KF #9. Manages Conflict

Pete Mockaitis
Tessa, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Tessa West
Thanks for having me on.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m so excited to get into your wisdom. It’s a frequently-requested topic, difficult bosses and jerks and, “What do we do with them?” So, maybe we can kick it off by you sharing one of the most ludicrous, hilarious, ridiculous examples you’ve encountered, either directly or through people who want to tell you their story, about a jerk at work?

Tessa West
Oh, yeah, I hear a lot of stories. I actually probably hear more, lately, stories of people who really humiliated themselves in an effort to confront a jerk, you know, crying publicly, that kind of thing. So, probably one of the craziest things I’ve encountered, I’ve encountered lots of jerks, and I’ll tell one of those stories in a moment.

But the craziest thing I’ve ever encountered was I was actually giving a talk, I was giving a keynote somewhere, and it was a whole bunch of powerful people in the room, C-suite for a huge Fortune 500 company, and we’re all going around the room and talking about our goals and listening and all this kind of stuff.

And, all of a sudden, one of the women at the table, one of the roundtables, just started bawling, and she stood up and she grabbed the mic, and she had this whole like speaker truth moment in front of all of her coworkers where she just lambasted them for ignoring her, disrespecting her, stealing credit, basically taking over her, talking over her in meetings, cutting her out of email chains, and stood up there like snot dripping down her face, tears coming out, holding the mic, and just went off on this crazy speech.

And, at some point, the president of the company just stood up and said, “For God’s sake, can someone grab her a box of Kleenex?” and it really destroyed the mood and made it really uncomfortable. And I thought to myself, “This is what happens when we let our jerks at work take over for so long and we don’t confront, and then we just explode on them in these really inopportune awkward situations.”

So, that was kind of one setting where I was just surprised at what happens when people feel like they’re targets of jerks and they don’t actually do anything about it. It just kind of happens like that. Terrible, terrible moment.

Pete Mockaitis
Whoa. Well, did you ever get to find out how things unfolded in the weeks and months afterwards?

Tessa West
Well, I talked to her in the bathroom afterwards. It was very high school. It felt like high school. I went up to her, and I ran into her in the bathroom, and the problem was she couldn’t show her face like in the intermission. She felt so uncomfortable. But, yeah, I did follow up with her and she felt like it sort of helped break the ice to have these conversations.

But, at that point, things had gone so far that she didn’t feel like they could really be remedied. She felt like she had to leave her job, which was crazy because she held this really high-up position in the company, and she just felt like, at that point, no one respected her. Now, they thought she was super histrionic and dramatic so there’s no kind of saving the moment for her.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I think that is a dramatic story and I think it really is a nice cautionary tale in terms of, this is what can happen if you let things get out of control, even though you may very well, legitimately, be the victim and not at all to blame. If you sort of continue taking it long enough, this might be in your future or other negative outcomes.

Tessa West
Definitely, you don’t want this in your future but it’s possible.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. All right. Well, that’s a powerful story to tee this up. Thank you. So, yeah, we’re going to talk about jerks at work. Maybe, could you share perhaps one of the most surprising or most counterintuitive discoveries you’ve made when it comes to your research on the area?

Tessa West
Yeah, I think when most people think about jerks at work, the first question they have is, “How do I confront a jerk at work?” And I actually find in our research that, probably 50% of the time, confronting that person is not a good idea or at least it’s not a good first step, that you need to do lots of other things before you’re ready to confront someone, like collecting data, and finding how why it’s part of the problem, and whether you’re the only victim, and all these kinds of things.

But I also think people are always surprised when I tell them that when you confront someone, you have to think about it like you would confronting your spouse or your child about something they’re doing that they dislike, and kind of use those same strategies – backing into the problem, opening with a compliment or things you want to see them do more of, before you actually talk about the problem behavior.

And people are surprised at that because they think to themselves, “It doesn’t feel like my job to tell someone ‘You’re great’ when they’re terrible.” And I kind of have to remind them that it kind of de-fangs the conversation a little and reduces the threat. But, also, to remind them that no one likes having their flaws spelled out to them in detail. It’s an uncomfortable experience, even people who you think deserve it.

And so, I think we have this instinct to confront, to lay out people’s flaws, to tell them how they make us feel, and I actually don’t think any of those things are good ideas when it comes to confronting jerks at work.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, that’s intriguing. So, you said half of the time, we shouldn’t do it at all. How do we make that determination and what should we do instead?

Tessa West
That’s a great question. I think it really depends on the kind of jerk you’re dealing with. But often, it’s the case that you might want to talk to someone about your jerk but it’s not the jerk themselves. So, one example of that would be dealing with a kiss-up-kick-downer. So, these are those people that if you work in a competitive workplace, they’re mean to everyone who works with them in the same level or beneath them, but the boss loves them because they bring some kind of talent to the team.

So, this kind of instinct to go and tell them, “Stop bullying me. I know what you’re doing,” kind of what we learned growing up in school to stand up to the bully, so to speak, often backfires because they just get more conniving and more clever in their strategies. And so, confronting them doesn’t really get you where you need to be. You need to talk to your boss about the person, and kind of there are some strategies behind that. But, actually, confronting an intentional jerk often backfires.

Another example of that is a gaslighter. So, if you’re being gaslit by a boss who’s cutting you off socially and building an alternative reality, and they’re doing it for some reason or something they’re trying to hide, going to them and saying, “I know what you’re up to. You’re gaslighting me,” is just going to make them more strategic as well, and so you really have to back out of that relationship, kind of build some protection, build a little bit of a barrier up, find allies and so forth, and get the help of other powerful people to exit that relationship but you never actually want to confront that person.

Of course, that’s not the case for all jerks. Lots of them, you actually do need to talk to. But the ones that are intentionally trying to sabotage you, confronting them and telling them that you know what they’re up to and they should stop bullying you, almost never works.

Pete Mockaitis
And then, yeah, how do we discern whether you’re dealing with an intentional jerk or an accidental jerk, like, “Oh, oops, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I did that, and I didn’t realize you hated that. Oh, geez. Excuse me. My apologies”?

Tessa West
Yeah, I think that there’s degrees of sensitivity that people have and what they express, but if you really try to understand why someone’s doing what they’re doing, that often kind of provides insight into whether they’re intentionally being a jerk. So, for example, if someone is stealing credit, you can tell if you work in a team or in an organization where everyone is just throwing ideas in the air, it’s really disorganized, and then in the end you try to grant credit.

Credit-granting and mis-granting kind of often happens in these teams. And, usually, when we’re the target of that, we feel like someone stole our credit but, often, that’s not really the case. It’s kind of part of the process of us being disorganized and people not keeping track of who said what. So, in situations where’s there’s ambiguity around behaviors, there’s lack of role clarity, we don’t really know who’s suppose to be doing what, who’s in charge of what, that’s where you often get things like free-riding and credit-stealing that might not be necessarily motivated to torture people or ruin people’s lives, but more kind of a product of the situation.

Kind of the most classic example of this is micromanagers. We often think they’re trying to torture us and they don’t trust us, but more often than not, they’re micromanaging because they’re not being managed properly because they were promoted, because they were good at your job not managing, and there’s a lack of clarity from above on what they should be doing.

So, if you kind of look at the origins of their behavior in combination with the context in which you’re working, you often get insight into just how intentional this behavior actually is and how much of it is just we work in a place where there’s such, this kind of lack of clarity about what’s going on that this kind of accidental jerkery can happen.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s handy. And I’m sure it varies so much but I’ll try to put you on the spot nonetheless. Do you have a sense of roughly what percentage of the time when we perceive jerkery? Is it intentional versus misunderstanding, disorganization, some other factor?

Tessa West
So, is your question, “How often do we think that someone is being a jerk because of intention?”

Pete Mockaitis
I guess when we perceive, when we suspect someone is a jerk, what proportion of the time is that actually the case versus “I’m misunderstanding”?

Tessa West
Yeah, I think I’m going to answer your question in two ways. First, almost no one admits to being a jerk so no one thinks they’re being a jerk. Second, almost everyone thinks if someone is being a jerk, they’re doing it on purpose. So, we have this bias to attribute people’s terrible behaviors to their individual personalities, so we almost always think that someone is doing it intentionally. I’d say probably 50% of the time they’re not.

And, in fact, I talk about some extreme cases in my book, like the gaslighter, but those are actually fairly rare. What we usually get is kind of low-level stuff that occurs under ambiguous situations where we actually don’t know the root cause of the behavior but we assume it’s because they’re a jerk, and they’re intentionally trying to be a jerk. So, I think most of us believe that but, probably half the time, there’s not really much intention behind it. If anything, people are just completely misguided in what they think is a good idea often at work.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, you mentioned a few of the types of jerks at work, and, in fact, you’ve got a listing of seven. So, maybe for completeness’ sake, could you give us the quick definition of each of the seven, like the name, the definition, and perhaps a quick do and don’t for each of them?

Tessa West
Sure. So, the first is the kiss-up-kick-downer, so I mentioned this one before. This person is horrible to everyone at the same level as them or beneath them but the boss loves them. And so, a do for dealing with these folks is do try to find an ally who’s a little bit outside of your immediate social network who can connect you to other victims so you can learn how widespread the problem is.

Then once you have that information, you can go to your boss to talk to them about it but we can much more convince them they should do something if they think there’s other victims. Don’t try to confront this person and tell them that you know what they’re up to and you’re going to tell on them. They know that they already have the approval of the boss and that they have the upper hand, so doing that is just going to make them even tricks-ier than they already are.

The next one is the credit stealer. So, these tend to be our friends, our confidants, sometimes even our bosses or managers, and what they do is steal credit for your ideas and for your hard work. And I think these folks are often really difficult to deal with because sometimes it’s intentional and sometimes it’s not. So, do pre-processes to help make it really clear from the onset who’s done what work so that it really kind of nips credit-stealing in the bud. Credit-stealing is borne out of bad processes. It’s not usually the product of a person who’s trying to steal credit. These people have to thrive in these situations.

Don’t accuse a credit-stealer of stealing credit. So, this is one of those examples where the minute you accuse them of credit-stealing, probably 80% of the time, they’re going to come back and say that they did more work than you realize they did because we all have a bias to think we contributed more than we actually did, so you’re just kind of in a conflict with these people if you do that.

The next is the bulldozer. So, these people tend to hold power and status at work. They talk over everyone, they’re loud, in the age of Zoom, they’re the ones whose camera takes up the whole screen, the rest of us kind of zone out when they talk, but they also go behind the scenes to kind of pull levers of power. So, if they don’t like a decision the group is making, they’ll go to the boss or the boss’ boss and kind of talk them out of siding with the group.

So, one thing that you don’t want to do is just try to trample down or stomp down on a bulldozer. What you want to do instead is redirect them. So, use that attention that they have, that loud-mouthiness, to actually echo contributions of younger people. And when you do this, it actually makes them kind of feel a little bit more included. You also have to go behind the scenes a little bit and talk to that boss and talk to the boss’ boss as a group to kind of even out the different perspectives that they’re hearing.

The next one is the free-rider. So, this is the most common type of colleague that we have. These people have charisma for days, they tend to be really well-liked, they take advantage of their social skills to get away with doing nothing on teams. And so, our tendencies to want to confront them and accuse them of free-riding and doing nothing, but like some of the other jerks at work, when you do this, what ends up happening is they’re already disengaged, now they feel shamed so they’re going to disengage even more. They’re going to pull back even more.

And I could tell you an interesting story of a free-rider I know who did this exact same thing. What you want to do instead is to re-engage them, is remind them of why you wanted them on the team in the first place. What about them did you like? Were they creative? Did they help sort of provide socially groove, whatever it is? And then get on a really clear schedule of how you’re going to get them re-engaged back in the team. So, don’t listen to things like vague platitudes, “Oh, I’ll make it up to you, I promise.” You need like a week-by-week exact strategy of how they’re going to do it and what they’re going to do.

And then the next three chapters are about managers. So, micromanagers who are really common at work, these folks tend to have top-down control over everything you do no matter how small or big, and they do it equally to everybody. And so, our tendency with these people is to go to them and tell them how they make us feel, “You’re smothering me,” or that we don’t trust them. But the reality is, these usually aren’t the issues behind micromanagement.

So, instead of doing that, do have a conversation about higher-level goals, what are your goals and what are theirs, and you can kind of back into the micromanagement, but the problem is that you’re misaligned on what you should be doing at work. You want to come up with a plan of how to actually become aligned. The best way to do that is to have specific goals and then weekly check-in meetings or that 15 minutes to stay on task. A lot of us don’t want to engage more with a micromanager but that’s the best thing to do because it gives the relationship structure.

Then we have the neglectful boss. They’re kind of the opposite of the micromanagement coin. So, these folks tend to do this disappearing act for weeks, sometimes months at a time, but then they freak out and they panic that they’re out of the loop, so they show up at the last minute and then they micromanage you at the worst time. They create massive amounts of uncertainty because you don’t know when they’re going to show up.

So, our tendency for these folks is to tell them that they need to meet with us, that’s it’s an emergency, write these emails that say in all caps and bold, “URGENT. CALL. I NEED TO MEET NOW.” But, instead, what you need to do is two things. Offer to offload some of their work to kind of re-engage them. Some of the work that they’re doing you could do more efficiently. And then the other thing that you want to do with these guys is actually give them a longer period of time in which they can set up meetings with you. So, instead of 24 hours, give them two weeks because they’ll be less stressed out, they’ll be more likely to engage.

And then the gaslighter. So, these are the kind of really sinister sociopathic jerks at work who lure you in either with the promise of being a part of something special, a little bit like a cult leader, or the threat that if you don’t what they say, you’re going to get fired. And then they isolate you from everyone at work and they create an alternative reality.

So, what you don’t want to do is tell them you caught them lying, that you know what they’re up to, and what you do want to do is document everything they do, don’t have any meetings that don’t end with kind of minutes taken at the end that you send to them. You want to make sure you do those things. And then you need to build up your relationship brick by brick. The thing that they actually intentionally destroy, you have to recreate.

And then you’re going to go to your allies and actually get them to help you form connections with other people in power who can help you exit out of this relationship, but you can’t do this one alone. You absolutely have to rely on your social network at work to escape a relationship with a gaslighter.

Pete Mockaitis
And when you say create an alternate reality, I imagine there’s many ways you could accomplish that. Could you give us a rich story that brings it all together?

Tessa West
Yes. So, a couple of the stories that I talk about in my book are related to idea theft. So, sometimes what happens at work is you have someone who used to be really special, who used to be kind of at the top of their game and really creative, and everything was going well for them, but then just one day, things dry up.

And so, I’ve heard this story, I’ve heard it in marketing, I’ve heard it in academia, I heard it in business, industries that require creativity, one day the boss just doesn’t have it anymore, and they panic and they don’t know what to do. And so, what they end up doing, or at least in the examples I talk about, is they start stealing ideas from other people.

They start downloading documents on shared Google Drives. The idea theft kind of starts out small with maybe a little suggestion of what to do that they haven’t thought of, and over time, they have completely built this reality of coming up with something new and novel that they really just stole from another person.

And, in the example I talk about in the book, the person who’s on the receiving end of this gaslighting believes that their manager or their boss has put together this new creative project, this kind of groundbreaking marketing plan and, in reality, it was all stolen. But the gaslighter had to create a whole bunch of lies so that person wouldn’t detect the stealing. They wouldn’t know that Google accounts were hacked and that kind of thing. And the way they do that is they make sure they don’t talk with these other people who are actually coming up with these ideas. They’re totally isolated from kind of the creative energy of the team and then they’re able to get away with it.

In academia, this has happened a bunch, and in science where people make up data. A couple professors have gone down pretty hard for not just making up data but making up staff that ran the data…

Pete Mockaitis
Like, whole persons. Like, inventing names and…

Tessa West
…fake people who collect these, all this crazy stuff. But you had to be gaslit to really even believe any of these crazy kinds of alternative lab world with fake employees and fake data, and the only way that they accomplish this, down to like fake names, fake interviews, fake pictures, is because they never actually interacted with anyone at work that would tell them, “That’s not a real person. No one has ever seen them around.” So, it takes quite a lot to have fake employees and fake ideas and all of this kind of stuff. It takes really having no interaction with other people who could ever fact-check that stuff.

Pete Mockaitis
Wow, yeah, that’s intriguing. And so, that’s an alternative reality alright with all sorts of details and inventions. Okay. And you said you had a free-rider story as well. Do tell.

Tessa West
Yes, so kind of the one lesson I’ve learned about calling out free-riders is these individuals tend to be very socially sensitive. They get away with free-riding because they’re well-liked and they can make good dinner reservations and they know all the gossip. So, what happened in my situation was we called out a free-rider, told this person we knew they weren’t doing anything, thought because they were socially motivated and cared what we thought that would get them to re-engage, but it was just the opposite.

