Hug a Porcupine

Everybody Is a Porcupine

Difficult people are not a rare problem. They are a feature of every family, every workplace, every community. Understanding the metaphor is the beginning.

Keep Your Own Quills In

When someone gets prickly with you, the instinct is to get prickly back. That instinct is the enemy of every good outcome.

It Is Not About You

Most difficult behaviour has very little to do with you. Understanding what is really driving it changes how you respond.

Feelings Before the Problem

Difficult people are almost always responding emotionally. Address the feeling first. Trying to solve the problem before defusing the emotion almost never works.

Porcupines at Work

Shouting bosses, chronic complainers, silent non-communicators. Every workplace has them. Here is how to stay effective without becoming one yourself.

Porcupines at Home

The people closest to you can hurt you the most precisely because you let them close. Home is where the hardest porcupine work happens.

Your Own Inner Porcupine

Everyone has one. You cannot manage difficult people well until you can recognise and manage the porcupine inside yourself.