, and then you'll review your success or results achieved.
|
| Week Five |
| Wednesday - Lesson 09 |
In
today's lesson, you'll learn that a certain set of characteristics is
essential if you want to relate well with others. As you'll find out
today, you must first improve your versatility skills to maintain a
positive attitude, and then learn to view obstacles and problems as
"opportunities." You'll also learn that versatility is based on your
levels of resilience, vision, attentiveness, competence, and
self-correction. Plus, you'll review techniques and processes by which
you may increase or improve your versatility skills, and then apply the
skills to your own situations and relationships and analyze their
effectiveness.
|
| Friday - Lesson 10 |
After
we finish today's lesson, you'll understand what assertiveness is and
what it isn't. You'll begin to see why assertive behavior is so
important to your success in getting along well with others, and you'll
carefully examine your own level of assertiveness, know which of your
skills need fine-tuning, and have access to the tools needed to
accomplish your tune up. You'll learn that assertiveness involves
taking responsibility for getting your own needs met in a way that also
preserves the dignity and rights of others. Plus, you'll learn how to
both show and tell others through assertive actions and language what
you mean and what you need or want.
|
| Week Six |
| Wednesday - Lesson 11 |
You're
going to be amazed by the results you'll be able to accomplish after
you complete this lesson! The assertive-communication techniques you'll
practice are simple, yet powerful. You'll learn to use self-disclosure
appropriately to share information about yourself—your thoughts,
feelings, and opinions—to build relationship trust and common ground.
Then you'll find out how to use persistence, or the broken record
technique, to get results from someone who's not listening to your
wants or needs. Next, you'll find out how to effectively use your voice
and language assertively to improve your relationships. Added to the
many other techniques you've already explored in this course, you'll
now have all the tools you need to improve and maintain even your most
difficult relationships.
|
| Friday - Lesson 12 |
Today
in our final lesson, you may be surprised to discover that your
listening skills need improvement because listening well is a complex
process in which your own selective filtering often keeps you from real
understanding. Even more astounding, we spend more time listening every
day than we do in other types of communication, yet a majority of us
have never learned how to listen effectively. When paired with
assertive speaking skills and other nonverbal skills, assertive
listening skills will give you a lot more personal control over
difficult situations—including living and working with difficult
people.
|
This
course includes a knowledgeable and caring instructor who will guide
you through your lessons, facilitate discussions, and answer your
questions. The instructor for this course will be Judy Snyder.
 Judy
Snyder holds a doctorate degree and over 30 years of experience as a
college and university teacher, administrator, and curriculum
developer. She has over 15 years' experience as an entrepreneur and
freelance writer. Judy specializes in teaching courses in effective
communication, relationship skills, project management, and personnel
and office management.
Requirements:
Internet access, e-mail, the Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox Web browser, and the Adobe Flash and PDF plug-ins
(two free and simple downloads you obtain at
http://www.adobe.com/downloads by clicking Get Adobe Flash Player and
Get Adobe Reader).
Student Reviews:
"Excellent course. Easy to follow. Very useful."
"Excellent course! If I had my druthers, it would be given
over twelve weeks, rather than six, the better to practice the skills
Ms. Snyder taught. I shall use the knowledge I gained through the rest
of my life and shall refer to the course often."
"Excellent Course. I will be able to refrence and use the
information and resources available in this course as skills for a
lifetime."
"Excellent supplementary materials that will be useful in school and practice. Thanks much!"
"Good information presented in an easy to read style.
Instructor offered many helpful resources for the student. Excellent
instructor. She took the challange of an online class and managed to
personalize it with her wonderful personal experiences."
"Great Class! Very useful material!"
"Great course. Anyone in the working world needs to take
this course. Should be mandatory for anyone in management. Learned a
lot about dealing with others."
"Great course - I liked the format very much."
"Great first experience taking an online course. Lots of excellent resourses and the supplementary materials were very helpful."
"I appreciate the immediate feedback the instructor provided
in the discussion areas, and her pleasant demeanor when dealing with
different personalities. It indirectly showed me how to use the skills
taught in the class."
"I enjoyed the material and all the information that this
course presented. It is very helpful in daily life encounter and
especially beneficial in the corporate culture."
"I enjoyed this class - it was interesting and easy to
follow. The content was useful and applicable. I will review and use in
the future."
"I enjoyed this course very much.I notice a change at work and with my family. I would recommend this course to everyone."
"I found the class very interesting and it gave me some
insight on looking at other people when there is conflict between us.
It helps to take some of the feelings away to know we have different
backgrounds and different ways of doing things."
"I found the course to be very informative and helpful for my present situations and future dealings with people. Thank you!!"
"I found the course to provide greater access to material than I had expected, a pleasant surprise!"
"I found this class very enlightening and helpful. I
appreciate all your effort and expertise in presenting the information
in a well-organized and interesting manner. Again, thank you."