And he felt so uncomfortable in meetings that what he did was he set his cell phone to ring, to pretend ring, at the last 10 minutes of the meeting so that he could exit the room before everybody else did so he didn’t have to talk to anyone. But it was the sound on an Apple iPhone of the alarm so we all knew it wasn’t a real ring. It was just the alarm going off, but he would pick up his phone when the ring went off, and say, “Hello? Oh, I’m sorry, everyone. I have to leave a few minutes early,” and leave so that he didn’t have to interact with us.

And I kind of realized later that that was kind of motivated by this extreme discomfort with hanging around too long with team members that had kind of shamed him for doing nothing, and it backfired. It was really hard to re-engage him once we had done that. He had pretend phone rings going off so he didn’t have to talk to us.

Pete Mockaitis
I see. And so then, the better plan is to get a very specific gameplan in terms of, “These are your tasks over the next few weeks that you’re going to be owning,” and then it’s kind of like black and white there.

Tessa West
I think it’s black and white. I think the first step is to re-engage them by saying, “We miss you so much. These were all the great things that you brought to the team,” even if it pains you in your role and your rolling your eyes the whole time, kind of reminding them why you liked them, really helps kind of get over that hump, and it helps them with that shame feeling of being called out.

There’s this great research on free-riders showing that even if you show them evidence of their free-riding, they almost never admit it. And so, this is something that just people don’t ‘fess up to. So, actually, you don’t want to end up in this debate with them over whether they did it or not, how bad of a person they are or a team member. You really just want to talk about, “What we’re going to do moving forward, but also what we want to see more of out of you, what we really like, and wish that we had more. We miss that kind of thing.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. I’m thinking about some free-riding experiences, and it was kind of odd that it’s sort of like there is incontrovertible evidence, like, “So, in your timesheet, you marked this amount of time, and, yet, here we see in the Skype notes how long this meeting actually took with me, and yours is much longer.” It was really weird actually.

Tessa West
Yeah, it’s really disconcerting when someone won’t admit to something that’s so obvious. It’s like they’re five years old and their face is covered in like brownie batter, and they’re like, “I didn’t eat the brownies.”

Pete Mockaitis
And let’s talk about just that concept. I’ve got a buddy, and we’ve talked about this a few times in terms of, I don’t know what the construct is. Is it humility, self-confidence, something? But in terms of like I have enough humility to know that I’m wrong. I make mistakes. I misperceive things. And I often realize that there are multiple sides to each story, etc.

And, yet, so if someone comes out confidently saying something that doesn’t seem quite right to me, I can be like, “Well, that doesn’t quite seem to check out but, boy, they seem so confident about that.” Like, I tend to just almost fall for it. And then, I remember once I was having a steak dinner, and I thought, “This is weird. This doesn’t taste very good.” And I love steak and the restaurant seemed expensive enough such that it should be good. And I thought, “Huh, so there must be something wrong with my sense of taste or smell. Maybe I’ve got COVID again.”

Tessa West
Again.

Pete Mockaitis
And then I thought, “Well.” And I said, “Well, that’s interesting, Pete.” Like, I’m here talking to myself internally, like you question your very ability to perceive things rather than…I guess I just give people the benefit of the doubt, like so aggressively until it’s like I’ve got multiple incontrovertible points of data, and it was like, “Nope, you’re dead to me.”

And so, I don’t know. Help us out, Tessa. If we’re just too nice, forgiving, proactive benefit of the doubting, humble, easily swayed by a very confident talker with something that doesn’t quite seem right, how do we recalibrate?

Tessa West
Seem Pollyannish. So, first off, you’d make a great gaslighter victim. They would love you because they’ll make you feel really special, and that’s kind of the first move of the gaslighter, and you’ll buy it and think, “This person is so positive and encouraging. They give me so much attention,” all of these wonderful things make you susceptible.

But I would like to kind of walk up to you and whisper in your ear this one fact that you’ve got to keep in mind, which is ability to read people, an emphatic ability, and confidence in that ability are correlated almost zero in the real world. So, if you encounter someone who comes across as super confident and knows what they’re talking about and has really strong opinions, that’s probably completely uncorrelated with their actual abilities.

In fact, some people are great and think they’re terrible, and some people are terrible and think they’re great. There are very few things in social psychology with such a weak correlation as ability, actual ability to perceive and read people, and your confidence in doing so. But we still think that confidence means competence. We mix them up all the time. It’s a really common thing people do, but those two things are also completely unrelated. In fact, there are some stats that are showing they’re negatively correlated. The louder you are, the less competent you actually are.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, appreciate that whisper and that’s handy in terms of gathering that. And so then, if we find ourselves in that situation, is there a great next step in terms of getting, I don’t know, is it just like gathering some evidence, or doing a test, or talking to somebody? It seems like a little extra dose of information could be very handy.

Tessa West
A dose of information and don’t kind of follow the temptation of talking to your best friend at work who you see as your kind of shared-reality person. So, most of us have, if we’re lucky, one person at work that we’re always on the same wavelength with that we can talk to them after a meeting, and say, “That felt really weird, right? Like, that interaction between Bob and Jen was strange.” So, our temptation is to always go with this kind of good friends and confidants.

But what you actually want to do is go to people you don’t know that well, those who have a lot of connections with others that are outside of your network because they can give you a real reality check of how widespread the problem is. And for people who are targeted by jerks, the best thing to do is to talk to others who used to work with that jerk and have since left for whatever reason because they’re just more likely…they have less to lose, so they’re more likely to open up, so in so far as you can form any of those kinds of connections.

Sometimes I talk about, a little bit in my book, the surprising connected people. So, when I worked in retail, it was the person who worked at the coffee shop because everybody went there. But now that I’m in academia, it’s actually the IT people who fix people’s computers because they really know what’s up, like they know who’s actually rude and nice and all the juicy stuff on their computers, which isn’t relevant to me but they tend to actually know everybody more than other professors do.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s true, if they’re rude or nice in terms of like, “Hey, fix this, jerk,” versus, “Oh, thank you so much.”

Tessa West
Some people are really kiss-up-kickdowners. Yeah, they’re so nice to other professors but they treat the IT people like trash. And I actually learned a lot about those folks and what I wouldn’t trust them with just based on that information.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, tell me, we talked about the last three categories, those are bosses, do we play the game any differently when it’s our boss versus just another colleague?

Tessa West
I think so. Some of the basic communication points I’ve made of opening with a compliment or strength and focusing on the behavior, those are really true for everybody. I would say that people almost never give upward feedback to a boss, so people are incredibly uncomfortable having these conversations with bosses, and your tendency is to confront people who are at the same level as you and to just never do it with a boss even if in an exit interview on your way out.

So, I would say that I think it’s not so much that we need to approach this differently because of the status difference, that matters, but it’s more that we have to learn how to confront people who are higher status than us, and we almost never do. So, we have a lay theory that you’re allowed to do certain things with people who are the same level as you or below you, but you’re not allowed to do them if they’re higher status than you.

And I actually think that’s a bigger problem that we need to break, is that we need to learn how to ask for and give feedback to everybody kind of regardless of the level because if we kind of operate with this lay theory of, “It’s cool to have radical candor with your teammate but not your boss,” that’s not going to solve most of our difficult problems at work. And even when you talk to a boss, you’re usually complaining about someone at the same level so you’re still kind of doing it. So, I do think that that matters a lot.

I would say, though, that when it comes to complaining about powerful people, it really helps to have other powerful people on your side who aren’t emotionally invested in the problem. So, in so far as you can connect with other leaders to get their advice, other managers, it really helps to form that kind of network at the top even if it’s just a quick feedback conversation you have with them so they know where you’re coming from, can give you some advice on what works and what doesn’t.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And then, if things are really nasty, what do we think about in terms of talking to HR, quitting? How do we think about those decisions?

Tessa West
I try to avoid the real egregious stuff in my book, the HR-related stuff, because I think, for the most part, if it’s really terrible in an objective law-breaking way, so Title IX, MeToo, like harassment, those are more straightforward to deal with because people are actually violating their contracts, but HR does not care about the low-level stuff.

In fact, I have dealt with HR a lot as a leader in my department at NYU, and they just like tell us to deal with it ourselves, and then call us complainers if this stuff comes up. So, their bar is really, really high for stuff to care about, and you got to keep that in mind if you want to complain to HR, that nine times out of ten they’re going to say, “This is a little low-level for us. They’re not violating anything. It sounds like you just have some conflict,” but obviously they’re actually abusing you and violating rules, that’s different, but most of the time people aren’t, and that’s kind of an interesting phenomenon where people often claim, “I’m going to report you to HR.”

I had this happen to me because I told him, I told someone not to send an email and he did, and then he told me I was going to report him to HR for complaining about the email. It was so stupid but it’s kind of an empty threat nine times out of ten because HR is busy with the real stuff.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Good to know. And then, in terms of leaving, like when do you think it’s severe enough, like, “You know what, this environment is ugh”?

Tessa West
It’s kind about, yeah, breaking up at work is hard, and I think this is something we don’t actually talk enough about, how do we decide when to leave. I think there’s a couple clues. So, the first is figuring out whether your jerk is intentional or not. Are they even aware of the problem? And some jerks that we talked about, like micromanagers and sometimes even bulldozers, aren’t totally aware of just how destructive they are. So, are they aware? So, you go to find that out.

And then you’d have to find out if they have the goal of actually engaging in change. So, are they motivated to change? We know from the close relationships that are, for instance, that if you have conflict in a marriage and one person is motivated to change and the other isn’t, you’re headed for a divorce. There’s really nothing you can do about it unless that person has that motivation. So, you need to find out whether they’re actually motivated to change or they’re just defensive and think there’s nothing wrong.

And then the third thing is what’s the environment you’re working in? Is it a breeding ground for jerks? Not all environments are sort of equally fertile for jerks at work. Some really encourage it, or at the very least don’t do anything about it, and others are really strategic and systematic about making rules and policies that make it hard for jerks to thrive.

So, ideally, you want to work in a place where it’s not super fertile ground, you don’t have this sort of dog-eats-dog hyper competitive culture that encourages things like kiss-up-kickdowners, you don’t have absentee bosses at the top who don’t care what happens. You want a place that’s like a barren desert that these jerks can’t thrive in. So, if you have kind of the ideal environment, plus accountability, plus willingness to admit, or at least understand the problem, then you’re in a much better place. But if those things are missing, then I think it’s actually really hard to stay in that job.

That said, I do worry a little bit about people leaving jobs because of jerks, especially right now. We’re seeing this with the Great Resignation because just because you leave the job doesn’t mean you’re going to find it any better in another place, and you haven’t really developed skills of dealing with this stuff. So, at least, try some of these things first before you’re ready to move on.

Pete Mockaitis
And that’s actually a really great place to be, well, it’s very unpleasant to be. But in terms of if you feel like you’ve got nothing to lose, and you’re ready to leave, or rather than leave right away, try some things, and if they didn’t work, it’s like, “Well, hey, nothing lost. I was ready to be out the door anyway.”

Tessa West
“Nothing lost. I learned what works and what doesn’t.” I’m all about at least you could put forth the effort and you learned something along the way. You learned what strategies might help you in the future. Jerks at work aren’t going anywhere and we can’t control who we work with. And so, this idea that you’re going to go to like a grass-is-greener job, I think, just doesn’t really exist. I think it’s an illusion that a lot of us have. Just wait two weeks, you’ll meet a new jerk eventually, so, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
And how might we come to conclude that we are, in fact, the jerk at work?

Tessa West
Yeah, no one thinks that they’re a jerk. I have this survey on my website, it’s my book, called “Are you a jerk at work?” And you can take my quiz and get feedback. And I had about, the first hundred people that did it online, 90% of people thought they were the ideal coworker. That can’t possibly be true. I think most of us see ourselves in a pretty glowing light but there’s a couple things you can do.

I think if you’re a leader, you can really look out for your Achilles’ heel at work. What are your weaknesses? What’s the version of you that happens when you’re the most stressed out, getting the least support, and the most sleep-deprived that you are? And all of us have kind of these emotional tendencies that can lead to jerk behavior.

So, if some of us are really anxious, we micromanage. It makes us feel in control. Others of us when we get anxious, we really disengage, we free-ride, or we’re a neglectful boss. So, you got to know what those little triggers are and then you have to put steps in place of what you’re going to do when you experience those triggers. It’s a lot like having a behavioral therapy.

You can’t control the triggers but you can control how you respond to them, and I think it’s really important to learn those and then replace them with healthier behaviors. Don’t just tell yourself, “Don’t do that thing.” Actually, replace it with something else. But they key here is if you hold even just a little bit of power, no one is going to tell you you’re a jerk. It’s rare.

I give people these strategies because no one feels comfortable confronting. Nine times out of ten, you’re never going to find that out in a direct way. You’re going to have to play detective by figuring out who seems disengaged from you, who used to show up and doesn’t anymore, so these kinds of things so you have to really look out for those subtle behaviors in other people.

And then, certainly, if you ask them if you’re problematic, they’re also going to tell you no, so you have to ask them about your specific behaviors. But I really think a lot of this has to do with knowing your own triggers and being honest with yourself about what the worst version of you looks like, and we all have that version.

We probably all saw that version during the pandemic come out at some point, and then just admitting to yourself, “These are my triggers, this is what I do, this is the worst version of me. Here’s how I act. Let’s figure out what I’m going to do instead the next time that trigger comes along and makes me feel that way.”

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. Well, Tessa, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Tessa West
I’d say that if you feel like you’ve been a jerk, it’s okay. You’re in good company. We all have the potential to sort of be both on the receiving end as well as the giving end of these things. And I really want to kind of normalize people talking about and thinking about these jerky behaviors because I think they’re super common, and don’t feel like you are the only one who’s ever been targeted, or the only one who’s ever acted this way. We all have the potential to do these things, and I think it’s just all about learning smart, short, simple strategies on what to do about it.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, now, could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Tessa West
You know, I had a really hard time with this one. You’re not going to like this quote, so, “Every body on Mt. Everest was once a very motivated person.”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, it is provocative, so.

Tessa West
My friend Annie Duke is writing a new book on how to know when to give up. You would think with trying to promote a book where it’s all about showing initiative to deal with jerks at work, I wouldn’t be pro giving up but I do actually think it’s a really provocative topic of knowing when you’ve tried all the things and it’s time to throw in the towel.

And I think, especially, and you brought this up, when we’re dealing with conflict at work, when is it time to move on? When have you done everything you can on being able to read the situation enough? So, like this little meme pops up in my social feed, and it just reminded me of this kind of important point that there is such a thing as a sunk cost when it comes to dealing with these things.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. Well, we’ve had Annie Duke on the show twice, so I’m totally looking at the release date, October 4th. Okay, hopefully, we’ll have her around then for her three-peat.

Tessa West
She’s fantastic, yeah. Nice.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Tessa West
My favorite study was one done by Wendy Mendes, who’s a social psychophysiologist at UCSF. But what she did was she had minorities and whites, I think they’re African-American and whites interact with each other, and she found this really interesting effect where white people engaged in these over-the-top friendly overtures, and they do this the most when they’re the most stressed out physiologically.

So, she identified this phenomenon called brittle smiles, which is the harder you try to be nice and overly smile and overly ask someone how they’re doing, the more stressed out you are physiologically. And it’s a great mismatch between body and mind and face, but I love it because I study communication. It just shows what a hot mess we often are and why it’s so confusing to interact with people.

Pete Mockaitis
I think that’s so hilarious on so many levels. Alright, first of all, is it only white people?

Tessa West
It’s whites and African-Americans, so we don’t know if everybody does this but I’m assuming they do. It’s a pretty general phenomenon.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, when you said white people, that reminded me of this episode of “Community” in which the character Elroy Patashnik, this like VR scientist says, “I’m addicted to encouraging white people.” And so, he’s just like, “This man knows what he’s doing.” So, he just says these like throwaway phrases that just make people feel good.

And it’s funny, I do the same thing with my kids when I’m feeling stressed, and I was just like, “Oh, my sweet angel, would you like some macaroni and cheese?” And it’s almost like I’m trying to soothe myself or it’s like I’m…

Tessa West
You’re self-soothing.

Pete Mockaitis
Or it’s like I’m unleashing my anger in a way that I hope they can’t perceive quite yet because they’re two and four and they don’t pick up.

Tessa West
They totally can, by the way.

Pete Mockaitis
Uh-oh. All right.

