EQ4PM

You can do anything you want on your last day at Work – Part 3

I have posted a few times now about Bill Gates and the video he made regarding his upcoming last day at Microsoft.  I complimented Bill on his self-confidence and his willingness to have a laugh at his expense.  I also pointed out that Bill’s willingness to selectively reveal his weaknesses contributes to his effectiveness as a leader.  

The story about Bill got me thinking about a current parallel in my own life.  You see, Friday, May 30 was my last day at work for on a particular consulting engagement. 

It was my last day by my own choice.  I had grown frustrated by my experience with this firm.  I didn’t think it was possible for me to “win” in that environment.  I was feeling like a victim to the wishes of others around my role on the program, the clients request that I cut my outside speaking events, the funding for my role on the program, and even my long commute. 

As it was happening, I saw this as something that others did to me.  I felt victimized.  Bad idea.  As soon as I make this about others, I give away my power.  Being a victim is weak and unappealing.  After all, no one did this to me; I simply made choices and agreed to things that in hindsight I wish I had not.  I was unwilling to go back and negotiate a better deal or make this a win for me.  That was a copout on my part.  A much more effective approach would have been to go for what I wanted.

Go for What I Want

To go for what I want, I need to be clear with others about what I want and need and negotiate the best deal I can.  Instead of agreeing to something that was not a win for me (i.e. win-lose), I should have strove for a win-win agreement.  I should have tried (it’s not always possible) to create the project or engagement I wanted and believed it could be.  Instead, I settled for what the client wanted and needed and ignored my own needs.  I didn’t invest the time and energy needed to go for what I wanted.  I felt like a victim to the client.

Whenever we find ourselves resenting others or making them bad because they are going for what they want, we should look at ourselves.  Chance are, we aren't going for what we want in that situation.  We need to understand why it is that we are not going for what we want.  This may be a lack of understanding of what we want – that is frequently my problem.  It may also be a lack of courage to go for what we want, or belief that we won’t get what we want.

Here is what it would have looked like for me to go for what I wanted. 

1. I would have negotiated to work from home two days a week to reduce the impact of commuting.
2. I would have negotiated to keep my outside speaking engagements and simply worked around them.
3. I would have been more insistent about some of the challenges I saw on the program and proposed changes.

We are at our best when we go for what we want.  When we don't, it reflects on us, not on others.  It's true that you can do anything you want on your last day.  But don't forget that you can and should go for what you want every other day.  It is only by going for what we want that we stand the best chance of getting it.

Think about your own situation for the moment.  Are you going for what you want?  Or are there areas of your life where you are settling, feeling like a victim, and blaming others for the outcomes you are getting?  What would you need to change now, today, to go for what you want?

Anthony

You Can Do Anything You Want On Your Last Day at Work – Part 2

A couple of weeks back, I posted about Bill Gates and the video he made regarding his upcoming last day at Microsoft.  I complimented Bill on his self-confidence and his willingness to have a laugh at his own expense.  I also noted the importance of being able to laugh at ourselves as a sign of strong self-confidence. 

Bill’s video and his willingness to show his flaws demonstrates another key aspect of leadership – selectively revealing weaknesses.  This may seem like a rather minor leadership trait but one that has been shown to be important in leadership studies conducted by Victor Dulewicz and Malcolm Higgs. 

You may remember my previous posts (1, 2 and 3) about Dulewicz and Higgs and their work with the Leadership Dimensions Questionnaire.  They have shown that revealing weaknesses is a key aspect of  effective leaders.  It relates directly to the managerial competencies of Engaging Communications and the emotional intelligence competencies of Interpersonal Sensitivity and Self-Awareness.

This finding of Dulewicz and Higgs is based in part on the 2006 book, Why Should Anyone Be Led by You? , by Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones.  In their book, Goffee and Jones talk about the importance for leaders to communicate to their followers some form of personal weakness.  Effective leaders show who they truly are, warts and all.  This serves to make the leader more human and therefore more approachable and likable.  It serves to establish trust and credibility with followers.  The leader seems more authentic than they would if they were not revealing any weaknesses, and that is desired (or perhaps demanded) by followers.

"The desire to be led by a real person demands that we know something of a leader's human foibles and shortcomings." 
- Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones

This runs counter to our natural inclination to build ourselves up and try to look our best.  Goffee and Jones say that those leaders that don’t let themselves show any sign of weakness are either perceived as a phony or as someone that doesn’t take any risks. 

What Bill Gates did in this video, and has done over his tenure as CEO and Chairman of Microsoft, is to show that he is fallible and human.  It’s not that he isn’t brilliant or that he doesn’t take his work seriously.  It is because he is able to show that he isn’t superhuman; he is a human like the rest of us.

Those leaders who are unwilling to reveal a weakness may find that their subordinates make one up for them.  It’s like the celebrities and stars being followed around by the tabloids and papparazi; if they can’t find something to write about, they will fill in the blanks or make something up.  Don’t leave your subordinates in the lurch; give them something.

Part of our communication challenge as project managers and leaders is to let people see the real us at work.  We need to show them that we have weaknesses too.  Here are some examples from various leaders in the public realm:

• As President, Bill Clinton revealed a weakness for junk food and women. He probably should have just stuck with the junk food.
• Ronal Reagan was also a very popular President despite his confessed lack of memory and details and his love of jelly beans.  

