Daniel Robin & Associates

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Whose Stuff Is It?

Strategies for Handling Difficult Workplace Behaviors, Part 2

When the boss bites. When the team cracks. When that jerk in the next cubicle …. These are few of my least favorite things. What are yours?

What if indirectness, bad boundaries, and pushiness all manifest in one coworker, what can be done? In some ways, exasperating and annoying behaviors like being hyper-critical or defensive are harder to handle than when someone "loses it" completely and starts throwing things. Blatantly violating company policy gets immediate attention, but you can’t fire somebody for being "difficult," nor for having permanent bad hair days.

This article will help you understand how "difficult behaviors" in colleagues and customers keep us from doing our best work, and offers strategies for doing something about it.

Trying your Patience or Trying for Results

Tremendous time and energy gets spent just trying to get along with coworkers (the boss is another story, and explains why Dilbert is so popular). What would each day be like if you could redirect all that time and energy into getting things done?

I’ll describe three strategies for handling difficult workplace situations, starting with the easiest first: (1) avoid it entirely, (2) neutralize your reaction (get to the place where their stuff doesn’t trigger you), or (3) get them to change.

1. Avoid It.

For most garden-variety "difficulty" (see above) by far the easiest option is avoidance. If you don’t have to interact with this person on that topic, why torture yourself trying to get a result that just throws gasoline on the fire? Of course, the easy answer isn’t always the best answer (sigh).

If possible, make the difficult behavior irrelevant. Focus instead on what they’re good at besides pushing your buttons. What are their useful strengths? How could you build your relationship around those strengths and bypass the rest?

2. Neutralize Your Reaction.

Your ability to change the situation or change their behavior depends entirely on your skill at persuasion and negotiation. If you’ve already tried the direct approach (#3, below) and no dice, the second easiest way is probably to change your reaction to their weirdness. What could you do (or not do) that would keep your buttons from being pushed?

For some behaviors, this may be asking a lot. The situation may be simply unacceptable to you. It is when your reaction is completely justified and still drains your energy that it would be to your advantage to depersonalize and neutralize. Then you can stand there and let them poke around for the former button (the one that used to "hook" you), and you’ll see them looking confused because you’re just not going there anymore.

Being neutral in your reaction is different than approving or liking their behavior – it simply means that whatever they do, it doesn’t phase you. Owning your reaction allows you to become less attached to changing a situation over which you may have no control.

Instead, give them a mirror, not an adversary – give nothing to push up against. (And if all else fails, try bringing in a neutral third party to assist.)

3. Change Their Behavior.

This third approach – getting them to agree to change – is often the toughest. Why? There’s a paradox: the stronger your reaction to their behavior (that is, the more you get hooked and bothered by it), the harder it is for them to change of their own free will. The more it bothers you, the more it will be in your self-interest for them to change, but what’s in it for them? It doesn’t usually wash both ways.

For example, let’s say that to you it’s rude, disrespectful and inconsiderate for a coworker to keep arriving late for meetings; but for them, they may just be arriving when they arrive – If you bring it up, they say, "Like, what’s the big deal?"

The "big deal" is that until you negotiate an agreement that has them bought in to changing, use approaches 1 & 2. If you can’t free yourself from needing them to change, in effect, it becomes more your problem than theirs. Do not take on false responsibility.

If you can bring the issue to them in a way that they actually let it in, you’ll prevent a power struggle. Check out the article called "The Gentle Art of Confrontation" for ways to deliver difficult news in ways that get heard.

I Hate It When You Do That (Do what?)
Dealing with Difficult Workplace Behaviors, Part 3

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