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Never blogged it before. It’s just like writing but starting from a different place. What can I do about colleagues with attitude? Like Mrs Continually Angry; Mrs Everyone Else is So Ridiculously Stupid, I have to Keep Clearing up their Mistakes; and Mr Listen to Me I’m a Big Noise and You will do what I want because I want it, even though I’m wasting your time?
Bad day at work.
Is that what I was supposed to do? I’m just experimenting.
Here are some suggestions. For Mrs Angry, start by commenting on the fact she is angry, ‘You seem angry. I’ve noticed you have been getting angry a lot recently. Anything I can do to help?’
The trick is to give her permission to be angry and to encourage her to talk about it. Don’t give the impression there is a problem with being angry. If, on the other hand, she is being aggressive, that’s a different ball game. You can start the same and encourage her to talk out her feelings to the point where you get to the issue, then facilitate some problem solving. But at some stage you may also need to ask for a change of behaviour (like ‘I would like you to stop swearing at other members of the team’). I find it helps to keep feelings and behaviour as two different elements of people, to be dealt with separately. Always get the feelings out first if you can (some people won’t talk about feelings, so then go onto behaviour or thinking and look for leverage there).
Mrs Everyone Else is Stupid: Start by gettin her to be specific. Who did what and in what way was it stupid? What are the specific consequences of this action? How is she proposing to tackle this to put it right and how is she proposing to work with the other person to avoid it happening again? Finally, it is always good to challenge generalisations (like, for example, ‘it is ALWAYS good to challenge generalisations’!) Seriously, ask her in what way this person doing this thing makes this person a stupid person. Get her to tell you aout some things the ’stupid person’ has done that clearly are not stupid. Point out that labelling someone as stupid is not likely to solve the proble, even if this latest act was less than intelligent.
Mr Big Noise: The simpl,e approach is to consider the request, decide if you genuinely want to do it or not, and if not, just say NO. Don’t waste time explaining. If he asks for an explanation and you feel inclined to give one, remember to end your explanation by saying, ‘NO, I won’t be doing that’. Sometimes it is simply because you don’t want to, so your explanation goes like this, ‘I don’t want to so, NO, I won’t’. End of story. It is quite unnerving, especially for real bullies. Obviously, if it’s your boss, then you need to think through the consequences. You can still say NO as long as you are willing to deal with the consequences.
April 20th, 2007 at 7:31 am
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April 23rd, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Never blogged it before. It’s just like writing but starting from a different place. What can I do about colleagues with attitude? Like Mrs Continually Angry; Mrs Everyone Else is So Ridiculously Stupid, I have to Keep Clearing up their Mistakes; and Mr Listen to Me I’m a Big Noise and You will do what I want because I want it, even though I’m wasting your time?
Bad day at work.
Is that what I was supposed to do? I’m just experimenting.
April 24th, 2007 at 4:17 am
Here are some suggestions. For Mrs Angry, start by commenting on the fact she is angry, ‘You seem angry. I’ve noticed you have been getting angry a lot recently. Anything I can do to help?’
The trick is to give her permission to be angry and to encourage her to talk about it. Don’t give the impression there is a problem with being angry. If, on the other hand, she is being aggressive, that’s a different ball game. You can start the same and encourage her to talk out her feelings to the point where you get to the issue, then facilitate some problem solving. But at some stage you may also need to ask for a change of behaviour (like ‘I would like you to stop swearing at other members of the team’). I find it helps to keep feelings and behaviour as two different elements of people, to be dealt with separately. Always get the feelings out first if you can (some people won’t talk about feelings, so then go onto behaviour or thinking and look for leverage there).
Mrs Everyone Else is Stupid: Start by gettin her to be specific. Who did what and in what way was it stupid? What are the specific consequences of this action? How is she proposing to tackle this to put it right and how is she proposing to work with the other person to avoid it happening again? Finally, it is always good to challenge generalisations (like, for example, ‘it is ALWAYS good to challenge generalisations’!) Seriously, ask her in what way this person doing this thing makes this person a stupid person. Get her to tell you aout some things the ’stupid person’ has done that clearly are not stupid. Point out that labelling someone as stupid is not likely to solve the proble, even if this latest act was less than intelligent.
Mr Big Noise: The simpl,e approach is to consider the request, decide if you genuinely want to do it or not, and if not, just say NO. Don’t waste time explaining. If he asks for an explanation and you feel inclined to give one, remember to end your explanation by saying, ‘NO, I won’t be doing that’. Sometimes it is simply because you don’t want to, so your explanation goes like this, ‘I don’t want to so, NO, I won’t’. End of story. It is quite unnerving, especially for real bullies. Obviously, if it’s your boss, then you need to think through the consequences. You can still say NO as long as you are willing to deal with the consequences.