Why Most Advice About Dealing with People Doesn’t Work - and What I Focus on Instead
Why Most Advice About Dealing with People Doesn’t Work - and What I Focus on Instead
For years, I did what everyone does when they struggle with people: I consumed advice.
Books. Podcasts. Articles. Frameworks with neat acronyms. Lists of “things emotionally intelligent people never do”. Scripts for difficult conversations. Techniques for influence, persuasion, boundaries, confidence, empathy, assertiveness, charisma - you name it.
I tried them earnestly. I applied them carefully. And, more often than not, they failed.
Not always dramatically. More subtly. Conversations still went sideways. Relationships still drained energy. People still misunderstood me, resisted me, or reacted in ways that advice promised they wouldn’t - if only I said the right thing the right way.
After sorting through hundreds of failed attempts - my own and other people’s - I eventually accepted an uncomfortable truth:
Most advice about dealing with people doesn’t fail because it’s wrong. It fails because it focuses on the wrong layer of the problem.
Here’s what I’ve learned instead.
The Core Problem: Advice Assumes People Are Rational and Consistent
Most interpersonal advice is built on an implicit assumption: that people are broadly rational, self-aware, and internally consistent.
They are not.
People are:
-
Reacting to incentives they don’t consciously recognise
-
Protecting identities they can’t articulate
-
Replaying emotional patterns they didn’t choose
-
Optimising for status, safety, and certainty far more than truth
Advice tells you what to say. Reality responds to why the other person needs you to say something else.
You can use perfect language and still trigger resistance. You can be calm, kind, and clear - and still be punished for it.
Not because you did anything wrong, but because the advice never accounted for what was actually driving the interaction.
Why “Communication Skills” Are Overrated
This is where many people get stuck.
They think:
-
“I need to be more assertive”
-
“I need better boundaries”
-
“I need to explain myself more clearly”
-
“I need to manage emotions better”
Sometimes that helps. Often it doesn’t.
Because communication skills operate downstream of the real issue.
If someone feels threatened, no amount of clarity helps. If someone benefits from misunderstanding you, better explanations backfire. If someone’s self-image depends on being right, logic escalates conflict.
I’ve seen highly articulate, emotionally intelligent people repeatedly fail in relationships - not because they lack skills, but because they are trying to solve a structural problem with behavioural tools.
The Pattern I Finally Noticed
After enough repetition, a pattern became impossible to ignore:
Successful interactions had almost nothing to do with clever phrasing—and everything to do with alignment.
When alignment existed:
-
Conversations were easy
-
Disagreements stayed civil
-
Boundaries were respected with minimal friction
When alignment didn’t exist:
-
Even minor issues became exhausting
-
Every word was scrutinised
-
“Reasonable” requests were treated as threats
Advice focuses on managing friction. I started focusing on whether friction was inevitable in the first place.
What I Focus on Instead
Once I stopped trying to optimise conversations, I began optimising contexts.
Here are the four questions that changed everything.
1. What Does This Person Need to Be True?
Not what they say they want.
Not what they claim to value.
What must be true for their identity, status, or emotional safety to remain intact?
If your request challenges that - even indirectly - resistance is guaranteed.
No technique overcomes identity threat.
The only options are reframing, withdrawal, or acceptance.
2. What Incentives Are Operating Here?
People respond to incentives far more reliably than advice admits.
Ask yourself:
-
Who benefits if nothing changes?
-
Who loses face if you succeed?
-
Who gains leverage if the issue remains unresolved?
Once you see incentives clearly, behaviour stops being confusing - and advice stops being misleading.
3. Is This a Skill Problem or a Fit Problem?
Many situations are framed as communication failures when they are actually fit failures.
Different values.
Different risk tolerances.
Different definitions of respect.
No amount of “better handling” fixes structural mismatch.
Once I started distinguishing between:
-
“I need to improve how I handle this” and
-
“This setup is fundamentally misaligned”
my energy expenditure dropped dramatically.
4. What Happens If I Stop Trying to Manage Their Reaction?
This was the most uncomfortable shift and the most powerful.
A lot of people-pleasing and over-communication is actually an attempt to control outcomes without authority.
When I stopped trying to pre-empt reactions:
-
Some relationships deteriorated quickly
-
Some conflicts resolved themselves
-
Some people revealed limits that advice had obscured
Clarity emerged where effort had failed.
Why This Works When Advice Doesn’t
Most advice is prescriptive.
What finally worked for me was diagnostic.
Instead of asking:
-
“How do I say this better?”
I started asking:
-
“What is actually happening here?”
That shift replaces frustration with understanding and effort with precision.
It also removes a dangerous illusion: that if something isn’t working, you must be doing it wrong.
Sometimes the advice fails because the situation is unworkable on its own terms.
The Quiet Benefit No One Talks About
Once you stop trying to “handle people” and start evaluating alignment, something unexpected happens:
You become calmer.
Not because people are easier but because you stop treating every interaction as a personal test of competence.
Some situations are navigable.
Some are tolerable.
Some are not worth optimising at all.
Advice rarely gives you permission to stop trying.
Reality often rewards you when you do.
Final Thoughts
Most advice about dealing with people promises control: say this, avoid that, follow the framework, get the result.
What actually works is relinquishing that promise.
Focus less on perfect responses and more on:
-
incentives
-
identities
-
alignment
-
and limits
Once you see those clearly, the right action becomes obvious—and the wrong advice becomes easy to ignore.
==============================
This article has been brought to you by
==============================
WDI.Bizcard
An electronic business card for mobile devices
Take a look here for more information
Comments
Post a Comment