Tessa West
A second favorite study of mine. And we stressed out parents, dads and moms, and we put them through the three-year test, which was super stressful. And then we reunited them with their kids and had them play, and the kids picked up the stress from the parents, and they showed physiological synchrony with the stressed parents, and they act more avoidant with like a new person, they were more withdrawn. And this was as young as six months old, kids start to show this, so we do actually leak all that stuff out.

And, here’s a little tidbit for you, the more you try to suppress it, the worst it gets. So, just like go home and be an a-hole to your kids. That’s better. I have an eight-year-old, I get it. You’re stressed, you’re like, “Hey, want a cookie?” and they’re like, “Mom, why are you acting so strange?”

Pete Mockaitis
“Dada is feeling frustrated because it’s 3:00 a.m. and still dark outside, and he’d like for you to go back to bed. Okay? Thank you.” All right. And a favorite book?

Tessa West
Ooh, that’s a hard one. Children of Time it’s a sci-fi book by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I probably butchered that. I almost exclusively read sci-fi. So, this book is about spiders on a new planet that have evolved to be super intelligent. And it’s really all about status and power and mind-reading other species and what they’re going to do. It’s the best social psychological book I’ve read on power and status about spiders.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And how about a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Tessa West
My Google Calendar Excel spreadsheet that allows anyone who’s close to me to just write down when they want to meet in a 30-minute window, and it has saved me tons of time, and it’s also made it possible for people who are less comfortable bugging me to just go on and reserve their time. So, what I found is the people who are the most comfortable kind of nagging me for time tend to come from like really high social-class families where they learn to just push their way through things.

Whereas, the first-gen students don’t do that. They feel rude. And it just creates this kind of mismatch between who has access to me and who doesn’t. But if you get the Google link and you can just sign up, it’s kind of this great equalizer among all my students.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool. And a favorite habit?

Tessa West
When I have feedback conversations, I always end them with, “Do you have any feedback for me?”

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good.

Tessa West
And then they look shocked and they don’t know what to say but they get used to it after about the third time.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; they quote it back to you often?

Tessa West
One thing that resonates with people is power and status is established within the first minute of a team and often very subtly. So, it doesn’t take much to establish yourself as a leader. Something as simple as having everyone go around the room and say their names will often work. And people find this to be surprising but really effective if they want to actually assert themselves in a team.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, that feels like a whole another podcast conversation. But while we’re on the subject, okay, what are the top things I can do to appear powerful and high status in my minute? So, is it just like introducing myself powerfully or by being the guy or gal who says, “Hey, how about we all introduce ourselves?”

Tessa West
Yes, that’s right.

Pete Mockaitis
I should ask for the intros and that makes me powerful.

Tessa West
It does because here’s what happens, especially if you don’t know each other well, the person who asserts himself as the organizer of the group, not the person with the loudest opinions, the strongest voice. The person who says, “Let’s go all around the room and say what our names are. Okay, everyone, let’s get together and organize these applications. I’ll take A through D.” That person, all of a sudden, everything else they do is seen through the lens of leadership, all their other future behaviors, because they’ve established themselves as a non-self-interested leader from the get-go. They’re actually interested in the wellbeing of the group.

The next piece of advice I would give you is don’t try to convince people by talking for a really long time. My favorite rule is what Marty Nemko calls the stoplight rule. So, you have 30 seconds to make a point when your light is green. In 30 seconds, it turns yellow and people are hoping you wrap it up. At the minute mark, you’re still talking, they’ve minimized you and they’ve gone to shopping online. They’re not even going to listen to you anymore, so less is more.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Thank you. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Tessa West
TessaWestAuthor.com.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Tessa West
Yeah, I’d say normalize talking about jerks at work. If you have power, open up these conversations with a tale of your own jerkery and what you did to realize that you were off-kilter at your job, and that will really help other people feel much more comfortable in admitting their own mistakes.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Tessa, this has been fun. Thank you and keep on being not a jerk.

Tessa West
Thank you. You, too.

Pete Mockaitis
Jeremy, thanks for joining us here on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Jeremy Pollack
Hey, Pete, thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to dig into your wisdom. You’ve got a wealth of experience when it comes to conflict resolution. And I’d love to hear, for starters, what’s one of the most surprising and counterintuitive discoveries you’ve made about conflicts and resolving them?

Jeremy Pollack
That’s a good question. So, I’m not even sure that this is totally counterintuitive but it’s just something that has dawned on me through the work that I’ve done, is that someone’s sort of approach, attitude, etc. in a conflict really dictates the way that others are also going to interact with them.

So, if you’re in an escalated state, it will escalate other people. And if you aren’t, it’ll help deescalate. And so, one thing that I’ve worked on with people, for instance, is what I call being generous with your heart, essentially, which is making the first concession. And sometimes people feel like, “Well, why do I always have to be the bigger person?” or something like that.

But if you start to cross that line and be a little bit generous, be a little bit more open, maybe a little bit more vulnerable, it usually opens the door for someone else to do the same, because a lot of people are trying to save face, especially when they’re resolving conflict. They don’t want to admit they’re wrong and they don’t want to admit the other person is right or something like that.

So, if someone is willing to make that first concession, and say something like, “You know what, I think you’re right,” or, “You know what, you’re not wrong,” or just admit that there’s a sphere of possibility that someone is not necessarily wrong or right, and be a little bit vulnerable. It actually opens up the space. So, I don’t know if that’s counterintuitive but it was something that it seems almost intuitive but it kind of dawned on me through the work, I’m like, “This is really an important step in resolving conflict.”

Pete Mockaitis
And what’s interesting about that concession, “Okay, you’re right,” it’s like they don’t have to be right about the core contentious piece, but it sounds like, if this is fair, you could give them some bit of concession, affirmation, validation, on anything, like, “Hey, it totally makes sense that you’re trying to look out for what’s best for your building,” or, “your tenants,” or, “your employees,” and they’re like, “Well, yeah, of course.” And so, it’s like that costs you nothing.

Jeremy Pollack
Absolutely. If you could just find one point of agreement, especially if it’s like a deeper-level agreement, an agreement on sort of a core value, or a core interest, or a core need, or something, if you just find one point of agreement, that opens up a sphere there of possibility to start collaborating so someone can see you not necessarily as an opponent but they start to see you as, “Okay, this is someone who’s essentially becoming a partner in this resolution process.”

So, it’s as simple as when you say the words, “You know what, I think you’re right about that,” or when you say the words, “I agree with you that that’s important,” or, “That concerns me too. You’re right.” Those kinds of things, it suddenly takes you out of the opponent mode and into a mode of, “We’re on the same team, potentially. We just come from different perspectives or different positions. We need to figure out how to get aligned in some way, but we do have some shared or common values there.”

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Cool. Well, hey, so we got one tip off the bat. So, maybe we can zoom out a bit and tell us your book the, Conflict Resolution Playbook, what’s sort of the core idea here?

Jeremy Pollack
The Playbook is really aimed at being a very practical step-by-step book for different types of conflict scenarios. So, for both personal and professional life, I think we’ve got several chapters, 15 chapters on just different types of conflicts and give a little bit of an example of what could happen and some techniques to help resolve, manage, or transform the conflict. So, it’s meant to be like a very sort of step-by-step playbook as it’s written in the title.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, I understand the psychology of human needs is a big part of this. Can you unpack for us what are some of the core needs that we got to have in mind as we’re engaging in these conversations?

Jeremy Pollack
Yeah, there’s a wide research field in human needs theory, and it’s been done in different types of fields from economics to psychology to anthropology, and there’s sort of a consensus on certain needs. But essentially, I’ve done a lot of research in this field and it seems to me, I’ve focused on six core needs, essentially. But some of the really basic ones are safety. It’s not physical safety but psychological safety, a feeling that, “I have an expectation of feeling secure and stable and, also, I feel safe to be myself, be who I am without the fear of retaliation of some sort.” So, that’s psychological safety.

We have a basic need for autonomy, to feel that we have agency or some input in making decisions that affect us in our lives. We have a basic need for identity, and I might clarify that by saying it’s a need for a positive, coherent identity, so we try to structure our world in a way that makes sense for us and how we fit into it.

And when someone, for instance, does something, or seems to do something, or seems to say something that threatens, even unconsciously feels like a threat to one of those basic needs, we respond in fight/flight, we respond in acute stress response, and that’s typically where a lot of conflicts start is this perception of a threat to one’s basic needs, goals, or values.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. You listed three of those needs. Can you share what are the other three?

Jeremy Pollack
Sure. Well, we have a basic need for care, or what we might call connection, so being part of groups and feeling like we’re cared about by other people. We have a basic need for stimulation, for feeling challenged, engaged, etc. And we have a basic need, at least in this culture, we have a basic need for growth and progress, a feeling that we’re making some progress in life. And it doesn’t mean financial progress, or it doesn’t mean progress in a certain domain. It means progress in some way, like, whether it’s on a health domain, or a self-care domain, or my home domain, or some feeling that I’m moving forward. So, most people have this basic need.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s really interesting in terms of when you start to feel escalated, I think this is a really great framework in terms of, like, “Hey, what’s going on here? Oh, I feel that my autonomy is potentially being impeded here. That’s what’s going on and that’s why I’m getting a little bit, like, going.” So, maybe while we’re there, do you have any tips for, hey, when you’re in the moment and you’re starting to feel a little bit like you’re approaching the furious, how do you cool it off?

Jeremy Pollack
Yeah, good question. So, number one, I would say there’s a little bit of prep work sometimes. If you’re noticing that you’re getting triggered on a regular basis by certain things, certain situations, certain people, you might do a little analysis, like you said, and just determine, “What is it that this person or that rhetoric is triggering in me? What does it feel like it’s threatening?”

And you can go through those kinds of six basic needs or some basic goals that you have, or values that you have, and start to understand, like, “Is that a true threat? If it’s a true threat, how do I know that’s truly threatening me? What are the consequences?” kind of unpack it a little bit. And if you’ve noticed that you’re feeling threatened by something, you might have a framework for what would be called cognitive reframing or I sometimes call it soothing.

So, like for instance, if I’m in a situation at work and I’m feeling micromanaged, and it’s feeling like I’m not being trusted, that might be threatening my sense of identity as a worker there. It might also be threatening my sense of autonomy, to control my own sort of work style, etc.

And if I start to remind myself, “Wait a minute,” just mentally, “Wait a minute. I’m still in control of my work situation. I have power. No one’s taking away my power. I’m safe. I’m okay. I know who I am,” whatever the kind of thing is that you need to hear to soothe yourself, that’s a cognitive reframing technique that could be important, and it’s really unique to each person. They have to kind of figure out, “What is it that feels like it’s a threat? And how do I reframe it that?”

The other things that I talk a lot about are breathing, which is I think something that a lot of people talk about when they start feeling like they’re escalated. Focusing on your breath, you can do some basic breathing techniques like counting down three, two, one, as you breathe, as you exhale, and counting up, one, two, three, as you inhale, and just focusing on that breath and just kind of staying calm.

Another one is mindful speech. So, being able to speak, you’re going to slow down your speech a little bit so that you actually hear yourself enunciate words, articulate very clearly. And that process, any mindfulness techniques, whether it’s breathing or speech mindfulness, helps to activate the parasympathetic nervous system, it gives the brain a signal that it’s okay to slow down, we’re not in a flight/fight, we don’t need to protect ourselves against the threat. So, slowing down your breath and your speech and even your movement sometimes can actually help you sort of signal the brain that it’s time to calm down a little bit.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool stuff. And I’m curious, could you share with us a cool story of some of these things really coming together for someone who used these principles to get through a tricky conflict situation?

Jeremy Pollack
Well, it’s hard for me to speak exactly on other people’s experience. I can speak on my own, I guess. I definitely had, for instance, a difficult conversation even yesterday with an employee who gave me some feedback about something that I did as a leader and put her in an awkward position, and it was tough for me to hear at first, and I was listening and, really, my inclination, just like most people’s inclination, is I really want to defend myself, I really want to sort of dismiss what she’s saying, almost reject it, let her know, “You’re incorrect. That’s not what I said. That’s not what I meant,” and sort of defend against. I’m sort of feeling my heart rate increase a little bit.

But I used these techniques. I slowed down my speech. I waited and listened. I didn’t defend. I very, cognitively, made a point not to defend myself and, instead, try to validate her. Slowed down my speech, focused on my breath, and just calm. And then when she was done talking, I just tried to kind of repeat back what I heard from her, made sure that I clearly understood it, and then validated her in some way. I actually ended up agreeing with her on some levels, I said, “You’re right. I did put you in an awkward position, and that wasn’t my intention. And I didn’t even realize I did it. It was definitely a blind spot. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. I’m going to make sure that that doesn’t happen again.”

And I gave her a little bit of a plan that I thought would be a good plan, and she agreed and that kind of thing. Anytime, especially for a leader, I think, in my experience, it’s very hard to get feedback sometimes because we have an identity as being the leader or the boss or something like that, and if someone is challenging that, giving us feedback, it’s very easy to get triggered and to feel like, “Well, this person is kind of challenging me on some level as being her boss or his boss,” or something.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, thank you. And so then, in order to have more of those positive conversations and outcomes, you outlined 10 essential communication skills for resolving conflict. And I’m curious, it might be tricky to go through all 10 in the time we have available. But what’s maybe a couple that you think are super easy to improve with a couple quick practices or tactics that make a big difference?

Jeremy Pollack
Okay. So, one skill that I think is really important that I include in pretty much every training and coaching program that I deliver is called validation, and there’s some great material on validation, but it’s really simple. Essentially, when someone gives you some piece of feedback and it’s hard for you to hear, first of all, calmly listen and some of those techniques we just talked about where you can start breathing and you can just calm yourself down, maybe cognitive reframe things. Just breathe for a second and just listen.

And when they’re done, the validation part is, number one, “Can you repeat back what you heard?” So, this is a form of reflective listening. So, repeating back what you heard in some concise way so that they know you heard them and you also know that you heard them correctly because then they have the opportunity to say, “No, that’s not what I meant,” or, “That’s not what I said.” Or they could say, “Yeah, that is what I said,” and so they feel heard. So, that’s really important to calm someone, deescalate someone in a moment, especially if they’re feeling a little emotionally triggered.

And then if I could find some piece, as we said in the beginning, if I could find something that I could find agreement with or some merit in what they’re saying, and let them know, “You know what, that’s important,” “You know what, I’m concerned about that too,” “Yeah, you know what, I think you’re right. That was a misstep on my part,” or anything that you can find agreement on. Again, that lowers the defenses and it opens up a space for being collaborative.

And then the next part, I always say that there’s two main parts to conflict resolution. One part is the care part. It always starts with care, and that means listening, validating, trying to find alignment. So, it’s showing that I’m here, I’m caring about what you’re saying. And then the next part is solution, which is a collaborative process. It shouldn’t just be a sort of unilateral where I say, “Well, here’s what I’m going to do.” It should be, “Well, here’s what I’m thinking about doing. What do you think about that? Or, do you have any suggestions?” and opening up that space for collaboration and creating a solution that seems to work for everyone.

So, those two pieces – validation, alignment in all that care bucket – and then the next piece is sort of working towards a solution of collaborating on a solution, being creative, maybe sometimes thinking outside the box. Those are two pieces that are really important.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, totally, I think those really do make a world of difference and often is a lot of fun to see what you can come up with together there. Now, you also mentioned six classic conflict scenarios: criticism, passive-aggression, gaslighters, insubordination, conflict with the supervisor, and confronting a bully. First, just definitionally, I’ve heard different definitions for gaslighting and gaslighters. Lay it on us, Jeremy, how do you define gaslighting?

Jeremy Pollack
Gaslighting, essentially, is a way of trying to call into question someone’s reality. So, if someone brings to you, “Hey, this is how I’m feeling,” or, “This is what I experienced,” or they’re confronting you or giving you some feedback, essentially, and you say something like, “Well, that’s crazy,” or, “Well, that’s just ridiculous. That didn’t happen. Stop being so sensitive.” Those types of things where you’re basically calling into question the validity of someone’s reality, that’s gaslighting.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And so, when you find yourself in these scenarios, I’m curious, to what extent are there some universal prescriptions versus specific prescriptions in terms of, “With criticism do this, versus gaslighting do that”?

Jeremy Pollack
I have some formulas that I tend to use so if I’m feeling like I’m getting criticism instead of gaslighting someone, I have a different, like a sequence that I might use. And one thing that I tend to focus on is trying to separate behavior from interpretation. And what that means is when I’m hearing someone giving me feedback on something that I’ve done, like this is what happened yesterday, they might have a story or an interpretation or a judgment on the behavior that I did or what I said, what I did.

And my job is not to internalize their story and their judgment, and start making me feel a certain way about myself, and then I get triggered. My job instead, if I can, is to separate out, “What’s the behavior that they’re talking about, what I actually said, what I actually did, and the interpretation or the judgment that they placed on it?”

