These are excerpts from the author’s book “Deep,” which contains eight of his small books published in the form of Wisdom Literature covering different aspects of life: Facing troublemakers, dealing with pain, personal financial issues, gastronomy, reading, criticizing, inspiring, and feeling always good to go.

Series 1: How to Better Manage Conflicts

Week 12: Face-to-face with Troublemakers

• Troublemakers do not necessarily initiate problems. However, they are eager to escalate issues in all cases.

• With troublemakers, it is not always a dispute on good and evil definitions. Mostly, they know it and enjoy playing the role of devil in life.

• A dangerous troublemaker is not assessed by his smartness; his danger is estimated by the smashing effects he could achieve.

• A troublemaker colleague is sometimes better than a peaceful fellow, if you could win over that troublemaker as a friend or at least as a partner. It takes hard work to achieve that.

• Do not be surprised if your manager is not taking action against a mischievous colleague. A bad coworker is not necessarily a bad subordinate.

• The traits you do not like could be the strength points of your opponents.

• It is not enough not to let your opponent smell your fear; you must not be frightened.

• The strong or even aggressive character is not enough to win a conflict. Do not get disturbed by your opponent’s sharp tone and resilient attitude, and present yourself confidently.

• You do not need to worry about not identifying the source of power of troublemakers. Just defend your points consistently avoiding unnecessary criticism of other parties.

• Waiting for a quarrelsome colleague to leave the organization will not help solving relevant conflicts necessarily, the replacement could be worse.

• Before showing your muscles, you need to be sure that you have ones. Just be careful assuring that you are using the right muscles with the right opponent.

• In front of a quarrelsome coworker, it is eventually a matter of patience.

• Your opponent would be left alone if you could fulfill his manager’s expectations.

• People throwing negative energy are easily detectable; beware of those who smartly absorb your positive energy.

• It is worthy to spend time detecting silent troublemakers.

• More dangerous than silent troublemakers are troublemakers who portray themselves as innocent.

• Before hiring a troublemaker to fight for you, ensure that he would be under your full control.