working with someone you find difficult to deal with

This activity helps you to get a different angle about someone you find hard to cope with - they may be your manager or someone who works with you. What this activity does is get you to collect all the information you have about this relationship. The final step helps you to use this information to improve what goes on between you and this person.

Get clear in your mind the relationship that you want improve.
If possible ask a colleague to guide you through this exercise, by just reading out each step and talking you through it. They shouldn’t have any conversation with you or offer advice, just take you through the process.

i. Use two chairs. Sit in one, facing the person in your imagination sitting opposite you. Describe the person as you normally see them, what they do and say, how you react, what you find difficult/valuable/interesting about them.
ii. Now change chairs and sit in the other person's position. Say as much as you can about what it’s like to be them, using "I", as if you were them. Include how they see you (what you look like, what they're experiencing, what they expect from you, their history with you as they have experienced it). You may find gaps that would be worth finding out more about. You may need to extemporize - remember this is only really an interesting though powerful game.
iii. Describe the nature of the relationship - not referring to yourself or the other. Say things like “This relationship is about….., it’s like…….”) describing its purpose, character, power levels, and everything that you know about the relationship itself. Use metaphors, similes and images where they help you to get a full picture or description of what this relationship truly is, and what it’s meant to be for.
iv. Now get up from the chair. Move round the three positions, (and it seems important actually to move, pausing at each position) collecting up the information you have been giving yourself: information about yourself, the other person, and the nature of the relationship.

Using this information, as your wiser self, stand behind your first chair, as if you were standing behind yourself with a hand on your shoulder. Give yourself a small piece of advice about how you will improve the relationship, or how you will change the way you react in it.
Finally ask anyone else who has been watching the process to stand behind you and offer their own wisdom, based only on the information they have heard from you while you were doing the activity.

copyright Joanna Howard 2000