One person sets your mood for the day
You check whether they are in before you know how you feel.
Courses
See what you would learn
Work alongside someone difficult without it wrecking your week.
A course for the colleague you cannot avoid. It covers understanding what drives difficult behaviour, protecting your own work and mood, and responding in ways that do not escalate or reward it.
Open Cadence on the App Store, type the sentence when it asks what you want to learn, and answer a few setup questions. Free to start. Android testers can request early access.
Type this when Cadence asks what you want to learn
I work with someone who is difficult every day and I cannot avoid them. Help me understand what is driving the behaviour, protect my own work, and respond without making it worse.
Change any word so it fits your situation. The course is built from what you type and a few setup questions.
- Best for
- Work relationships
- Prerequisites
- None. Bring the situation you have.
- Course length
- 7 to 30 lessons, sized to your goal
- Lesson pace
- About 10 minutes a day
- Format
- Read it, or play the audio
- Access
- Available on the App Store, with early features and Android testing access
Before the course is built
Setup asks about your situation first.
Lesson 1 opens on the moment you describe, and the examples use your role. For this request, expect questions like these.
- What kind of difficult: rude, unreliable, controlling, negative, or unpredictable?
- Do you have to work closely with them, or mainly to stop dreading them?
- Have you tried anything yet, and what happened?
Right for now
If any of this sounds familiar, start here.
You have tried being nice and being firm
Neither changed anything.
You are starting to become difficult yourself
The dynamic is pulling you into behaviour you do not like.
Course arc
Where the course goes, in order.
Cadence writes the lessons for you, so the exact path follows your answers. This is the ground a course built from this sentence covers.
01 / 06What difficult usually means
Fear, status, incompetence and habit, and how each one shows up.
Not taking the bait
Recognising the pattern and stepping out of your usual role in it.
Boundaries at work
Limits you can actually enforce with a peer.
Direct conversation
When and how to name the behaviour to the person.
Escalating well
Involving a manager or HR in a way that gets a result.
Your own state
Staying yourself around someone who brings out the worst.
What changes
What you will be able to do, and what you will stop believing.
You will be able to
Understand the behaviour
See what the difficulty is doing for the person, without excusing it.
Protect yourself
Set limits on your time, attention and emotional involvement.
Respond without escalating
Choose responses that neither reward the behaviour nor feed a fight.
Ideas this course corrects
Difficult people know they are difficult
Most do not. From inside, the behaviour feels justified.
You can change them
You can change the dynamic and your part in it. Changing the person is not in your gift.
Course questions
What to know before you start.
Is this a fixed course?
No. Cadence builds the course when you type the sentence and answer a few setup questions, so the lessons follow your situation. This page describes what a course built from this request covers. You see the whole path before Lesson 1.
Who is this course for?
A course for the colleague you cannot avoid. It covers understanding what drives difficult behaviour, protecting your own work and mood, and responding in ways that do not escalate or reward it. It sits under Work relationships in the Work & ambitions part of the library.
Do I need any prior experience?
No. Setup asks what you already know and where you want to use it, and the course starts from there. Bring a real situation if you have one; the examples are built around it.
How long does it take?
Courses run 7 to 30 lessons of about 10 minutes, sized to what you asked for. One lesson a day is the intended pace, and you can go faster. Lessons can be read or played as audio.
Does this course award a certificate or degree?
No. Cadence is for practical self-learning and does not award accredited degrees or professional certification.
Start today
Type it, answer a few questions, open Lesson 1.
The sentence to type
I work with someone who is difficult every day and I cannot avoid them. Help me understand what is driving the behaviour, protect my own work, and respond without making it worse.
Open Cadence on the App Store, type the sentence when it asks what you want to learn, and answer a few setup questions. Free to start. Android testers can request early access.