The first part, I can own. And if I can own that, if I can go, “You know what, you’re right. I did do that. I did say that.”

That helps a lot in deescalating the situation because it helps people feel like I’m not gaslighting them and, actually, I’m owning up to the thing that I did. The next part, the interpretation part, I don’t have to own because that’s their interpretation, that was how they perceived it.

What I can do with that part is I can reinterpret for them, “Here’s why I actually did it,” and I can also reassure them, “Let me just tell you that I didn’t intend for that. I actually really do value you, and I apologize if I was not clear and I came across like I didn’t value you or I don’t value your time. I really do value your time. I appreciate your time and that wasn’t my intention. And the reason that happened was…” and then you can give your real explanation.

So, reassurance and reinterpretation are what you can do for the judgment part. Ownership is what you can do for the behavior part, and that requires you separating those two things out – behavior and interpretation. That’s a way to respond to someone’s criticism. To respond to someone’s criticism with gaslighting where you just kind of immediately dismiss or reject them, and you say, “Well, that’s ridiculous. That’s untrue. I didn’t do that. I didn’t mean to do that. It’s crazy that you think I did that.” Those kinds of things are very, very frustrating because it makes the person feel completely unheard, completely unvalued, and will usually escalate the situation or create a lot of resentment.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, if you are, I guess, I don’t know, the victim or the recipient of gaslighting or bullying behavior, or passive-aggression, what are some of your top tips in terms of how do you address that well?

Jeremy Pollack
Yeah, this is an important topic. I’ve coached a lot of folks that are recipients of sort of chronic gaslighting and sometimes chronic bullying. If you’re in a situation with someone who you generally trust and you have a good rapport with and you just feel gaslighted in that moment, certainly, you can give them some feedback and say, “You know what, I understand that this is feeling a little bit intense for you, or it’s triggering you in some way, but it feels like you’re not listening to what I’m saying. You’re not hearing me. How can I get this across in a way that we can communicate better about it?”

You kind of call it out in the moment, because if you have the rapport and the trust with that person, you have a relationship with that person, it helps to highlight that and maybe they can calm down. And if they can’t, then maybe it’s time, “Let’s pick this conversation up tomorrow. I think it’s probably better if we pause for a second,” or something like that.

But if you’re dealing with someone who’s a chronic gaslighter, who you really never feel heard by, they’re never willing to own up to their behaviors, admit that they’ve done anything wrong at all, it’s always someone else’s fault, or etc., that’s a tough one to correct in terms of the relationship. And what I usually work on with people is they need to set boundaries for themselves as a form of self-care, as a form of self-esteem because self-esteem can be very much hurt in relationships where there’s constant gaslighting or even constant bullying going on. So, really making sure that you take care of yourself by setting some clear boundaries.

And sometimes with gaslighting, a lot of what I hear with gaslighting is someone will make an agreement with someone, and then two weeks later it’s out the window because the gaslighter basically says, “Oh, it never happened. We never talked about that. You’re crazy.” And it’s really important for someone who’s dealing with a gaslighter to start writing things down a lot, unfortunately, taking notes, making sure that they can check with themselves, not that they’re going to convince the gaslighter that they’re wrong or something, but they can check with themselves and go, “You know what, I am right. We did say this. I wrote it down here so that I know I’m not crazy, so that I don’t internalize this person’s story that I’m crazy or my memory is going or something like that. I need to set boundaries for myself so I can take care of myself.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s perfect. Thank you. And maybe if we back it up a little bit in terms of, before we even get to a conflict scenario, you’ve got a whole section in terms of strategies to prevent conflicts. And I was most intrigued by letting go of resentment and setting clear expectations. What are your top best practices for these two conflict-preventers?

Jeremy Pollack
Well, resentment is a tough one to let go of because when I talk about letting go of resentment, people often push back and say, “But if I stop resenting them, then they won,” or, “If I stop resenting them, it means either I’m saying they’re right or I’m not holding them accountable anymore,” or something like that.

And, really, resentment is like serving yourself poison. It’s not doing anything to the other person. It’s just hurting yourself. It’s just sort of a ball of energy that you’re holding onto. So, if you want to confront someone that you have rapport with, I think that’s important if you’re feeling resentful and you could do some reconciliation.

One exercise that I have people do sometimes is I do a writing exercise, especially if it’s not someone that they can actually do any kind of conflict process with, especially if it’s someone who maybe passed away, like they’re resentful of their father or their mother who’s not with us anymore, something like that. They’ll do a writing exercise where they actually write to the person, they actually write a letter to the person saying everything that’s in their heart, on their chest, everything that they really felt hurt about, etc., and they don’t send it, they just put it in their drawer. And then they write another letter from that person to themselves in a way that they think that they would like to hear from the other person.

So, whatever they would like to hear, “What would it sound like if they really heard you and they really wanted to resolve this, they really wanted to get back in a place of trust and care with you? What would that sound like? What would that letter response sound like?” And I have them write that letter. And it opens up the heart a little bit and then I have them write one final letter back to the person in response to that and, again, opening up their heart this time, being caring and potentially vulnerable. And so, doing some sort of writing exercise sometimes can help if that person is not available for it.

Setting expectations is really important to prevent resentment because, a lot of times, people have expectations that they never set with anyone, that they just assumed were there, so they hold someone else to their standards without getting an agreement on it, and then they create resentment in that way. So, I think it’s really important when you’re noticing you’re having conflicts with someone to sit down with them and to start kind of looking at, “What do you feel like are the standards or expectations here in our relationship, or in our organization, or in this workplace, or something?”

Let’s make sure we’re really clear and we’re aligned on that because, a lot of times, that process of setting expectations with someone will bring out how misaligned some of the things are, “I never knew you expected that of me,” or, “I think that’s unreasonable,” or, “Oh, you expect that. Okay, I can do that. I didn’t know that. I didn’t know you wanted me to do that.” And so, that process of transparency and clarity is really important.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, if you’re working with someone and you’re trying to follow all these best practices and you’re just not making much headway, like someone else just does not want to cooperate or play ball, how do you think about tough cases and when you want to kind of walk away and find an alternative?

Jeremy Pollack
Yeah, I think a lot of conflict resolution has to do with motivation. Every relationship, whether it’s a relationship with a company, with a boss, with a partner, with a spouse, every relationship has some cost benefit analysis. And the benefits, the value you get from the relationship has to outweigh, I think, by some measure, the cost of managing the relationship. In other words, the stress that you get from it.

So, if you have a really low stress relationship, you get a lot of value from it, your motivation to stay in that relationship is going to be high, and vice versa it’s going to be low. So, I sometimes work with folks and companies that, for instance, say, “I don’t want to resolve this conflict with this person because I don’t need to work with them, I don’t need to talk to them, there’s no downside of me just not having any conversation with them,” and yet the company goes, “No, they need to work together.”

So, this individual has very low motivation to resolve. And with low motivation, it’s going to be very tough for them to do some of the uncomfortable stuff that conflict resolution processes tend to bring people into. So, there’s a level of discomfort that you have to look at motivation. So, if someone says, “I’m just not motivated to resolve,” then sometimes what I’ll do is I’ll work with them and kind of understand, “Well, what are you motivated to do? Like, how do we reframe motivation? What do you want here? What kind of work life do you want, for instance? Or, what kind of life at home do you want? Paint a vision for me. Tell me how it would look.”

And we create a vision and we go, “What steps can we take to get there? Or, if those steps aren’t possible, then is this the right place for you? So, I ask them, “Is this the right place for you? Is this the right relationship? Is this the right organization for you to be in?” Sometimes, a lot of times, when they get to the point where there’s just no motivation to resolve, they can admit, “I’m not sure that this is the right thing.” And sometimes I’ve coached people out of relationships, out of their work situations, where they just didn’t feel confident in doing it but they really wanted to leave. And so, sometimes that’s where it’ll lead, they just need some help.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, Jeremy, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention about conflict before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Jeremy Pollack
I would just say I’ll reiterate these two main buckets of conflict resolution when people are resolving conflicts – care and then solution. I just want to reiterate don’t skip the care part and jump straight to problem solving. Whenever possible, do the care part first, meaning listening to someone, validate them, let them know that you care, that you agree with some part, you can find merit in what they’re saying, and then open up the space for collaborative solution-building.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Jeremy Pollack
Well, I think the Robber’s Cave experiment by Sherif back in the 1950s was a seminal work in intergroup contact theory. I think that’s a really important work. And the whole field of intergroup contact has emerged from that. Basically, a seminal work.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite book?

Jeremy Pollack
Getting to Yes, right behind me. Getting to Yes is a really foundational book on negotiation and conflict resolution. I think that’s a really important one.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Jeremy Pollack
When I do coaching work, I just use Google Spreadsheet. I track all our progress for my coaching clients in there. I’m sure there are other platforms that are more robust but I love to use something like a spreadsheet to track progress with every coaching client I have so I know exactly what we’re doing, what action items we’re using, and what commitments they’re making.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite habit?

Jeremy Pollack
Meditation. Morning meditation.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; they quote it back to you often?

Jeremy Pollack
I have just a tendency to consistently kind of remind people to put care first, and that seems to resonate. Put care first.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Jeremy Pollack
You can go to our website PollackPeaceBuilding.com. I’m also at CoachJeremyPollack.com.

Pete Mockaitis
And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Jeremy Pollack
Final challenge to be awesome at your job, stay open-minded with people’s perspectives. Don’t think that your perspective is the only right one. There might be multiple right perspectives.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Jeremy, this has been fun. I wish you much luck in all of your conflict resolving.

Jeremy Pollack
Thanks, Pete. I appreciate it.

Pete Mockaitis
John, thanks so much for joining us here on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

John Riordan
Absolutely. My pleasure.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to dig into your wisdom but, first, I want to hear about the Marine Corps marathon that you did. How is that different than a normal marathon and what’s the backstory there?

John Riordan
Well, yeah, so that’s a good question and the backstory is interesting too. So, first of all, I’ll say a former friend, I don’t like this guy anymore. I went out for a jog one day and I’ve never ran more than three miles in my life, and he says, “Have you ever thought about running a marathon?” I laughed out loud, like, “Are you kidding me? Five miles would be a stretch and I have no interest in running a marathon whatsoever.”

He says, “Why not?” “Well, I couldn’t think of a thousand reasons why not. I don’t want to get injured as well.” “You don’t have to get injured. If something hurts, you stop.” I’m like, “Okay. It’s boring. Running for hours is boring.” “Well, could you do something about that?” Well, long story short, you could listen to things and learn things, and you’d be amazed how much you can learn while you’re running for two or three hours at a time.

Long story short, he coached me simply by saying, by asking the ultimate coaching question is, “What could you do about that?” And, ultimately, he’s sort of helped me dismantle all my own defenses to the point where I kind of had to do it. And so, I like to say I completed the Marine Corps, meaning I walked-run, not run the whole way. I had all this mental models. I thought everyone who ran any marathon would be super athlete fit runner. Nope, not the case whatsoever.

You look at any marathon, but the Marine Corps especially, I mean any size, shape that you would be shocked at who is capable of completing a marathon. I thought you had to die at the end, because as the first marathoner, I thought that was the requirement. You had to run with all your strength and then collapse and die. Nope. Apparently, that is not a requirement so I couldn’t stick to that one.

And so, just dismantling all these barriers that I had in my mind, some of which were simply like, I guess you’d say excuses, but many of which were just misunderstandings, misinterpretations, or assumptions I was making. And it was such a powerful metaphor for my own experience because I do this kind of coaching with folks all the time, and so to experience it for myself and realize how many assumptions I’m making, how many misunderstandings, how many barriers, artificial barriers I’ve put in my way. And when you remove those, it’s like, “Oh, shoot. Now I guess I have to do it because I have no more excuses.”

And the Marine Corps is, they call it America’s Marathon. It’s the beginner’s marathon. It’s a very flat course. They promote first-time marathoners so you get kind of bumped up if it’s your first one. And there’s thousands of people cheering you the entire way, and so it’s just a high the whole way that you’re being cheered on and encouraged and all that stuff, and so it’s a great experience.

Pete Mockaitis
Very cool. Well, yeah, there’s lessons right there and metaphors and excuses.

John Riordan
Well, I tell you, so much.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, “What could you do about that?” is a fine question.

John Riordan
Yeah, it’s a great question.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool. Well, so you’ve got a boatload of experience when it comes to leadership development and you’ve got many courses. And we had several conversations with folks about virtual teams and virtual leadership and virtual meetings and overcoming distractions when you’re working from home, etc. What intrigued me about you is you’ve specifically got courses on dealing with conflict in virtual environments and facilitating in virtual environments.

And I think those are probably two of the toughest things to do with folks who are in different places. So, let’s dig in and talk about conflict resolution stuff in a virtual context. And, maybe, could you kick us off with a juicy story? Like, what’s a good, good, meaty, reality TV-grade drama or conflict that you’ve seen or heard about from your clients resolved through virtual media?

John Riordan
Yeah. Right. So, as I say, conflict is typically challenging for most of us regardless even when we are in person, and it’s uncomfortable and awkward and all that other sort of stuff.

Well, you layer on the virtual context and it just changes the parameters, and there are some upsides. There are some upsides to the virtual context. We might not annoy each other as much, my personality might not grate on you because we’re not across the hallway from each other, whatever. But clearly, the downside is, the big challenge is, that the little misunderstanding in that email goes unaddressed and we have to be intentional, very intentional, about bringing it up because, otherwise, when we’re in person, we’ll bumped into each other in the hallway, I’ll see you as we walk, we’re walking out, I’ll see at lunch, whatever, at the next meeting, “Hey, Pete, about that thing, about that project, about that whatever…” and we have these, otherwise, even unnoticed interactions.

The volume of interaction that happens in person, that is in the Ethisphere, really, it has been very interesting to watch the literature emerging in the past 18 months because, prior to COVID, you had intentionally virtual organizations, people who chose to work virtually, their organization wanted them to work virtually, their job was structured for virtual work. Well, the past 18 months, for most of us, has been suddenly virtual without choice, without option, without structure, and, basically, chaos.

And so, all that Ethisphere interaction just vaporized and, all of a sudden, you and I are exchanging emails, we have that misunderstanding, but we don’t see each other, at best on a video conference, if that, once a week, and so I’m not going to setup a meeting to address this minor thing with you, and so it grows, and so that distance grows. And pretty soon, you start to have the wedge that develops.

So, turn to the juicy stories, geez, I don’t even know where to begin. The one that pops to mind is we’re sitting there on a meeting convened by a full-bird colonel, and one of the participants is on video, and he’s clearly distracted. And as the colonel is presenting, this guy is talking to other people, he’s looking all over, he’s like obviously not paying attention. Well, this doesn’t go over well with the colonel who finally stops and says, “Hey,” I’ll call him Joe, “Joe,” awkward sound, “Joe.” This guy is talking, he doesn’t even hear himself, he’s probably muted the whole thing.

I mean, it’s a good couple of minutes before Joe finally looks down and awkward, and, “Oh, I’m sorry…” And he’s like, “So, are you with us, Joe?” “Oh, oh, sorry, sorry.” Well, there’s too many people on the call, the colonel is not going to address Joe right there and then, which is good. So, what’s the colonel going to do? Is he going to make an appointment with Joe? Is he going to setup another call to have this discussion, what happened? I mean, this whole thing was like it just snowballs. The whole team is involved because everybody watched it.

If you were in a conference room and someone was distracted and that happened, it would essentially get resolved real-time, probably, optimistically, just by virtue of the interaction. In the virtual world, that meeting is over. Boop! Everyone disappears. So, we all witnessed it and then it’s over. There’s no hallway discussion, there’s no post-chat discussion, and so you have this awkward thing. And the only way to resolve it is reconvene and have a discussion, both the colonel and the individual, and then bringing it back to the group.

I mean, the processing of that conflict in the virtual context too so much more effort than it would have real-time, optimistically. Real-time, you just interact, resolve, address, move on. And so, in the virtual world, it is challenging to be intentional, to lean into it, for those of us who it’s not a natural strength. There’s a few people where conflict they’re just good at it, and then there’s the rest of us.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, now, we have to know how things conclude. So, what happened with the colonel and Joe here today?

John Riordan
Well, let’s just say Joe kind of wrapped it up with this, which is, in his mind, his perspective was that this was urgent, this was…I don’t know if he used the word crisis but, in his mind, this was urgent and he needed to address it right away. Well, I don’t know how familiar you are with the military, but with a full-birded colonel, like you could pretty much use rank, unless it’s a general, you pay attention to the colonel first or you interrupt to say, “I’m sorry, sir. The building is on fire. I’m going to have to step away for a few…” and so, his lack of awareness of the protocol and how to handle his situation on his end.

