How to handle difficult people

That was one of the question that the interviewer ask me on my first job interview!

Admit it! we dealt with difficult people in our everyday life and it is not easy to handle them.

I was in a meeting when the project owner is the one who are not the technical type of person and could hardly understand a thing about the technical thingy and expect the technical team to actually explain until he fully understands. To make things worse, the technical team speaks the 'technical language' which are full of jargons that the project owner may not understand. Phewwww...!!!!

Results:

1. Technical team was sweating like mad in the fully air conditioned meeting room trying to find the right words to explain to the project owner who keep on asking the same question over and over again.
2. Others who are not in the technical line but in the meeting were passing thousands of yawns while waiting for their turn.
3. I don't have all day to listen to lectures about technical things that I believe the technical teams has spent three years to actually fully understand and a few more years to actually make things work!
4. I have to stayback at the office until late to finish up my work due to the time wasted listening to the technical lectures that I did not intend to listen to :(

That was not a very productive meeting okeyyyyyy

Ok ok... back to the question... what do we do with this kind of people...

1. They are human too you know... so treat them like one... no harsh words or anything... treat them like how you wanted people to treat you. I know it's not that easy but YOU HAVE TO!
2. If 'that person' is not the one that you have to see everyday, then you can actually just ignore them.. heheh I do this a lot... why waste your energy right... ;)
3. Dont' frown...you don't want to add more wrinkles to your face rightt...
4. Don't talk behind their back.. tell them in front of their face... In the nicest way possible of course.. In the above situation, what we can do is to tell 'that person' that they can discuss the technical thingy with the technical team in other meeting where the rest of us were not in.
5. Be positive.. Challenge yourself... Prepare yourself before meeting with 'that person'... make sure that all the informations are easy to read and understand that even your grandmother can understand it!
6. Don't waste your time worrying about 'that person'... That was such a waste of time....

I know it is not easy to be nice to a difficult people especially if the difficult people is your immediate Boss... OMG I tell you..... It's gonna be a torturous day every day (including weekends and public holidays)... Ok enough with the difficult people... We'll talk about difficult boss later.. 

Have a nice weekend!