Susan Keane Baker

Hello!

Do your patients seem more difficult-to-please than ever?

Are you prone to letting someone else’s bad day turn into your bad day?

You know in your head they didn’t wake up with a plan to make you miserable. Yet their annoying, frustrating, demanding, entitled, overly-needy, miserable behavior has left you feeling defensive, exasperated, and stressed to the max.

That’s what happens when you don’t have top-of-mind coping strategies.

You’re at risk to escalate the situation, even though you know that escalation is easy to do - and no fun.

Here’s your key takeaway: Employ the 10% rule.

Ten percent of the time, people are going to fail you. They’re not going to be patient. They’re not going to be understanding. They’re not going to be easy-to-please.

When you decide to chalk up frustrating encounters to the 10% rule, you don’t take those people personally. You don’t get defensive. And you don’t take those difficult encounters home to share them across the dinner table.

Here’s how to begin:

1. Reflect on how many difficult people you really encounter in a day, and what percentage of your patients is represented by that number. Take your time and examine this with as much objectivity as possible. Are your values and skills capable of managing that percentage?

2. Ask yourself why the person is being difficult. This is the most time-efficient empathy booster on the planet. You don’t need to craft a perfect list of coping techniques before taking action. Give yourself thirty seconds (that’s right, 30 seconds!) and silently complete this sentence:

I wonder if they are (fill in the behavior) arrogant

because __________________)

Example: I wonder if he is arrogant because he is afraid and can’t control what happens next.

Your made-up completed sentence makes sense, because you created it.

And it buys you time to resist the temptation to respond inappropriately.

3. When the encounter is over, take thirty seconds (that’s right, 30 seconds!) to savor your success. You handled the situation with grace, dignity, and empathy and you deserve a high 5!

This is the all-important reinforcement you want in order to keep the “I wonder” empathy booster top-of-mind for future challenging encounters.

Expect the 10%, maintain your dignity during the encounter, and savor your success. That’s what it takes to prevent someone else’s bad day from turning into your bad day.

What more can I do for you?

My mission is to support healthcare leaders who want better patient experiences and healthcare professionals who want happier patients.

If you’re feeling stuck in a cycle of overwhelm and frustration, look for my upcoming book about difficult-to-please patients.

Together, we’ll create a plan for you that reduces your stress and boosts your confidence about being able to manage challenging situations.

Our ability to stay calm in the face of an irritating or upsetting behavior increases our effectiveness, and my book is designed to help you accomplish that.

Would you like to be in touch with me now? If yes, please consider joining my book launch team. It’s free and I will be most grateful for your help with decisions such as selecting the book cover design, finalizing the title, etc.

Please send a note to Susan at SusanBaker dot com and I’ll be in touch.

Your kindness makes a difference every day,

Susan