The know-it-all is the personality type who has absolute faith in their own ability to be right on any issue that they turn their formidable mind to. These are highly intelligent individuals but they have real problems in knowing when to shut up and when to question their own views when confronted with those of others. But if you are subtle you can deal with them, if you think it is worth the trouble.

Know-it-alls tend to be characters who have amassed a huge amount of knowledge in many different areas. They are the kind of people often to be found at quiz nights, which they are good at. So it is certainly worth having them on your team. But otherwise they are quite likely to just wind you up.

The trouble is that because, over the course of many years, they have become used to being right pretty much all of the time, they have started to ignore the opinions of others, even when it comes to questions where the other person might actually know better than them. How do you communicate with someone who thinks that they know better than you, even when talking about your own subject?

But underlying this behavior is the fact that these are very often quite insecure people in some way. They are looking for the respect and the status that they believe derives from publicly being seen to win an argument or get the right answer to a question, the more obscure the question the better.

If you try to argue with such a person head on then it is very likely that you will get nowhere with them. Instead they will just put up their defenses and reiterate their own position even more forcefully, perhaps even without taking into account your opinions, or just ridiculing them.

However, if you are willing and able to be subtle when dealing with them then it may be possible for you to get them to see your point of view. The trick is to introduce the premises of the argument that, when put together, lead logically to the conclusion that you want them to arrive at. But then, instead of explicitly stating the conclusion yourself you let them do it. Then you agree with them eagerly and tell them how clever they are.

Learn more about this author, Darian Peters.
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