Dealing with Difficult People & Conflict Management Course for Healthcare Professionals

The course is designed for doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals who want to become more effective at managing difficult behaviour, workplace conflict and challenging conversations.

You do not need to be experiencing a major problem at work to benefit. The course is equally relevant if you want to become more confident in addressing difficult situations earlier, resolving disagreements, communicating more assertively or understanding why some interactions are particularly challenging.

Yes. Conflict management is one of the core elements of the course. The course is designed more broadly around difficult behaviour, challenging conversations and professional relationships because workplace conflict rarely occurs in isolation from these issues.

You will explore why conflict develops, how disagreements escalate, different conflict-management styles and practical approaches for resolving conflict while protecting professional relationships.

The course uses models including Thomas-Kilmann and the Interest-Based Relational approach and applies them to realistic situations involving healthcare teams, colleagues, managers, patients and relatives.

This makes the course suitable both for people specifically looking for conflict-management training and those who want broader skills for managing difficult professional interactions.

Yes. The course considers difficult interactions with patients, relatives and colleagues.

The circumstances may be different, but many of the underlying principles are transferable. These include understanding what may be driving somebody's behaviour, recognising your own response, listening and questioning effectively, managing emotion and conflict, communicating assertively and adapting your approach to the individual.

The course therefore looks beyond simply learning phrases to use with a “difficult person”. It helps you analyse what is happening within the interaction and decide how best to respond.

Difficult behaviour can take many forms, and the course deliberately avoids defining it too narrowly. It may involve anger, aggression, defensiveness, dismissive behaviour, repeated disagreement, poor communication, unreasonable demands, criticism or somebody who repeatedly fails to respond as expected.

Some difficult interactions are much less obvious. Avoidance, passive behaviour, unresolved resentment and recurring misunderstandings can be just as damaging as an openly confrontational conversation.

The emphasis is on understanding the behaviour and the interaction rather than simply attaching a label to the person.

Yes. The principles covered can be applied to interactions with patients who are angry, frustrated, demanding or disappointed.

An important part of managing these situations is understanding what may be driving the behaviour. Fear, illness, uncertainty, previous experiences, unmet expectations and a perceived loss of control can all influence the way somebody communicates.

You will consider how your own response can either escalate or de-escalate an interaction and how listening, questioning, assertiveness and clearer boundaries can be used while still acknowledging the patient's perspective.

Yes. Difficult professional relationships and workplace conflict are an important part of the course, and the approaches can be applied whether the other person is a colleague, manager, trainee or another member of the multidisciplinary team.

You will explore how different communication and social styles can create friction, how assumptions about another person's intentions can influence your response and how recurring patterns of interaction can become established.

The course also considers how to raise concerns, give feedback, disagree constructively, establish boundaries, manage conflict and approach conversations that you may previously have been tempted to avoid.

Yes. Participants are encouraged to reflect on difficult interactions and conflicts they have encountered in their own professional lives.

Real situations are particularly useful because they allow you to consider what may have been happening beneath the surface of the interaction, what assumptions you made, how the other person may have interpreted the situation and what alternative approaches might have been available.

You should, of course, avoid sharing information that could identify individual patients, relatives or colleagues.

The course introduces several frameworks rather than giving you one formula to use in every difficult conversation.

You will consider how to prepare for a courageous conversation, clarify what you actually want to achieve, frame the discussion appropriately, explore the other person's perspective and work towards a constructive outcome.

Other approaches include SBI — Situation, Behaviour and Impact — for discussing behaviour clearly, and CPR — Content, Pattern and Relationship — for deciding whether you are dealing with an isolated incident, recurring behaviour or a problem that is beginning to affect the wider relationship.

The purpose of these frameworks is to help you think more clearly, not to provide scripts that have to be followed word for word.

Some people are not inherently difficult to communicate with; they simply communicate very differently from us.

The course explores four broad social styles — Driver, Analytical, Amiable and Expressive — to help you recognise differences in pace, priorities, communication and decision-making. A style that one person experiences as admirably direct, for example, may be experienced by somebody else as abrupt or insensitive.

The purpose is not to categorise people. It is to become more aware of your own preferences and better able to adapt when communicating with somebody whose style is different.

Yes. Conflict management is a substantial part of the course. You will explore how conflict develops, what causes it to escalate and the difference between constructive professional disagreement and conflict that is beginning to damage communication or relationships.

The Thomas-Kilmann model is used to consider different responses to conflict, including competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding and accommodating. No single response is appropriate in every situation, so the emphasis is on recognising your own default approach and deciding when a different response may be more effective.

The course also considers Interest-Based Relational approaches, including separating the person from the problem, listening to the other person's position, identifying underlying interests and looking for solutions without unnecessarily damaging the relationship.

The aim is not to suggest that every conflict can or should be resolved through compromise. Effective conflict management also involves recognising when you need to remain assertive, establish boundaries or escalate a concern appropriately.

Yes. Assertiveness is an important part of managing difficult interactions and workplace conflict effectively.

You will explore the difference between passive, aggressive and assertive communication and consider how to express your position clearly without disregarding the rights or perspective of the other person.

This can be particularly useful when setting boundaries, responding to inappropriate requests, saying no, challenging behaviour, giving feedback or maintaining your position when somebody else is being forceful.

Most of us have particular behaviours that provoke a stronger emotional response in us than others. These are sometimes described as our “hot buttons”.

For example, one person may find lateness particularly irritating, while somebody else reacts much more strongly to interruption, indecision, criticism or what they perceive as arrogance.

Recognising your own triggers helps you separate the other person's behaviour from your emotional response to it. That does not mean accepting inappropriate behaviour. It gives you more choice over how you respond rather than allowing the interaction or conflict to be driven automatically by irritation or frustration.

The course can help you recognise and respond more effectively to difficult, aggressive or inappropriate behaviour, but it is important not to treat every workplace problem as a communication or conflict-management problem.

Bullying, harassment, discrimination, intimidation and behaviour that creates risks to patients or staff may require formal escalation through appropriate organisational processes. Better communication or informal conflict resolution should not be used as a substitute for addressing behaviour that is genuinely unacceptable.

Part of managing difficult situations effectively is recognising when a conversation is appropriate and when the issue needs to be addressed through a different route.

The course introduces established ideas and models, but the emphasis is firmly on practical application.

Models such as social styles, SBI, CPR, Transactional Analysis, Thomas-Kilmann and Interest-Based Relational approaches are useful because they provide different ways of understanding an interaction or conflict. They are not taught simply as theories to memorise.

Discussion, exercises and healthcare situations are used throughout the day so that you can consider how these approaches might change what you actually say or do when faced with a difficult interaction or disagreement.

No. There are no prerequisites for attending the course.

The relevant principles and models are introduced during the day before being explored through discussion and practical application. This makes the course suitable both for people who have previously undertaken communication, leadership or conflict-management training and for those approaching the subject for the first time.

The course is delivered live online via Zoom over one day, normally from 09:30 to approximately 17:00 UK time.

It is an interactive course rather than a webinar. Discussion, exercises, healthcare scenarios and opportunities to consider real-life situations are used throughout the day.

Because discussion is an important part of the course, the precise timing of individual activities may vary depending on the group.