Now, the colonel is very reasonably gracious but it definitely clarified that this guy, and so he was two steps down from the colonel, he’s a civilian so he reports to his boss, his boss reports to the colonel. Well, let’s just say it was clear he has a lot to learn, so now he’s kind of – what’s the right word – not demoted positionally but he didn’t show up well. He showed up really badly so now he’s going to have to overcome that. It’s going to take time for him to demonstrate that he has learned and sort of overcome that experience with folks.

And, again, in the virtual world, he only has very limited opportunities to do that. In person, you’d have more meetings, you’d have more interactions, you’d have the hallway. Now, he’s like he has to lean into it and really reestablish his reputation in a lot of ways.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah.

John Riordan
So, he’s still there, as far I know. It wasn’t that bad but it was not good.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, that does kind of paint a picture in terms of things that can occur and the extra challenges that ensue. So, lay it on us, what are some of the best practices you’ve discovered when it comes to managing conflict when folks are remote?

John Riordan
First and foremost, intentionality. Paying attention. It’s so much easier when we’re virtual to just dismiss it and let it go and it’s no big deal, and it might not be a big deal. It’s just that clumsy email, or maybe they didn’t really mean it, or maybe I’m misinterpreting what Pete said in his text, and just let it go. Okay. But, however, it’s so tempting to do that because when we switch off the call, I’m back in my own world and I’m not going to see you in the hallway, I’m not going to bump into you in the coffee break, and so it’s easier to just dismiss it.

So, paying attention, intentionality, “Is this worth addressing? Should I address it?” And even before that, I like to say, “What’s my bias with regard to conflict in the first place?” I am conflict-avoidant, so I know that my bias is to let it go. And, therefore, given that bias, I may need to lean into this and step into this more than I feel comfortable with. That’s probably true.

There are some people in the world who are conflict-seeking who don’t mind. My father-in law was this way. He loved a good knockdown drill. Like, to him, everything was an opportunity for a very energetic debate. Anyone else would’ve said, “Gosh, why are you arguing?” And he’d tell them, “I’m not arguing. We’re just having a healthy debate.” So, he didn’t mind and he would lean into everything. Most of us, percentage-wise, I think most people are on that conflict-reluctant.

And so, how to assess yourself with regard to your style around conflict, and then in the virtual realm being attentive and intentional, being more open to it. And then third, I’d say, is talk about it. Talk about it. Like, for goodness’ sake, bring this up as a team with your colleagues, “So, Pete, you and I are going to work together for the next 12 months. Hey, can we talk about some operating agreements? How are we going to handle differences of opinion? How are we going to handle conflict? How are we going to handle our working practices? What’s our communication style? What can we do to help each other and find a good way through the middle?”

And so, having a conversation about how we will handle conflict, before we’re in the middle of a big conflict, is so, so critical for teams. It’s so helpful to get it out on the table so it’s not some awkward taboo subject that nobody wants to broach.

Pete Mockaitis
And that’s just so huge when it comes to aligning expectations in many contexts in terms of, one, upfront we kind of know, hey, what we’re dealing with and what the standards are. And, two, it just sort of prevents a lot of that stuff. It’s like someone is mad because someone else has not fulfilled their unspoken expectations, and it’s like, “Oh, sorry. I didn’t realize I broke a rule that was never mentioned as being a rule. Oops!” So, that’s just a great practice to do in many contexts.

And so, when it comes to, “How are we going to address conflict?” have you seen any particular best practices that have been in a lot of operating agreements and been really helpful for folks?

John Riordan
Yeah. Well, that would be the first one, is to establish a set of operating agreements. Now, I would offer, prior to that, a really good practice is to do that, have that conversation and do an assessment. I don’t necessarily mean formally, just as a team, just discuss, “Pete, what’s your style? Are you more conflict-avoidant or are you more conflict-seeking, somewhere in the middle? Help me understand your style. I’ll explain to you that I do tend to be conflict-avoidant. I get uncomfortable but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to do it. It’s just I get all sort of uneasy, so bear with me to the extent that you can encourage me and keep me going in the conflict. That’ll be helpful to me. So, let’s have that discussion. Where are we as a team?”

And there are some really simple models that will help folks have a conversation. There’s from Patrick Lencioni, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. He has this conflict continuum, and one end is artificial harmony where we’re all avoiding it, “Oh, it’s great. Everything is great. Yup, we’re all good. Yeah, no, no, no, there’s no problem here.” “Like, really? Because it sure sounded like there was.” So, artificial harmony on one end.

And on the other is destructive conflicts, mean-spirited attacks and backbiting and all that sort of stuff. And so, the ideal is healthy and constructive conflict is somewhere in that middle ground where we’re able to have the hard conversations and we’re open to that. So, assessing, with a small A, you don’t have to take a big instrument or anything, just, “Where do you think we are? And let’s talk about it. And what would it look like for us to maintain a healthy and constructive conflict culture?” And then that can lead you into, “Okay, so how do we do that?”

And I would say that that becomes a matter of operating agreements where we can talk about it, like, “What does that look like?” “Well, we should respect each other.” “Okay, what does that really mean? What does that really look like for you?” “Well, it means we don’t interrupt each other.” “Well, I’m a strong extrovert. I don’t care about interruptions, but if you do then I’ll try to pay attention to that. If I interrupt you, don’t take it personally. I’m not trying to dismiss your point. I’m very extroverted.” “Okay, good.” We can learn about each other, come to some agreements, and then try to put them into practice.

And so, when it comes to what those agreements are, I would say there are clearly some general ones, like respect, taking responsibility, addressing things early, not letting it fester, criticism in private, constructive critique in private, affirmation in public, those types of pretty general stuff. And then you get into specifics for a given team based on their situation.

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely. And so then, let’s say we’re in the thick of things and someone did something that maybe we didn’t have the good fortune to have listened to you earlier and then, thusly, those operating agreements were not formally established. Someone did something. I am miffed. What do you recommend are some of the best ways to go about cleaning that up and addressing the matter? Any go-to scripts, words, phrases, principles?

John Riordan
So, there’s a feedback model that is a nice…I like that word script. I like the model of a recipe. So, I use this metaphor a lot. You have a recipe, how to make something, once you’ve done it a number of times, you can play with it. You don’t have to follow the recipe exactly and you can add something or try something different and see how it goes. But the basic recipe, at least, is a guide.

And so, this model is from the Center for Creative Leadership, SBID – situation, behavior, impact, desired outcome, SBID. And so, what’s the situation? So, I don’t call you and leave a voicemail, and say, “Pete, we need to talk. I’m just not happy with how you attacked me at the meeting the other day.” “Whoa, what on earth?” That’s like you’re already going to be on the defensive. You don’t even know where I’m coming from.

So, give a little context to this. What’s the situation? “So, Pete, we’re in that meeting, we’re on that call, we’re having that discussion. Do you remember that? And I was presenting, do you remember? Do you remember how you asked that question to me? I don’t know if you knew. So, that situation.” “Okay, yeah, I’m with you. We’ve got it. I understand the context.”

Now, the behavior, the B, that’s critical because it’s not an accusation. It’s simply a statement of behavior.

Pete Mockaitis
“You’re a jerk.” Not that.

John Riordan
Exactly, “Pete, you keep criticizing me in public. You keep dismantling my argument.” “What? I’m not trying to…I don’t even know what you’re…I’m not dismantling you.” “Well, you asked that question.” “Ah, yeah. That’s all I did was ask a question.” “Well, you’re trying to undermine me.” “Whoa, I’m not trying to undermine you. I just had a question about your data. Like, really, I’m not…”

Okay, impact. The impact was, “It felt to me that you were trying to undermine my credibility. It felt like you were questioning my presentation, questioning my data.” “I was asking a question about your data I wasn’t trying to embarrass you in public.” So, that impact helps you understand how your behavior impacted me, but it also is important for me to own that, assuming good intent, unless I have enough record to believe that you actually are out to get me.

And the other possibility is that you didn’t do it intentionally but this is how it impacted me, and can we have a conversation about that. And that is a huge, huge – what would you call that – a sea change, a really big distinction. And here’s the question you can write down, “Did you do this on purpose?” Did the person, whoever they are, did they do this to you intentionally? Did they do it to you on purpose?

Pete Mockaitis
Now, is that a question you ask yourself internally or a question you ask of the other party?

John Riordan
Well, kind of both ends. That’s a good point. It starts with me asking it of myself. So, my example is somebody cuts me off in traffic, “Aargh, can you believe that? What an idiot.” And then my wife says, “Well, maybe their wife is having a baby. Maybe their house is on fire. Maybe they have all kinds of reasons.” Well, the person didn’t roll down the window and say, “Hey, are you John Riordan?” “Yes.” “Oh, okay, I’m going to cut you off because I can’t stand you and I want to ruin your day.” That’s not what they’re thinking. They are just being self-centered, they’re just going about their day, they’re not paying attention to me, and they cut me off. It doesn’t mean it’s okay but it wasn’t about me. Does that make sense?

Pete Mockaitis
Right, yeah.

John Riordan
You’re asking a question in the middle of a presentation, your mindset might be, “I don’t really like those numbers. I wonder where he got those.” There’s all kinds of reasons why you might be asking that question other than, “Watch this. I’m going to ask this question and dismantle John’s argument. It’s going to be great. He’s going to fall apart,” because that would be intentional and then we’re adversaries.

But there’s a lot of other possibilities as to why people do what they do. And so, having that discussion, disarming – I love that metaphor – disarming the conflict so that it becomes instead of a capital C, we’re having a full-blown argument, it’s a small C, “Can we talk about this?” “Well, I didn’t like your numbers.” “Well, I appreciate that and, of course, you have the right to ask about my numbers. I would ask you to respect the fact that this is a presentation in front of senior managers, and could you have followed up with me later, or I ask you to review the material ahead of time. I don’t know if you did, but I would’ve appreciated you asking me that question before the meeting, etc.” So, there’s all kinds of ways we might address it to resolve the distinction without it getting to a capital C, conflict.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, as I step into this scenario that you’ve created, John, I just sort of wonder, like, what do you do when the other party…? I won’t say that they’re like malicious evil jerks trying to get you, but they just think your concern is dumb, they’re like, “Look, John, this is a data-driven organization. We try to make the best decisions. If I’ve got a question about your data, I’m going to ask the question about your data, I don’t care where we are, who you’re talking to. It’s just how we get to the truth and optimal business results. So, pull up your big boy pants and get a thick skin and stop whining to me about this inane bull crap so we can go make insane value for shareholders.”

Let’s say you get a pretty rude but not like maliciously, “That’s right, buddy. I’m out to take you down, so watch your back.” So, a pretty brute and dismissive response. How do you think about those?

John Riordan
Yeah. So, let me emphasize the distinction that you just made because, again, one is, “I have reason to believe that this person is an active adversary. They are literally out to take me down.” And those do exist. I’m not talking about being naïve and pretending that everybody is your best friend. There are a few, and hopefully a few, adversaries that you should watch out for. If you have a lot of adversaries, then you got to decide whether you can sustain that lifestyle and that career, and some people can, but for many of us, that might be a signal for a job change. If I’m surrounded by people who want to take me out, you either sign up for that or you don’t. So, that’s the first distinction.

The second, the way you’re describing it, is, “Look, it’s not about you, John. I really don’t care. I’m going to keep asking those questions. You just have to get over it.” So, they’re not out to take me down but they’re not also going to handle me with kid gloves. Then it becomes a question of power – power and influence in the organization. Because if that voice is coming from a full-bird colonel, and I’m the low person on the totem pole, then, guess what, I have to either live with that and go about my business, or I have to decide I’m in the wrong organization.

If that person is a peer, and we’re on equal footing, so to speak, then that’s a whole different scenario, “What influence do I have? Do I continue the discussion? Do I counter with, ‘Hey, I’d just be down. I think that’s a great way for us to work, because if I did that to you, you wouldn’t be happy. Can we not find a better way of working together?’” That’s the D in the SBID, the desired outcome is, “Can we learn to work together well?”

Now, option three, if that voice was coming from a subordinate, somebody who reports to me, I’d say, “Okay, have a seat. We need to talk. You need to decide whether you want to stay here or not because this is not how we’re going to operate in my sphere of influence.” So, it depends on who that individual is and what power and authority relationship we have.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s handy. Thank you. Well, tell me, John, any other key things you want to make sure to mention about conflict resolution and in virtual settings, maybe any sort of tools or favorite apps, software, or things that you find handy?

John Riordan
That’s interesting. For me, the resources, they’re now showing up online. Apps-wise, it doesn’t come to mind but in terms of models. So, one is by an author named Peter Block. And Peter Block’s partnership model lays out this distinction between trust and agreement. And so, you ask yourself, “Okay,” and I go through this exercise, a great exercise for everybody. You’re mapping out, especially in the work context, but of course it bleeds over to the rest of our lives as well. How much trust is there in the relationship? And how much agreement, in terms of the content of the discussion?

So, we disagree about the numbers and the data, but I don’t distrust you. I trust that you’re just asking a question about the numbers. That’s okay. Versus, if there’s no trust, then we have a serious problem. Trust is obviously far more critical than agreement. If I trust you, we can disagree about anything but I still trust you. We trust each other. And that distinction is huge.

So, Peter Block has a great article. I’ve got summary worksheets on this on my website but it’s the kind of thing that really helps you lay out, “Okay, who are my allies that I trust, we agree, we’re working in the same direction. I can really rely on these folks. There’s other categories and there are some unknowns, and then there’s this adversaries. We disagree on the direction and, guess what, we don’t trust each other so watch out.” Okay, let’s not be naïve. Let’s map this out. So, that’s a really helpful, sort of getting the lay of the land.

Let’s see, Patrick Lencioni’s material around conflict is fantastic. That’s all available on his site. Good stuff.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Well, thank you. Now, could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

John Riordan
First and foremost, in practical terms, from two authors, Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones. And there’s a lot of different ways to say this but the bumper sticker for their material is, “Be yourself with more skill.” Be yourself with more skill. And I tell you, if I gave them a nickel for every time I’ve shared that thought, I owe them.

And what I love about that is five words. It’s amazing, five words. But, boy, you talk about a life journey, and this applies so powerfully to the work, in your career, and what I’d like to say your calling, but it also applies equally to your personal relationships, family, friends, community, you name it. Be yourself, be who you are made to be, figure out who you are, bring yourself to the table, your values, your strengths, your personality, but do it with more skill.

I spent years trying to be something else, be more of this, be less of that, as opposed to, “Okay, who am I? And then how do I show up skillfully? How do I bring my strengths to bear in a skillful way?” If that makes sense, it’s such an interesting but very powerful nuance.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. And how about a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

John Riordan
I really appreciate the stuff that they did around this piece around authentic leadership, so Goffee and Jones. And, essentially, one of those harbingers, there’s been plenty of research around this, but the culture of leadership, and the shift from command and control. So, my dad was a marine, World War II, Korean War marine, and let me tell you, you did what the boss told you to do – command and control. “Why should I do what you tell me?” “Because I’m your boss. Because I’m above you. I outrank you. You name it. You do what you’re told.”

Well, clearly, we take it for granted, but leadership culture has evolved tremendously. Their article was called “Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?” It kind of flips it on its head.

And so, leadership now is about respect and response, and people choosing to follow you, choosing to allow you to influence them. And that’s what leadership is about now and it’s really evolved tremendously. And so, that piece of research, that kind of encapsulated that and demonstrated that, amongst men, but, to me, it’s a real – what would you call that – a milestone, a marker, that we have really shifted as a culture.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And how about a favorite book?

John Riordan
Currently, the one that is making the biggest difference in my life is called The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin.

She calls them tendencies, these ideas of, “How I operate? What makes me tick? What moves me from ideas into action? And how different that can be for different people?” And that has been super insightful for me and in sharing that with clients and helping people understand and, of course, it overlaps with personalities and all those other things, but, essentially, focusing in on moving from thought into action.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool. And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

John Riordan
Yeah, I would repeat that one, The Four Tendencies. So, for me on that, the huge lightbulb for me is that I am motivated by external factors, and I spent years trying to be more self-disciplined, trying to develop kind of just put my nose to the grindstone and get it done. Not bad to have self-discipline. That’s great. But she distinguishes that some people are internally motivated, and they will, when they decide to do something, they’ll go do it.

Other people are externally motivated. So, I can have a great idea, and something I’d even like to do, but if nobody else is involved, if I’m not accountable to anybody, if I don’t have to answer to anyone, if no one else is there, then the likelihood I’ll be doing it is much lower. As soon as somebody else is involved, I’ll do it.

