Perhaps your boss is surly and withdrawn. Or one of your staffers regularly gets into petty arguments with another. What can you do to keep on track and not allow all those difficult people to interfere with your work?

Don’t come out swinging. Come out thinking. Decide if the difficult person is creating a minor annoyance, a medium-impact problem that must be dealt with on a day-to-day basis or a maximum-impact problem that threatens your productivity and career. Depending on the severity of the problem, you may also have to consider the rank of the offender and the reasons for the behavior.

A system of analyzing difficult behavior and planning your response is needed. But you first must adopt a resilient mental attitude that lets you approach the problem with a calm, cool head.