Dealing With Sensitive People

by Ruth Haag

People behave in predictable ways. If you study your co-workers for several years, you will begin to notice patterns in their behaviors.

You will find that you co-workers are either:
1. Mostly concerned about procedures
2. Mostly concerned about people, or
3. Mostly concerned about themselves

Those mostly concerned about people are the type that I call sensitive.
These are people who we most often describe as quiet, or shy. They make decisions abut work based upon the effect their decisions will have on others.

They tend to avoid confrontations, and will even do all of the work themselves, rather than asking for help.

If you are working with a sensitive co-worker or boss, you might have to push them to let you help them.

You should be aware that requests that they make that sound like options, really aren't ?. If you have a sensitive co-worker at a meeting, you might want to ask them a question, to start drawing them out.

The sensitive person has to train themselves to enter into confrontations, and to assert their ideas. Once they do this, they make great leaders because, after all, they are mainly concerned about people.

About Ruth Haag
Ruth Haag ( www.ManageLiving.com ) is the President and CEO of Haag Environmental Company, a hazardous waste consulting firm. Ruth is also a business management consultant. She trains supervisors to identify their shortcomings and tame them, while creating management systems that focus on their employees rather than themselves.She is also the author of several books, including a four-book series on supervisory management which includes Taming Your Inner Supervisor, Day to Day Supervising, Hiring and Firing and Why Projects Fail. She and her partner, Bob Haag, host the weekly radio show Manage Living, which can be heard on-demand on her site.

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