Rahul Jain presented on dealing with toxic people. He discussed characteristics of toxic people such as being judgmental, narcissistic, blaming others, and creating unnecessary drama. When dealing with toxic people, it is important not to engage with their irrational behavior and instead focus on staying positive and distancing yourself emotionally. For toxic job candidates, the presenter advised observing their behavior towards others and asking questions about past failures and challenges to understand their character. Hiring managers should avoid rushing decisions and focus on behavior over words to avoid bringing toxic people into an organization.

1. Presentation by : Rahul Jain
Dealing with Toxic People

2. About
Presenter
Presentation by : Rahul Jain
Rahul Jain
• Rahul Jain is HR Professional with 20 years of post-qualification experience with merit
of working with reputed organizations in Asia pacific region based at Singapore and
India with diversified industry segment (Media, Agriculture Commodity Trading,
Shipping, Electrical & Electronics, Beverages and Chemicals) in all the rungs handling
Corporate, Plant HR, C&B, In house trainer roles. He is Social Media Enthusiast
ranked amongst Top 100 HR on Twitter for his @BeingHR Twitter handle.
• He is Certified Coach (ACC) trained by Erickson International with practical coaching
experience of more than 100 hours of partnering with people to help optimize potential
and positively impact lives. He is trained and actively involved in Mentoring as well.
(Link https://youtu.be/Y5H_I35FhCk )
• He is recipient of “The Great Managers Award 2018” by People Business and ET Now
(Link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5Hr9QMggig ). He has been a speaker at
World HRD Congress’17 (Mumbai) (Link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6W4hdsRc24&t=1052s )

3. Presentation Coverage
• Toxic People
• Characteristics of Toxic People
• Dealing with Toxic People
• Characteristics of Toxic Candidates
• Detecting Toxic Candidates
• Some Questions to ask
• Dealing with Toxic Candidates
• Way Forward

4. Toxic People
• Defy logic – time wasters
• Envious and self centered (Self-regarding and ignore others’ feelings)
• Judgmental
• Liars / Manipulative
• Who play the victim
• Blissfully unaware of the negative impact
• Create unnecessary complexity, strife and worst of all - Stress
• Criticizing anything and everything
• Jumps to conclusion before listening to facts
• Control freaks – Never wants to listen
• Create an uncomfortable work environment
• Know everything and know the best way to do everything
• Unaware to separate fact from speculation/Rumor
• Narcissist - Someone who actively tries to drag you down and into their drama
• Blaming : The finger is always pointed outwards
• Defensiveness : Every challenge is met with “not my fault”
• Contempt - disrespectful and undermines those around them
• Imposter (fraud) syndrome
• Arrogant (Don’t confuse confidence with arrogance)
• Do not appreciate other people’s intellectual strengths
• Draw coworkers into “negative bonding” alliances
• Withhold information

5. Characteristics of Toxic
People
• They are cancers – Distractive and quickly create a negative environment
• Cost of Toxic Employees –
• Underperforming employees
• Rampant complaining
• Contributing to High turnover rates
• General vibe of unhappiness
• They want people to join their pity party
• You often feel pressure to listen to
• Gossipers (Because they are insecure)
• Keep disappointing you
• Drain your positive energy immediately
• Never use any words of encouragement
• Sadist, derive satisfaction from creating chaos and pushing back other people

6. • Don't get soaked into irrational behavior (Be resilient)
• It’s ok for someone to feel angry or hurt but not ok for them to put you down
• Cannot meet fire with fire
• Distance yourself from them emotionally
• Negativity begets negativity. Put a full stop
• Have your support system/supporters for low times
• Recognize the wounds in others - Aim to be a source of positive energy
• You cannot change other people’s behavior but you can change how you
respond to it
• Take responsibility for your own healing, growth and responses
• Shift your focus from toxic person to your job
• Take detailed notes with times, dates and details of conversations
• Ask toxic people - How they intend to fix the problem?
• Make list of facts ready – say less but effectively
• Pick up battles with toxic people wisely
• Don’t keep a scoreboard
• Deal using body language –
• Turn your body away from person every chance you get
• Focus on lifting your chest and your chin
• Strong physical posture is a more powerful communicator than words
• Escalate to the person at skip level
Dealing with Toxic
People

7. • Answers were curt, overly conceited and he seemed to “know it all
• Won’t be grateful towards their previous employers (for learning,
appreciation, opportunities)
• Tone while speaking about their previous job or life or exits and
arrogance
• Change of body language (defensive) while they speak
• Priorities for joining the new job or changing previous jobs
• Strong responses – Candidates saying that 'by hook or crook‘
• Candidates using words like ‘Anyhow / somehow’
• Candidates saying ‘I get what I want....’
Characteristics of Toxic
Candidates

8. • Observe Behavior (Skills can be developed) –
• Do they treat office/admin staff/office boys/assistant/security guard/receptionist with
respect?
• Is their personality naturally warm?
• How do they respond to your other teammates during the interview?
• Informal discussion (being casual) to know about behaviours which are missed out in formal
interview
• Avoid asking Questions which can have "prepared answer" (smart candidates come prepared)
• Getting them to talk about challenging situations and seek their opinion outside work area
(e.g. values, economic conditions, social situation and lastly political views)
• Question around - How he/she influences people around him (personal/professional circles) -
eventually he/she will reveal how he/she influences people around [One can see how excitedly they
talk about how they INFLUENCED the rest or those around them towards a decision/action of their
preference/choice]
Some questions to ask –
• What five things would you change about your previous job/employer?
• What do you hate/dislike most about your current/previous job?
• Tell me about a failure or a time you could have done better (Listen if blame is on others)
• What has been your biggest success so far? How did you achieve it? (Listen to the means to
achieve it)
• What is your ideal workday like? (Listen if he/she cribs about workday)
• What values of your previous/current employer most align to yours?
• What kind of behavior (of others) causes you stress?
• How you responded to challenges in the past? (Listen to emotional intelligence)
Detecting of Toxic
Candidates

9. Some questions to ask
● What would your former coworkers say about you - positive and
negative?
● What would you most like to improve about yourself?
● Tell me about your most recent boss
● Tell me about a time when you have had to deal with conflict at work.
What did you do?
● Tell me about the most disappointing event/scenario that has happened
to you in a work environment?
● When have you failed? Describe the circumstances and how you dealt
with and learned from the experience.
● Give me some examples of your ability to manage and supervise others?
When have you done this well?
● Tell me about a time when you’ve found it difficult to work with
someone. How did you handle it?
● What kind of people do you find it most difficult to work with?
● What lie do you frequently tell?

10. Dealing with Toxic
Candidates
• Don’t rush to hire
• Bad hire will set you back in cost and time training them or weeding
them out
• Hire based on the behavior you witness (not just on the words you
hear) - Believe in your sixth sense
• Consider pre-interview nervousness but notice tension or entitlement
in their interactions
• Best is not to hire toxic candidate

11. Way Forward
Reflection ?
What is one change you will bring in self ?

12. Let’s Stay
Connected.
Presentation by : Rahul Jain
Mobile / Whatsapp +91 786 910 9747
Twitter @BeingHR
Blog : https://wordpress.com/home/followrahuljain.wordpress.com
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LinkedIn : http://in.linkedin.com/in/rahuljain77