So, I’ve harnessed that, I got myself an executive assistant who is my professional bulldog, and I say, “Jorie, make sure this happens.” I’m on this podcast because of her. I love doing these things but I’m not going to do it. She says, “You’re going to do it. Make sure it happens,” and then I do it.

And so, harnessing that tendency, for me, of external motivation, I mean, I can’t even tell you everything I’ve been able to accomplish simply because it’s gone from ideas, the long list of good ideas in my head, and actually turning them into action.

Pete Mockaitis
And how about a favorite habit?

John Riordan
I would say two. Exercising has been huge.
I can’t say enough about it just in terms of de-stress, in terms of getting all that energy out in the negative sense, and then coming back and being ready to go. But, also, what I love about going to the gym, one of the big upsides, is little incremental small victories. So, I keep track of my workouts. I’m only there for half an hour, 40 minutes tops, but I try to just keep incrementally improving.

And it’s very cool to start the day by adding a few more reps, or adding a few more pounds, or adding a few more whatever to that weight or to that exercise, and to feel like, “Okay. All right. This is something I can win at.” And so, now I can go back into the day and bring that same sense of energy and motivation into the rest of what I got to do. So, that’s number one.

And then number two, what I listen to. I can’t say enough. The same thing, through the 18 months, like God bless you if you grew up with lots of positive encouragement and I had a very affirming upbringing. But my dad worked for IBM, very neutral, not an entrepreneur, just went to work and came home, so I never had somebody, a voice in my ears saying, “Hey, you got this. You can do it. Get in there. You’re great at this. You can…” whatever, all that sort of coaching and positive affirmations. And so, it’s been huge to tap into just little YouTube clips, different motivational stuff that suits my style, and to really have that voice in my ear, literally, cheering me on, coaching me on. It’s been fantastic. Very, very much a game changer, especially over this stressful time.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a particular nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; they quote it back to you often?

John Riordan
Oh, that first one, “Be yourself with more skill.” That’s number one, absolutely.

Pete Mockaitis
And, John, if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

John Riordan
JR@JohnRiordan.com is the email address and JohnRiordan.com is the website.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

John Riordan
That journey of self-discovery is absolutely, I can’t say enough about what a starting point that is. And it’s a journey, it’s not like you take two weeks off and learn about yourself, and then that’s it. But to delve into that, “What are your core values?” and contemplate on that. Really define it, writing it down. Everybody, almost any American is going to say, “Oh, I have core values.” “Okay, what are they?” “Ahh, I don’t really know.”

So, what are your core values? Write them down. Think about them. Define them. There’s different ways to go about that. What are your strengths that you bring to the world, to your work, to your family, to your…What are those? Do you know what they are or you just kind of know? And what’s your personality traits? What makes you tick? What motivates you? And sort of capturing that, collecting that awareness.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, John, this has been a treat. Thank you for sharing the goods. And keep on rocking.

John Riordan
Thank you. My pleasure. My pleasure. I really appreciate the opportunity. I hope this is encouraging and challenging and useful for folks.

Pete Mockaitis
Sam, thanks for joining us here on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Sam Horn
You’re welcome, Pete. I’m looking forward to sharing some ideas with your listeners.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I’m excited to hear your wisdom. You’ve written a couple books which are helping resolve an issue that our listeners have been asking with regard to difficult bosses and coworkers, how to deal with them well. And you’ve got a wealth of expertise. Maybe you can start us off by telling any particularly noteworthy stories about a bad boss or bad collaborators that might make our jaws drop and captivate us? No pressure, Sam.

Sam Horn
Aha. Well, you know what, the origin story for Tongue Fu, actually does that, is that Dr. Ray Oshiro out of University of Hawaii had asked me to do a program on dealing with difficult people without becoming one ourselves. And in our first break, there was a gentleman, he didn’t even get up to get a cup of coffee, some fresh air. He just sat there gazing off into space.

And I was curious, I went over, I said, “What are you thinking?” And he said, “Sam, I’m a realtor.” He said, “I would deal with some really demanding people, and they seem to think they can treat me any way they want to. I’m tired of it.” He said, “I thought you were going to teach us some zingers to fire back at people and put them in their place.” I said, “That’s not what this is about.”

And he was the one who said, “I’m a student of martial arts.” He said, “I’ve studied karate, taekwondo, judo.” He said, “What you’re talking about is not about putting people in their place, right? It’s about putting ourselves in their place so we can respond with compassion instead of contempt.” And he said, “It’s kind of like a verbal form of kung fu, isn’t it?” Eureka! The perfect title, that’s what it is – Tongue Fu; martial arts for the mind and mouth.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, that’s a great summary right there. Like, it’s not about zingers, it’s not about sticking it to them, but you put yourself in their place and are able to respond with compassion. Can you give us an example of how that could play out conversationally?

Sam Horn
Oh, boy, can I give you an example. Now, Pete, unless people are driving and listening to this, I hope they grab a paper, and I hope they put a vertical line right down the center, and put words to lose on the left and words to use on the right because we’re going to go right into what we face every day on the job.

So, on the left, put complain, because we hear complaints. Customers complain, coworkers complain, so put complain over on the left. Guess what we don’t do when people complain? Explain. Put explain on the left because explanations come across as excuses. If someone says, “Hey, the Zoom call was supposed to start at 9:00 o’clock,” “Oh, I know, it’s just some people are late.” Nope, explanations make people angry because they feel we’re not being accountable.

Over on the right, put A train. When people complain, don’t explain, take the A train. A for agree, “You’re right, the Zoom call was supposed to start at 9:00 o’clock.” Apologize, “And I’m sorry we’re running a few minutes late.” Act, “And I’ve got that information you requested. Let’s jump right into it. Rock and roll.” Do you see how the A train expedites complaints and explanations aggravate them?

Pete Mockaitis
I do. And, Sam, it is just a joy to hear the way you explain things, that your keynote background is just shining through, words to lose, words to use, the A train, and it’s memorable so I appreciate it. Keep it coming. So, agree, apologize, and act, and not to get too into the weeds here, but when something is late, you suggest the act there is just “And we’re going to just get started now.” Any alternatives coming to mind?

Sam Horn
Absolutely. Here’s another one. Say, people are arguing, right? Say, something has gone wrong, and people are finger pointing, blaming, shaming. Over on the left, put find fault, “Well, hey, it wasn’t my fault. So-and-so was in charge of it. Well, I never saw that memo.” Back and forth we go. Finding fault serves no good purpose. Over on the right, put find solutions.

And when people are arguing and it is this blaming, shaming, interrupt them and then say these magic words, “Hey, we could argue for the rest of the day, and that’s not, again, get this done. Instead, let’s figure how we’re going to prevent this from happening again. Or, instead, let’s put a system in place.” And you see how when we switch the attention to finding solutions instead of fault, now that conversation is serving a good purpose instead of a waste of everyone’s time.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. That’s good. Do we have some more?

Sam Horn
Do you want more?

Pete Mockaitis
I do. I do.

Sam Horn
Oh, do I have more.

Pete Mockaitis
Lose some words, words to use. Let’s hear them.

Sam Horn
All right. Now, over on the left, put negative accusation. Say, somebody says, “You women are so emotional.” If we deny a negative accusation, if we say, “We’re not emotional,” uh-oh, we just proved their point. If someone says, “You don’t care about your customers,” and we say, “We do, too, care about our customers.” Now, we’re proving their point, right? So, on the left, instead of denying an accusation, over on the right, redirect an accusation. I’ll give you two quick examples.

I was speaking at a conference, and a woman put her hand up in the Q&A, and she said, “Sam, why are women so catty to each other?” I decided to Don Draper that, Pete. Don Draper, in Mad Men, said, “If you don’t like what’s being said, change the conversation.” So, I said, “Ladies, let’s agree to never ask or answer that question again because every time we do, we perpetuate that stereotype. Instead, don’t repeat a negative accusation because it reinforces it. Instead, redirect it, say, ‘You know what I found, women are real champions of each other. In fact, I wouldn’t have this job if someone hadn’t stepped up and recommended me.’”

Or, here’s another thing you can do on the right, instead of repeating it, which reinforces it, say, “What do you mean?” or, “Why do you say that?” Because if someone says, “You don’t care about your customers,” and we say, “We do, too,” we’re in a debate. If you say, “Well, why do you say that?” they may say, “Well, I left three messages and no one’s called back.” “Oh.” “What do you mean?” or “Why do you say that?” gets to the root of the accusation, and we can solve that instead of reacting to the attack.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s great. Okay. Well, so, hey, if you’ve got some more, I’ll take them.

Sam Horn
I do. Okay, let’s talk about when something goes wrong, shall we?

Pete Mockaitis
All right.

Sam Horn
Okay. Someone has made a mistake, someone has dropped the ball, right? Isn’t it true that that word should is right there on the tip of our tongue, “You should’ve been more careful,” “You should’ve brought that up in the staff meeting,” “You should’ve asked George; he’s handled that before,” and yet the word should comes across as a critique. People will resent us even if what we’re saying is right. So, over on the left, put mistake. The word should punishes the past. No one can undo the past. They will resent us even if what we’re saying is right.

Over on the right, we’re going to shape behavior instead of should it. And with these words, “Next time…” “From now on…” “In the future…” Because if we say “From now on, if you have questions, please bring them up in the staff meeting because other people are probably wondering the same thing.” “In the future, if that happens, if you could…” Do you see how we’re being a coach instead of a critic? We’re shaping behavior instead of shaming it, and people are learning from their mistakes instead of losing face over their mistakes.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, absolutely. Okay.

Sam Horn
Want more? Want more?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s good. Well, so I guess I’m thinking about, so these are great best practices in terms of when you’re just engaging, you’re collaborating, you’re talking to folks, and you’ve got your communication flowing, so great choices in terms of words to lose and words to use. I’m thinking now, let’s say the listener finds themselves in the victim seat, or they are the ones being blamed, they are the ones people are finding fault with, they’re getting some criticism that might even seem undue bully-esque, just some meanies. How do you recommend we deal with the emotional stuff there and just sort of find our way forward effectively?

Sam Horn
Well, a lot of people find themselves in this situation these days, Pete, with COVID, there’s a lot of things happening. We have to enforce policies we don’t agree with, or we need to tell someone there’s nothing we can do, or we’re thinking, “Hey, it’s not my fault.” Guess what? Over on the left, put the words “There’s nothing…” or “It’s not my fault.” Because if something goes wrong, and people are blaming us and we’re saying, “Hey, not my fault. Nothing I can do. No way I can change it,” do you feel that people are concluding we don’t care?

So, over on the right, put “There’s something…” instead of “There’s nothing…” and I’m really going to give you one of my favorite examples of this. My Aunt Kaye is 80 years old and she still volunteers five days a week to go to our local hospital and to work from the 4:00 to 8:00 shift. So, I’ve said, “What has it been like these last few months with COVID?” And she said, “Sam, it’s so stressful because we have a policy with only one visitor per patient, and you can imagine these people, I’m the point of contact, they’re taking all their anger out on me.” And I said, “Well, what’s a specific example?” And she said, “Last week, a woman came rushing in. She held up her phone and she said, ‘My daughter just texted. She’s in ER. I need to see her.’”

And so, Aunt Kaye called the ER and the nurse said somebody’s already with the daughter. The mom could not get in to see her. So, the mother, understandably, goes ballistic and is taking all that anger out at Aunt Kaye. Now, she could’ve said, “Hey, I’m not the one who did the policy. Don’t blame me.” Instead, she said, “Let me see if there’s something…” instead of “There’s nothing…” “…that we can do.” She called and she asked the ER nurse, “Who is with the daughter?” It was the Uber driver who had brought her in from the accident. Well, they explained the situation to the Uber driver, thanked him, he left, the mom got in to see the daughter, and that is a shift in mentality.

You use that word victim, and if we’re being blamed for something that’s not our fault, the more we think, “Hey, this isn’t fair. Don’t blame me,” the angrier we get at them and we perpetuate that. Instead, if we say, “This won’t help. Let’s focus on what we can do. There’s something we can figure out,” it shifts the whole situation.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. And that’s a great point in terms of like even if it is you are absolutely the victim, no joke, an injustice has occurred, you are suffering unjustly due to the hostile aggression of another, like a full-blown victim-work situation in which someone has said something wildly inappropriate at you, it’s true that if you continue to reflect on the fact that you have suffered an injustice, it’s going to make you angrier.

And by shifting your attention elsewhere, you can make some things happen. And, I guess, of course, there’s traumas and there’s crimes and there’s gradations here that kind of require some different responses but, yeah, that’s a good thought in terms of I felt that as well. If I fixate on the fact that I am experiencing injustice, I just get really mad and it usually doesn’t propel me into a helpful place, in my own experience.

Sam Horn
You know, Pete, what you’re referring to is “Why should we? Why should we take responsibility to try and be the one to solve this, or to try and make this better?” And let’s use another real-life example. I was interviewing a principal recently who…and you can imagine, a principal these days, faculties are upset, students are upset, parents are upset, the school board is on them, right? It’s a really hard job these days.

And I asked her a situation where she was able, when someone was piling on her unfairly, how she had the presence of mind, in pressure like that, to be resourceful instead of resentful? And so, she has a situation where there is a young man with a spinal injury, and his grandmother is taking care of him, and yet they had a classroom on the third floor for third grade, and this young man, and she had to tell the grandmother that he could not come to school because the elevator wasn’t working and there wasn’t an escape plan for him.

She spent three months dealing with the fire department, trying to figure out how to hack this. The grandmother is calling her almost on a daily basis, saying, “I’m exhausted. I can’t take care of this young man 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.” Now, her heart is going out to this grandmother. Her heart is going out to this young man. She’s trying everything she can to resolve this and, finally, she had this epiphany. Do you know what she did, Pete?

Pete Mockaitis
Tell me.

Sam Horn
She moved the third-grade classroom on the third floor down to the bottom floor, and fixed the whole situation. Now, by the way, I’m not being a Pollyanna because I’m not saying, “Everything was perfect. Everything went well.” The teacher of that third-grade class said, “Now, I’m not going to be with my peers,” and that is true. It was not a perfect solution. And she asked the teacher, “Who do we serve? We serve the students, right?”

And it served the students to be able to have their third-grade classroom on the first floor so that this young man could attend, so that they also served the parent, and it was something that was, in the circumstances, the best decision. And, once again, it came from this mentality of “If I put my mind to it, if I keep being proactive instead of reactive, I will come up with a rising-tide solution, and it doesn’t just serve me. It’s going to serve the people I’m serving. And it may not be perfect, it’s better than what we’ve got.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, absolutely. And those sorts of creative ideas, I’ve discovered and I think there’s some good neuroscience behind this as well, don’t tend to come when you’re angry and riled up and ready to fight. They more so tend to come when I feel kind of relaxed, I’ve got some space to chew on things, to let my brain kind of dance and play around and land somewhere because it’s natural to say, “Well, hey, the third-grade classroom, this is just where it is. That’s how it’s always been. That’s how the school is set up,” and then it does take a little bit of a shift to say, “Oh, but I suppose we could swap it because why not?” I think that’s a great example right there.

Sam Horn
So, let’s go to something you’re talking about, this anger we have. And, by the way, Pete, this is why I juxtapose things, that’s why we put a column on the left of something has gone wrong, and Elvis Presly, of all people, has a great quote about this. Do you know what he said?

Pete Mockaitis
“I’m all shook up.”

Sam Horn
He said that, too. He said, “When things go wrong, don’t go with them.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Sam Horn
Just see, on the left, when things go wrong, we can find fault, we can tell them it’s not our fault, and it will not help. So, we shift over to the right, to these responses instead of reactions. Here’s one of my favorite examples. You were talking about angry. I often close my Tongue Fu programs with this quote from Eleanor Roosevelt. She said, “No one can make us feel inferior without our consent.” And I’ve adapted that, with credit to her, to say no one can make us angry without our consent.

And there was a gruff construction boss, and he stood up, and he said, “Sam, you’re pulling a Pollyanna with this one.” He said, “You have no idea of the kind of people I deal with.” He said, “Do you mean if someone’s yelling in my face, that’s not supposed to make me mad?” And there was a woman who stood up and she said, “I’m a surgical nurse.” She said, “I agree with this because I’ve lived through it.” She said, “I deal with a neurosurgeon who’s the most abrasive individual I have ever met.” She said, “He is a brilliant physician, he has zip people skills.” She said, “Last year, I was a fraction of a second late handing him an instrument in surgery, he berated me in front of my peers. He humiliated me in front of that team.” She said, “It took all my professionalism just to continue with the operation and not walk out.”