"I found this course to be very interesting and gave me a
great insight into other people's behaviour as well as my own. I
especially found the links to other websites and articles very useful."
"I gained some very valuable information and have made a binder to keep my lessons and use for a future resource."
"I have really enjoyed this course, it is very informative
& comprehensive. I found the lessons easy to understand &
well-written, I also appreciated Judy's personal references throughout
the lessons as examples of communication difficulties, they were very
helpful. The supplementary info is also very comprehensive & I am
looking forward to exploring the links."
"I loved this class! I found the glossary/index very useful.
It will be with me forever as I have named my teenagers with their new
appropriate titles...Thank yoou so very much!"
"I really enjoyed this class. I found myself always on the suggested websites. Thank you for an interesting class."
"I really enjoyed this class! It opened a new world of
understanding family members and friends. I know I'll be much more
thoughtful in the future! Thanks for your help!!!"
"I really enjoyed this course. There was a tremendous amount
of information contained here and the supplementary websites given were
excellent. Really excellent course!!"
"I was surprised how much content there was. I feel I gained
valuable insights into what makes us have different responses to
situations. It taught me a lot about myself as well. Thank you."
"Judy was wonderful. This class offers so much to people and
society, I feel it should be tought in High School to help young adults
learn to communicate and deal with other people."
"Judy, you covered all the material I felt was necessary for
me to change and be a better manager in my home and my job. Kudos to
you!!Thank you so much for the most interesting and fun 6 weeks. I hope
to take more classes and I hope you are the teacher. Thanks again."
"Many thanks, this course has re-established a few lost techniques & established a few new ones."
"Not only did the course make me think about how I perceive
others as difficult, it also made me more aware of how I myself may be
a difficult person. Thank you for a course that has given me skills to
deal with difficult people and the knowledge on how to change my own
behaviours."
"Thanks for all the helpful tips. They really work!"
"Thank you for the opportunity to see myself as others see
me. And offering me skills to make the necessary changes within myself.
Great information!"
"Thank you very much. I now have a good understanding of why
people act the way they do. I can now handle difficult people better
and I have greater knowledge of who I am."
"The class was very helpful for my situation at work. Both a
fellow supervisor and a boss have very difficult personalities to deal
with at my place of employment, and this course has been quite an
eye-opener for me. Thank you for a most enjoyable class."
"The course thoroughly covered the subject and then
some...lots of materials for understanding and dealing more effectively
with people and yourself! I would recommend this course to anyone who
really wants to change the way they deal with others and to anyone who
would like to learn more assertive behaviors."
"This course dealt with everyday people and how to deal with them. It is one of the best courses I have taken."
"This course did an excellent job of getting me to look
closer at myself and my own communication problems. What began as an
exercise in dealing with others became very introspective. Thanks."
"This course is valuable for everyone. I wish my co-workers would all take it!"
"This course is very valuable for anyone working with the
public. It would come in handy for anyone with family conflict also. I
found it informative and insightful."
"This course opened my eyes to other communication styles that will greatly enhance my ability to lead others."
"This course was amazing. I learned so much in each lesson
and the people around me, including my bosses, noticed a difference in
me. I can definitely say my confidence was boosted from what I've
learned. By having friends, family and co-workers take the first quiz
and find out what color they were sparked a lot of interesting
conversations. Excellent class! Thank you!!!!!!!!!!"
"This course was extremely helpful to me. I hope to be able
to put my new knowledge to a lifetime of use. Hopefully, thanks to your
course, I will be on my way to becoming a more assertive person."
"This course was not only informative, it was also personally fulfilling and even fun. Thank You!"
"This course would be of great benefit to everyone. I strongly recommend it."
"This improved my communication and conflict resolution
skills by helping me identify personality types. The course also
exposed weaknesses in my communication skills. The information I
learned has helped me resolve negative contacts with aplomb."
"This is an excellent course. I have gained huge amount of
understanding of communication styles and personality types, even my
own. Applying the techniques taught in the course will definitely make
a difference in achieving my goals."
"This is one of the best courses I have ever taken. I feel
confident that I have better communication skills and have already had
compliments on my improved skills. I have three full notebooks of
useful information and a long list of resources. Dr. Snyder is awesome
and I look forward to taking other courses with her as the instructor.
I am already recommending this course."
"This is one of the best courses I have ever taken. It is
interesting and really informative with lots of examples that helped me
put the material to practice. One of the greatest benefits, besides
achieving success with difficult and not-so difficult people, of
course, is that I also learned a lot about myself."
"very informaive class. Helps to figure why we are what we are. Self evaluation is always helpful."
To purchase this course, click the Enroll Now button below:
|
Do
you know people whose behavior makes completing even the simplest tasks
difficult? Would you like to learn how to have more successful
relationships with difficult bosses, co-workers, students, neighbors or
family members? Join this class and get helpful information for
understanding yourself, solving people problems, and improving your
relationships and personal and professional productivity.