Difficult People - Sherman Tanks

“Sherman Tank” is used in many communication courses to describe a type of difficult person. Sherman tanks are people who are absolutely compelled to make you see things their way. Getting us to agree with them is the single most important objective for Sherman Tanks.

If we do agree, they can sometimes try to take partial ownership of our position or initiative. Sherman Tanks also will test your strength of character, confidence and subject matter knowledge.

The trick is, they may or may not have much knowledge themselves, and that isn’t always easy to determine.

In making a presentation they are quite easy to identify because they will be fairly vocal about what we present. (They also won’t hesitate to comment on what others say or ask.)

Some Sherman Tanks can be quite helpful in moving a project forward. But they are always an additional worry and we need to be attuned to what they are up to.

As strong and blustery as they may be, they can also be easily offended; and they make formidable adversaries.

So in dealing with Sherman Tanks, we need to stand up to them without engaging them directly. While still being amiable, addressing them by name and looking them in the eye are good strategies, as they are compelled to test our metal.

How much responsibility are they prepared to accept? What information or experience can they bring to the table? Are they prepared to back up their musings? 

The quicker we can the amount of knowledge / influence / power, the quicker we can determine what they want and where we see them in the greater scheme of things.
They may want to simply impress, or they may want a piece of the action. Neither is necessarily bad; but Sherman Tanks are among the highest maintenance of all difficult people.

Many collaborative skills already know to experienced ADR practitioners work very well on Sherman Tanks. Once on board, we can cooperatively move forward with them.