She said, “When I was driving home, I got so mad at him. I sat down at the dinner table, I told my husband what happened, I said, ‘Oh, that doctor makes me mad.’” She said, “My husband had heard this before. He said, ‘Judy, what time is it?’” She said, “It’s 7:00 o’clock.” He said, “What time did this happen?” And she said, “9:00 o’clock this morning.” He said, “Judy, is it the doctor who’s making you mad?” And he got up and left the table. And she said, “I sat there and I thought about it, and I realized it wasn’t the doctor who was making me mad. The doctor wasn’t even in the room.”

She said, “I was the one who had given him a ride home in my car.” She said, “I was the one who set him a place at my dinner table.” She said, “I decided right there and then that never again was that doctor welcome in my home or in my head. And when I left the hospital, I was leaving him there, and never again was I giving him the power to poison my personal life.”

And so, I’m asking all our listeners, Pete, who do we take home with us? Who do we give a ride to in our car? Who do set a place for at our dinner table? And can we promise ourselves that we will leave that person at work? We will no longer give them the power to poison that precious personal time with our loved ones at home.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Sam, that is inspiring and wise, and you’re really like, “Well, heck, yeah, I should not allow that person to co-op my brain for that length of time. That’s just silliness.” So, I think that that really installs some conviction in our hearts, like, “Yeah, I’m not going to let that happen anymore.” That being said, when the rubber meets the road and you’re in the heat of battle, it can be sometimes easier said than done when ruminations start to crop up. How do you recommend we put the kibosh on them?

Sam Horn
Oh, Pete, I love that question. That’s the perfect follow-up question, as I agree with you in theory, “How do I do it in practice?” I wrote a book called ConZentrate. Stephen Covey said it was the best book he ever saw on focus. And what you just brought up, we cannot not think about something, right? If we tell our kids, “Don’t run around the pool,” what are they going to do? If I say I’m not going to get mad, what are we going to do? If we’re an athlete, and we say don’t double-fault or don’t drop the ball, what are we going to do?

You are right. Instead of saying, “I’m not going to let that person make me mad. I’m not going to take that person home with me.” Over on the left is what we don’t want. Over on the right is what we do want, so it’s called catch and correct. As soon as we become aware, whether we are telling ourselves what we don’t want, “You better not be late again,” “Don’t forget,” “Stop hitting your sister,” “Don’t get angry,” that’s over on the left.

No, switch over to the right. What do you want? Well, you want to stay calm. You want to focus on what’s right in your world. You want to look at this person across the table as if, for the first or last time, so that you see them and you are present to them instead of preoccupied with what happened ten years before.

We want to tell our kids, “Give your sister space, a hula hoop of space,” which is something to do instead of stop hitting your sister. We want to say, “Be five minutes early,” instead of, “Don’t be late.” It’s, “Remember to tell your boss this when you walk in in the morning,” instead of, “Don’t forget.” So, you are right, is that we fill our mind with words and language and images of what we do want instead of telling ourselves what we don’t.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s handy. And so then, I imagine in the nasty surgeon example, you have an intentionality associated with, “This is how I’m going to be, do, feel, conduct myself.”

And by visualizing that and prepping it in advance, you’re more likely to remember, “Oh, that jerk, I want to kill him. Oh, wait a sec, okay, okay. I’m going to be like calm or joyful or curious,” fill in the blank, and that’s how we’re going to roll as opposed to fixating on, “Oh, don’t imagine stabbing him with a scalpel. Don’t imagine cutting his finger off,” whatever. Getting really violent here in the surgery room.

Sam Horn
And, Pete, see, I’m a pragmatist as well. So, if people are thinking, “Oh, this is just woo-woo Pollyanna stuff. What if this person is really egregious? What if what they’re doing, I’m just supposed to ignore it?” So, here is the bottom-line action we can take as well. There’s the mindset and there’s also then the mechanics of a pragmatic action.

When we’re not happy with a situation, there’s three things we can do. We change the other person, we can change the situation, we can change ourselves. So, we jump to number three – changing ourselves. Let’s look at the first two.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, how do you do that?

Sam Horn
Okay. Here is the good news. There is strength in numbers. And so, changing the other person, in many industries these days, it used to be that if this neurosurgeon was a rainmaker, even if the nurses were complaining, administrators didn’t care because this neurosurgeon was famous and a rainmaker. Now, there’s strength in numbers. And if you document the behavior, if you have witnesses to the behavior, if you report objectively with the Ws: what was said, when was this said, what was the impact of what was said; and is reported to HR, they are required to act on documented reports of egregious behavior that is not subjective, “I didn’t like what this person said.”

Pete Mockaitis
“He was rude. I was bullied.” That’s a little bit subject to interpretation as oppose to, “He said, ‘You are a moron and I hate you.’” Okay, that’s a direct quote.

Sam Horn
Remember action is it. And that’s why what you just said, Pete, about it needs to be the dialogue. Not like, “He was really offensive.” HR can’t do anything with that or a business owner can’t do anything with that. When you quote what someone has said, when you put the time that it happened, not yesterday, “No, it happened at 9:17 right in the middle of this,” the more objective evidence of this unacceptable behavior, the more actionable it is.

So, we can maybe change the other person, we can change a situation. Now, you maybe think, “Well, I don’t want to switch to another department,” or, “I’ve got three more years in this government job. I’m not going to retire or something like that.” So, sometimes though we can change the situation and the good news is, even if we can’t change the person or can’t change a situation, even if you decide, “That person is a jerk. I’ve done everything I can. No one’s taking responsibility and I don’t want to quit. I don’t want to leave. I need this,” then that third act is always an option and we change ourselves.

We could almost put like a plastic bubble around this. And whatever that person says just bounces harmlessly off us. It just bounces off it. It never gets under our skin. It never invades us so that we’re still thinking about it a day or a week or a month later.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Thank you. And we talked about changing the other person, and one pathway is the, okay, documentation, building a case, HR, a business owner, senior executive, kind of direct challenge in that way. Do you have any suggestions in terms of how one might do this delicate, diplomatic dance associated with, “Hey, boss, you know, when you did this, I didn’t like that”? Any thoughts for how to have that conversation like when and how and if?

Sam Horn
Okay. See, now, we’re going to move into bully territory here because I believe 95% of people care what’s fair. I believe 95% of people have a conscience. They actually want to cooperate. They want a win-win. Guess what? Five percenters, they don’t want a win-win; they want to win. They don’t want to cooperate; they want to control. They don’t follow the rules; they break the rules because they know that it’s going to get them what they want.

So, if we are dealing with someone at work and this person is a five percenter, and that means they have a pattern of violating people’s rights, of not playing by the rules, it’s not a one-time they’re now having a bad day. It’s like they do it all the time on purpose. I’m going to say something that flies in the face of everything you’ve heard. Ready?

Pete Mockaitis
I’m ready.

Sam Horn
Do not use the word “I” because haven’t we been taught, Pete, that we’re supposed to say, “I don’t think that’s fair,” “I don’t like to be spoken to in that tone of voice”? Guess what? Bullies don’t care what’s fair. They don’t have a conscience. They’re actually going to think, “Good. I’m glad it’s bothering you. It was supposed to bother you.”

I am going to suggest we use the word “you,” “You back off,” “You! Enough!” “You, speak to me with respect.” So, here are just a variety of ways to do that. Say, there’s somebody that’s handsy on the job, and this person is in your space. And now, Pete, this isn’t an abstract concept. We have a hula hoop of space. Right now, people, put your hand out, stretch out in front of you, stretch out the side of you, stretch out behind you. That’s three feet.

We have our physical space, and animals know, “You don’t get in my space,” right? It’s like you get in my face or in my space, we have the right to back someone off, which is why if someone has a habit of getting in your face or in your space, number one, stand up. Because, often, they do that when we’re sitting down because they’re in the dominant position, we’re in the submissive position, right?

When we stand up, what we are letting them know is not only are we leveling the playing ground, we are saying, “I won’t take this sitting down. I will stand up for myself.” We haven’t said a word. We’ve changed the power dynamic of, “I am dominating you. I am towering over you. You are sitting and cowering and submissive.”

So, you stand up, number one. Like, someone puts their hand on you or something like that. You look at their hand, you look at them. You look at your hand, you look at them. Often you don’t have to say a word. Do you see how though you are calling them on their behavior? You are keeping the attention where it deserves, which is what they’re doing that is out of line. They have crossed the line and you are drawing the line.

And another part of that, once again, is the word “you.” It’s just to say, “You. Keep that to yourself,” “You. That’s enough. That’s the last time you say that to me.” And when we say it standing tall with our shoulders up and back, instead of our shoulders crunched up like this, which is the weak submissive position, then essentially what we’re saying is that we are letting that person know, “That doesn’t work here anymore.”

Pete Mockaitis
All right, intriguing. So, if we diagnose that we’ve got a 5% straight up bully without a conscience, and I guess we’d assessed that, as you mentioned, by seeing a track record of violating people’s rights and just not giving a hoot about it repeatedly, then we completely flip the script and change the rulebook that we’re following instead of that sharing how it made you feel and your concerns and why that’s important because they don’t care about any of that, but rather, just straight up, establishing, “This is the boundary.”

Sam Horn
And if you would like, Pete, I’ve got a quiz, it’s a bully quiz, and there are ten behaviors. And many people, they don’t even use the word bully, and they don’t understand that an 8-year old can be a bully, an 80-year old can be a bully. And the lights that go on when you say, “Yes, this person, I talk on eggshells around this person because they’re so volatile, I never know what he’s going to say,” “Yes, they’re Jekyll and Hyde. They’re charming one moment, they’re cruel the next,” “Yes, they have to control every decision and anyone who dares to say something else, they’re going to railroad that person.”

So, if you would like, I’ll send that to you, you can make it available to your listeners, and if you take that quiz, and this person you’re dealing with does many of these behaviors most of the time, then it requires a whole different set of skills because, once again, appealing to their sense of fair play, appealing to their good nature or their conscience, they will never think, “Oh, that wasn’t fair. That wasn’t right. I am so sorry.” They will never self-reflect or self-correct. It will always be someone else’s fault, and that’s how we need to set up and keep the attention on what they’re doing instead of our reaction to it.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Thank you. Well, Sam, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Sam Horn
How about ask another question? I love your get-real, “If I’m in this situation, say something that I actually can do. It’s just not sounding good.” So, one more question from you and I’ll give you a response.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure thing. Is there ever a time in which we should consider just exiting that situation entirely? Like, the bubble isn’t going to cut it. How do we know that that’s just where we are in terms of the hopeless situation?

Sam Horn
I’m just so glad you brought that up. Tennessee Williams said, “Sometimes it is time to leave even when there is no particular place to go.” And in the bully book, toward the end, after all of these pragmatic things that you can do to improve the situation, to stand up and speak up for yourself, etc., if none of that works, then it’s time for us to remove ourselves from the situation and to make sure to not see it as a failure.

One of the reasons I wrote the bully book is because, here I was, the queen of Tongue Fu, which, of course, is based on what Gandhi said about, “Be the change you wish to see,” it doesn’t work with bullies, Pete, because, once again, they’re not trying to act in good conscience. They’re trying to control. So, a good friend said, “You know, Sam, William Blake said that we are all born innocent, and at some point, we will encounter evil. And at that point, we either become embittered and we see the world as a dark place, and it defines and it defeats us, or we become…” Are you ready for two really fantastic words, Pete? “…informed innocence.”

And informed innocence are no longer naïve or idealistic. We understand that evil exists. We understand that there are people out there who will wreak havoc and they will not be responsible for the consequences. And that removing ourselves from the sphere of that individual is not defeat; it is us stepping up on behalf of what we believe, and that is that people treat each other with respect, people act with integrity. And if we have tried everything and this person is not going to change, and the situation isn’t going to change, then I’m going to remove myself from it, and align myself with people who do act in integrity and do behave responsibly because that’s how I believe life is supposed to be.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Thank you. Well, now, could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Sam Horn
One is from Arthur Rubinstein, he said, “I have found, if you love life, life will love you back.” Ain’t that wonderful though? And the other is from Katharine Graham of The Washington Post, and she said, “To do what you love and feel that it matters, how could anything be more fun?”

Pete Mockaitis
And how about a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Sam Horn
I love podcasts. I believe angels whisper to a woman when she walks, and so I walk and I listen to podcasts, and that’s my favorite research. And a quick example of that is…do you ever listen to Jonathan Fields, Good Life Project, by any chance?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I have, yeah.

Sam Horn
Sure. He had Adam Grant on yesterday, a Wharton organization development guy, just came out with a brand-new book called Think Again. And he said something counterintuitive and contrarian which is one of the reasons I try to listen to podcasts, to challenge my thinking. And he said, “We all talk about impostor syndrome and how doubts take us down.” And he said that he believes that impostor syndrome can actually serve us by instead of assuming that we know what is best or that this is the right action, that that questioning process of looking at it again and getting different input actually produces a better result. And I love the contrarian nature of taking something that we all think is bad and twisting and turning it and seeing that it actually can add value.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. And a favorite book?

Sam Horn
I grew up in a small town in southern California, more horses than people, so I read The Black Stallion series by Walter Farley. And I will always be grateful to Walter Farley because he gave me a window on the world, and we had a thousand people on our entire mountain valley, and reading about these international adventures and these exciting horse races, and this young boy who was adventurous and independent really helped me see beyond where I was. And so, The Black Stallion was really pivotal in my life.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Sam Horn
I juxtapose everything. People say, “Sam, how does your brain work?” And I believe the quickest way to make a complex idea crystal clear is to put a vertical line down the center of a piece of paper, and on the left is what doesn’t work, and on the right is what does. It’s what sabotages our success, what supports it, what compromises our effectiveness, what contributes, what hurts, what helps.

And if we want support for an idea, if we juxtapose problem and solution, issue and answer, and we make those words alliterative, then we are going to be able to get people on the same page because we will be able to show the shift with this crystal clear, clean, compelling language. And by the time people get to the end of the page, you’re going to say yes.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And is there a particular nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; they quote it back to you frequently?

Sam Horn
You know, I gave a TEDx Talk, and I understood that if we want to make a difference over time, it’s got to rhyme. And so, I said if you want to succeed, you must intrigue. And I really believe that our career success depends on our communication skills, and it depends on saying something that is so memorable that people can repeat it and act on it, weeks or months even years after they first heard it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Sam Horn
Well, they’re welcome to go to our website which is real easy to remember, it’s SamHorn.com. And we’ve got three TEDx Talks there. We really try and make it so that if you go there, it’s not just about my products and services, it’s about, “Boy, here’s a post on how I can be repeatable and re-tweetable. Here’s a post on that quiz on how I can deal with bullies. Boy, here’s those words to lose, words to use so that I can think on my feet and handle challenging people in the moment instead of thinking of the perfect response on the way home.”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, this has been a hoot. Sam, thank you for bringing the goods and best of luck in your continued communication adventures.

Sam Horn
Thanks so much. I enjoyed it. I hope people found this inspiring and insightful and useful, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Katherine, thanks so much for joining us here on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Katherine Crowley
Hi, it’s so fun to be with you.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to dig into your wisdom. And you also got your own podcast called My Crazy Office. Could you tell us perhaps one of the craziest office stories you ever heard.

Katherine Crowley
Oh, my gosh. Well, actually interesting, one of my most strange experiences was when I was working for a business owner, and she was running two businesses at the same time. And so, my entire workday consisted of finding notes passed under the door of the office that I work in, in her home, and fulfilling whatever the task was that was required, having no idea what the output was, you know, what the outcome of my work was actually creating, and rarely seeing her except once or twice every couple of weeks. So, that was a strange, that’s what we call an absentee boss situation but it was just so strange because I was living in this world where I don’t fully understand what went on.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so you have logged a whole host of such boss behaviors, and you’ve got a great title in your book Working for You Isn’t Working for Me: How to Get Ahead When Your Boss Holds You Back. So, tell us, what’s the big idea behind the book?

Katherine Crowley
Well, actually, what’s interesting is that book, Working for You Isn’t Working for Me, came out of the first book we wrote Working for You is Killing Me, which was actually more about peer-to-peer managing up, managing down. And when that book came out, it was a national/international bestseller because it spoke to the pain of so many people. But the one thing that everyone told us, because Kathi Elster and I traveled all over the country giving talks and workshops about how to handle difficult people at work, and every lecture someone would come up and say, “You don’t understand. It’s my boss. That’s different. This person can fire me or demote me.”

And so, we realized that we needed to write a book specifically about dealing with the boss because what we learned was that people don’t quit jobs, they actually quit bosses. So, Working for You Isn’t Working for Me was about coming to terms with, “If you have a difficult boss, how do you manage them rather than waiting for them to manage you?”

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, well, there’s much to dig into here. So, let’s start with your four-step program for dealing with difficult bosses. Can you lay out those four steps and give us some examples of them in action?

