Become A Business Diplomat Use these 8 tactful strategies to diffuse difficult people or situations.

Use these 8 tactful strageties to diffuse difficult people orsituations.

Some people you meet in business are a pain in the neck. Likethe unyielding client who demands that his project be completedovernight, but lets your bill go unpaid for 90 days. Or the vendorwho promises immediate door-to-door delivery and shows up threedays later. Or your star salesperson who's terrific withcustomers--when she's not fighting with her boyfriend.

Should you lash out with an angry retort? Refuse futurebusiness? Fire your employee? Find another line of work? Hardly.Being in business means dealing with all types of people, includingdifficult personalities that sometimes make us wish we'd neveropened for business. As Dr. Rick Kirschner, an Ashland, Oregon,business consultant and the co-author of Dealing with People YouCan't Stand (see sidebar below for orderinginformation), sees it, difficult people are hard to avoid."They're everywhere, because they are us," he says."With the changing environment in which we're working andtrying to raise our families, stress enters the picture and, as aresult, people act badly. It's inevitable, it's part ofhuman nature."