Katherine Crowley
Absolutely. And the interesting thing is from the Working for You is Killing Me there’s a four-step of unhooking, and we apply the similar thing to the Working for You Isn’t Working for Me. So, I want to talk about the unhooking process because I think it’s very effective if you can do it. So, the four steps are that you unhook physically, you unhook mentally, you unhook verbally, and you unhook with a business tool. And that means nothing except that the first thing you have to realize is that you’re hooked. So, you know that a boss is getting under your skin if you find that you’re having physical, emotional, mental reactions every time you interact with this person.

And so, if you notice that you get a headache, that your stomach feels tight, that your shoulders hurt, that you have a hard time breathing, that you feel exacerbated after every meeting, you then can establish that you are hooked. Once you established that, then you can start to unhook. And the unhooking physically part, so let’s imagine the favorite tough boss, which is the micromanager, the super controlling, oversees everything you do, and doesn’t let you make any decisions on your own. If you had that kind of a boss, what you could do to unhook physically would be that you might, at the day’s end, work out, or go for a run, or go for a walk. You could splash water on your face, you could go for a drive, you could do something physically that helps you release the toxic energy that you may generate by having to deal with this person day in and day out. So, that’s unhooking physically.

Then, unhooking mentally has to do with kind of talking yourself off the ledge. So, let’s say your – this is very common – micromanaging boss insists that you report on every single thing that you do and everything your team does, and you find that to be just offensive. Unhooking mentally, after you’ve cooled your system down by physically unhooking, would be to ask yourself some important questions, like, “What’s happening here? What are the facts of the situation? What’s their part? What’s my part? And what are my options?”

So, going back to the micromanager, what’s happening? “This person is insisting that I give reports on a daily basis about what everyone is doing and it’s ridiculous.” What are the facts? “My boss is requiring this of me and it’s part of my job.” What’s their part? “So, maybe they’re super controlling. They don’t trust anything we do. It drives me crazy.” That’s the fun question to answer. But then what’s my part? And in this case, it could be that, “My part is that I’m taking their behavior personally, that I’m assuming that this person only doesn’t trust me, and that it’s all about not respecting my work ethic.”

So, then your options are, with a micromanaging boss, you could continue to resent them. That’s always…you’re allowed to do that. You could quit. You could badmouth this person and tell everyone how horrible they are and hope that they quit. Or you could say, “Okay, I’m working with someone who needs control. And so, what would happen if I just followed their requests and see if I can establish trust with this person?” So, that’s where you could get to by mentally unhooking.

Next, unhooking verbally is saying something to move the situation forward. So, with this boss, there’s a high-road and low-road verbal communication. Low-road would be, “I can’t believe we have to write these stupid reports. Don’t you think we can do our jobs?” High-road could be, “I understand that you’re concerned that we’re all on the same page, so let’s try this out and meet in a month and see if it really works as a system.”

And then, unhooking with a business tool is to pick from some kind of thing, whether it’s a procedure, a policy, a document, to complete the transaction. And so, in this case, you could say, you could send a follow-up email and say, “I understand that we’re going to be doing this reporting system for a period of time. I look forward to tracking it and seeing if it really works for you and open to feedback along the way.”

And so, now you’re taking yourself from the hooked part where you’re furious, you can’t stand the person, and you are in a powerful struggle with them, which is usually what happens with bosses that we don’t like, we get in power struggles, to calming your system down, finding viable solutions, and moving the situation forward.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, the business tool piece there, that was just sort of an email or are there different business tools? Tell us what you mean by that.

Katherine Crowley
It in this case it’s an email. So, business tools, what we’d say about those is those are…they’re actually, they’re always with you. They take the emotion out of a situation, because, so often, what happens with bosses and coworkers who drive us crazy is we take them personally, right? So, business tools, anything that clarifies the parameters of your work situation. It could be a job description. It could be company policies. It could be documentation. If someone does something over and over that drives you nuts, usually we just store the instance in our mind and feed a big ball of resentment. What you could do instead is document. That’s a business tool, to write down what happened, to describe the effects that it’s having on your job, to be clear about the costs that may come, that it may cause the company.

So, it’s taking whatever the situation is and looking, “What’s the business tool I can apply here?” whether it’s, let’s say, if someone’s a chronically late person, well, there may be time policies at your workplace that you could apply to the situation rather than feeling insulted by their tardiness.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Thank you. Well, so those are the four steps of unhooking there. And you’ve zeroed in on 20 of these behaviors that drive you bonkers. And so, I’d love to get a quick rundown of those if you can give us the cool 30-second version list of all 20. But I’d also, first, actually, I want to hear, you say that often these can even escape detection in the first place. So, can you tell us a little bit about the detect side of things?

Katherine Crowley
Yeah. So, detecting, that’s a very good question. What usually happens is we start to feel irritated. We start to get angry if someone starts to really bother us, and then we get into a whole tailspin, emotional tailspin, about what’s happening. Detecting requires that I look up from my situation, try to figure out “What is going on here?”

So, for example, if there’s a kind of boss that we would call a calculating confidant. And this is a kind of boss that would pull you in and ask you a lot of personal questions and look like they want to get to know all about you, and then use that information against you later on down the road. Of course, when that happens, it feels horrible and like betrayal, and, “How could this person do that?”

But if you actually detect or figure out that, “I’m working with someone for whom this is their style, this is how they operate,” then it gives you just a little distance so that you aren’t just feeling manipulated and poorly treated by this individual. So, does that make sense?

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. So, detected, in so doing you would sort of give a label and some distance, and you say, “Okay, this is not personal. They’re not sticking it to me in particular. This is just sort of how they operate and I hate it.”

Katherine Crowley
Right. Exactly. And if it’s something, like there are bosses who are chronically late. So, if they’re chronically late, to detect and understand that this is, again, this is what they do. It’s probably what they’ve done with every employee that they’ve ever worked with. Then it just gives you a little modicum, I think, of control that, “This is what I’m dealing with, not I’m doing something wrong and it’s driving me crazy.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, can you give us the listing of these 20 bad boss behaviors because I’m sure we could talk for hours about them? But I wanna hear just the quick rundown like, “Okay, we got this and this and this,” so folks can recognize it in your telling.

Katherine Crowley
All right. So, I’ll just give you the list and then you can see what you think. First of all, we have categories. So, the first category is called the game players, head game players. And the top of that list is what we call the chronic critic. Then we have the rule changer, the yeller, and the underminer. Next category are the bigshots and the mother superiors. Under that we have “I’m always right,” “You threaten me,” grandiose, and control freak.

Next category is called the line crossers. These are the people who have bad boundaries. So, the first of those is lovestruck, next is the calculating confidant that I mentioned before, the tell-all, the first person who tells you more than you ever wanted to know about their life, and then the liar-liar. Next category is ambivalent leaders, and this is always interesting, I think. The first is the sacred cow, which I’d be happy to describe at greater lengths; the checked-out boss also known as the absentee; the spineless; and the artful bosses, the person you can never find in your hour of need.

Then, finally, we have what we call delicate circumstances. And that is the junior boss, someone who is younger than you, significantly younger than you; the former colleague, a colleague who gets promoted above you; the unconscious discriminator which is, these days, a very hot topic; and the persecutor. That’s the cast of characters.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, thank you. I think it’s handy just to have a sort of typology in terms of, “Okay. I recognize that.” So, we could talk about these 20 in depth. But, maybe, you could zero in on maybe one, two, or three of these that are both particularly demoralizing for people as well as super prevalent? So, there’s both a high frequency and a high intensity of damage, so let’s talk about those three in terms of how we deal with them.

Katherine Crowley
Yeah, I would be happy to. I actually want to start with the sacred cow, Pete, because this is one…what’s interesting is this is a boss who will feel so frustrating but they’re often like nice people. You know what I mean? So, a sacred cow is someone who’s been in their position for a long time, they’ve climbed up the ladder of the office, whatever it is, the company, whatever it is. They usually are…the people at the top are loyal to this person because they were loyal to them, and they’re now in a position where they probably don’t have the competence really to do anything significant. So, what they want to do is just toe the line, not make any ruffles, and just do a basic job but not cause any problems.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, in this instance, the boss is the sacred cow that a lot of people say, “Ooh, maybe I don’t want to cross them because they’ve historically been really good to me and…”

Katherine Crowley
That’s right. The sacred cow has friends, usually, at the top. They’re protected in some way. And so, what could happen is, let’s say you’re a very inventive or creative person and you get hired by this person, and as you’re getting higher, they’re saying to you, “We really need innovation in this department,” which may be true. But then once you get into the position, you experience that you are blocked at every step of the way. Any new ideas, they’ll say, “We’ve done that already. It won’t work.” They’ll ignore your best thoughts about how to solve a problem. They will tell you that upper management doesn’t want that kind of thing. So, they’ll do whatever they need to do to sort of put a road stop onto anything you’re trying to accomplish.

And for people who are real performers and who like to achieve and contribute, this kind of boss is deadly. Yeah, and so the thing with the sacred cow is that, going back to detect, the four Ds: detect, detach, de-personalize, deal. With the sacred cow, the first is to detect, like, okay, if you find out that someone has been there for many years, and they’re not going anywhere, and you keep pushing up against this person, which is usually what happens when you’re working for a sacred cow, you get in power struggles of constantly trying to push your ideas forward. Then you detect, you’ve got, “I’m working for a sacred cow. They’re not going to become comfortable with change. They’re not going to want to do anything innovative.”

Then the detaching would be, “Okay, this is not about me. This is about them.” And de-personalizing would be to say, “All right. So, this person is afraid of change, but maybe they need to look good.” Sacred cows still want to look good in whatever position they’re in. And so then, the deal, what can you do, would be to find out, and this is very hard if you’ve already pushed hard and been rejected and feel resentment, but the deal part would be to find out if there are any projects that the sacred cow is interested in, like things that they would love to accomplish if they had the ability, and get behind those ideas or try to make your ideas their ideas. So, if you’re willing to make the sacred cow look good, you may actually be able to make progress.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Thank you. All right. So, that’s a handy one then. Can we hear another boss here and how we’d approach it?

Katherine Crowley
Yeah. So, a commonly occurring and destructive, I would go to the very top of the list, which is the chronic critic. And it’s funny because we have another version of the chronic critic in Working With You is Killing Me called the pedestal smasher. And these are the bosses who have very high standards for everything, and often when they first bring you onboard, they tell you that you’re wonderful and that you’re finally going to solve their problems and that they really admire your work capacity.

Once you start working for this kind of boss, the chronic critic, they then begin to find fault with everything that you do. And so, they slowly start to erode your confidence because they can always find the wrong thing. One client we had who worked for a chronic critic used red highlighter, under-liner, even online with documents to show where the mistakes were. And, literally, it got to the point where the client was like, you know, they’d go to meetings with their neck in a brace because it was so hard to deal with this person.

So, they slowly can erode your confidence and, therefore, detecting as soon as possible becomes a really important thing when you find out, and you can always ask around to see, “Is this person, have they always been so critical of everyone or is it just me?” You detect but nothing. They don’t ever find things good enough because part of what they’re doing is trying to keep you below them so that you don’t threaten them, right? So, you detect that.

Then, again, detaching, realizing this is not about you. And chances are you’re never going to have the experience where they say, “You did an amazing job.” De-personalizing is, “Okay, so if that’s how this person operates, then my job is to continue along and try to create, try to do a good job but not take their statements personally.”

And then dealing would be to do your job, to go to other places to get recognition. So, you may want to join a taskforce, or go work with another department on a special project, or go outside and join a professional association. Nowadays, those are all happening in online and meetups and things. But you do something like that to pump up your confidence again so that you can figure out what your next best move will be.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, now, could you tell us an inspiring story of someone who did just that, they figured out, “Okay, we got a troubling thing in this behavior,” what they did, and then the cool outcomes that unfolded from that?

Katherine Crowley
Yes. So, actually, I can tell you about someone who worked for a sacred cow and it was actually for a very prestigious institution, he was very excited about the job, got there, and then had pushback for every single thing that he did. He was able to befriend that sacred cow after much frustration, a lot of hitting walls. He was able to befriend that sacred cow and found out that that individual, the boss, had a very specific project that she’d always wanted done but had never had the resources to do. He made it happen and, as a result, their department won an award, and he went on to be offered another job at another institution.

Pete Mockaitis
All right.

Katherine Crowley
So, there’s a good story.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. And I’d also love to zoom in and hear sort of navigating these tricky situations, are there any particularly powerful scripts, phrases, questions, that you recommend and see are helpful over and over again?

Katherine Crowley
Yeah. Well, I think that’s such a good question. When we wrote, in both of our books, when we talk about talking to whoever the individual involved is, we always talk about how important it is to prepare yourself. Like, one thing that’s valuable, I think, actually in knowing, like, let’s say you know that you work for a boss who always has to be right, for example. And there are those bosses, so you don’t want to go into the conversation looking to convince them that you’re right. You would prepare for that kind of a conversation by thinking, “Okay, how can I join with this person and their approach?”

So, you could say to this individual, “I know your opinion is very important to me, and I know that you usually understand things in a way that I don’t, but here are my thoughts about doing X, Y, and Z.” So, you confirm the individual’s capabilities, you try to talk to them in a way that makes sense based on how they hear and reason with things, and then you make a concrete suggestion about how you can move forward.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, cool. Well, now, can you tell us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Katherine Crowley
My favorite quote may seem odd but it is by Hoagy Carmichael, a jazz musician, and it is, “Slow motion gets you there faster.” And I like it especially because in the digital age we’re all constantly running – I certainly am, I’m sure you are as well – and constantly on the go, and wanting things to happen quickly. And so, I find that quote “Slow motion gets you there faster” really helpful because it helps me slow down, focus on what needs to happen in the moment, and have patience with the process. I think that’s one of the biggest challenges in any situation, and certainly in a difficult work situation is to be patient with the process.

Pete Mockaitis
And now could you share a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Katherine Crowley
Yes. So, one of the studies that we did actually was for our third book, which was Mean Girls at Work. And there, we put out a request for any stories that women had about other women who they found difficult to work with. And what we were able to glean was that, I would say, 40% of the studies, or 40% of the stories rather, what was interesting was they were not about blatantly mean cruel individuals. They were what we call passively-mean situations where people were excluded, where they were taken out of an email link, where they were not asked to join an event, a work event, or even a social event, where they were contradicted at a meeting but in a nice way, it’s that sort of passive-aggressive looks like.

And so, we found that really interesting that 40% of the women who had difficult relationships with other women, it was more of a passive-aggressive experience, and it really informed a lot of what we wrote about in the book because women do a thing called tending and befriending. We believe we need to be nice to each other and yet what happens in the workplace, because we’re not that comfortable with direct confrontation, is that people end up tending, acting friendly, and then doing subversive things.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, thank you. And how about a favorite book?

Katherine Crowley
So, my favorite book is Eckhart Tolle, Towards a New Earth.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Katherine Crowley
So, I practice what we preach, so I will say that I do, on a daily basis, every morning I exercise and I write a list of what are my top three priorities. And at the end of every day, I also exercise again, and I practice gratitude. And I know that those things don’t sound like business tools per se, but those set the tone for the rest of my day.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a particular nugget that you share that really seems to connect or resonate with folks, readers, listeners, they quote it back over and over again?

Katherine Crowley
Yes, there are two. And one is…

Pete Mockaitis
Nice job.

Katherine Crowley
So, I’m a psychotherapist by training, so one of the things that I will tell people is that, “If you’re feeling hysterical, it’s usually historical.” Now, I did not make that up but it is such a truism that whenever I say it, people are like, “Oh, my God, that’s so true,” because it’s not the person showing up late for a meeting. It’s probably the 35 times they showed up late, and the time they were late on a deadline, and the time, you know, whatever. And that’s a valuable statement just in the sense that, again, going back to the things we were talking about, unhooking, detaching, you have to calm yourself down so that you respond in a right-sized way to whatever the situation may be.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Katherine Crowley
I would point them to our website KSquaredEnterprises.com and also to our podcast which is My Crazy Office.

Pete Mockaitis
And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Katherine Crowley
Yes. My final challenge, actually my call to action is to whatever your situation, if there’s someone who is really bothering you, there are two things that you can do. One is that you need to stop and see whether you are in a power struggle with this person, because power struggles you will not win. The second thing is you need to consider whether you’re expecting this person to behave exactly the same way you do. So, it’s always important to examine your expectations. We often get furious of people who do things that you say, “I would never do that,” and yet the most important thing for figuring out how to work with people is to understand that each person is operating from a different set of expectations and behaviors.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Katherine, this has been a real treat. I wish you luck and success, and hope that working with people is working for you.

Katherine Crowley
Thank you, and talking with you has been lovely for me.