A leader that I respect and admire is Bill Hybels, the senior pastor at my church. He has done a great job of sharing flaws that make him human without diminishing his leadership abilities.  Here are some of the weaknesses he has shared:

• He says he is of Dutch origins and therefore very cheap
• He is a complete pushover for his new grandson
• He lacks artistic talent even though he frequently makes flip chart drawings during his talks
• He is not a "hugger"

As Bill has shown, the key is to reveal weaknesses that make you human without taking away from your leadership skills.  It is similar to the challenge you face when you interview for a job and the interviewer asks about your weaknesses.  This is not the time to share that you frequently “borrow” company supplies for personal use, that you sleep late and miss important meetings, or that you have a string of sexual harassment suits pending against you.  This is the time to share some real but not lethal weakness.

Goffee and Jones say to never expose a weakness that would be seen as a fatal flaw.  In other words, it needs to be a real weakness but just the right weakness. 

"Knowing which weakness to reveal, and when, is often a highly honed art closely linked to the ability to sense the requirements of different situations." 
- Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones

This is time to share something that is an understandable weakness and one that is tangential to your work efforts.  As a project manager, you would not want to say that you are disorganized or that you have poor people skills.  If you are in IT, you would not want to share that you are not good with technology. 

Here are some weaknesses that I have heard people share:

• They are uncomfortable speaking in front of large groups (unless you are a speaker or trainer)
• They sometimes get so involved in the details that they lose track of time
• They collect porcelain pigs
• They can not remember people’s names
• That they are scared of heights or hate to fly in airplanes

One more caution about these flaws; the flaw must be real and genuine, otherwise the leader will be perceived as inconsistent or dishonest.  For example, I once saw a senior executive in an organization who broke into tears during an emotional discussion.  His employees viewed his tears as manipulative and didn’t trust him.

My challenge to you is to determine if you are trying to be too perfect.  Are you showing your weaknesses to your followers or trying to be a super-project manager?  Let me know what you think.

If you didn't see Bill's video about his last day, here is the link.

Cheers!

Anthony
 

You Can Do Anything You Want On Your Last Day at Work - Part 1

I stumbled across this funny video about Bill Gates and his upcoming last day at work at Microsoft (July 2008).  Bill is retiring from his full time job at Microsoft this year to spend more time on the Gates Foundation. 

In his video, Bill is hamming up the fact that he is a geek, he drives a cheapo car and is apparently forgetful, that he is a wannabee rock star, and even that he could be a potential running mate for one of the current presidential candidates.  He (or his staff) engaged the help of numerous celebrities, rock stars, and politicians to participate in the video.  The video came across as entertaining and wonderfully self-effacing.

The really cool part about the video is not that Bill is retiring or that the world's richest man (or second richest man, it's hard to tell) made a video about himself.  The really cool part is that Bill Gates has the self-confidence to poke fun at himself.  Bill Gates has the self-confidence to make a video that ridicules Bill Gates.  That is confidence!

Self-confidence is an emotional intelligence competency in the domain of self-awareness.  Here is how Daniel Goleman defines self-confidence:

Self-Confidence - "A Strong Sense of one’s Self-Worth and Capabilities."
- Daniel Goleman, Working with Emotional Intelligence

Why would anyone with a strong sense of their own self-worth and capabilities need to poke fun at themself?  They don't, of course.  But it is only those who do have a strong sense of their own worth and capabilities that find themselves able to joke about their short-comings.  Individuals that are lacking in self-confident don't give themselves the freedom to do that.  It is as if they are on the defensive all the time, trying to make sure no one sees through their facade  Even though the reality is, other people usually see us as we are, confident or not.

Consider the following questions for yourself:

1. Do you ever feel as if you wouldn't dare let others see how overwhelmed you feel in your job?
2. Are you aware of your weaknesses, or the areas where others might get a chuckle about you?
3. Are you willing to let others have a laugh at you about those areas?  Would you even make a joke out of it and let others laugh at you?

If you are too serious about yourself or feel threatened by the idea of laughing at yourself, perhaps this would be a good opportunity to lighten up.  Others certainly already know about our weaknesses, follibles, and blind spots, even if we don't talk about them or bring attention to them.  They may even see our weaknesses more clearly than we are able to see them!  Why pretend that they don't exist? 

It reminds me of Al Gore who, as vice president for 8 years and a presidential candidate in 2000, was seen as robotic, stiff, and boring.  Then, after losing in the 2000 presidential election, he started doing speaking engagements and he hosted Saturday Night Live and poked fun at himself and his situation.  Suddenly, he is more popular now than when he was when he was as a public servant.

So my advice to you today is to lighten up and be confident enough to have some fun and let others have a laugh at your expense.  It will make you much more human, and much more self-confident.

If you find that you need to boost your self-confidence, consider the following tip, from my list of 20 tips for improving your emotional intelligence:

Tip of the Day #10- Self-confidence is when we are grounded, secure, and self-assured. It’s easy to be rattled or thrown off our game by a recent setback or failure. One technique for overcoming a lack of self-confidence is to reflect on our past successes. Create a timeline on a piece of paper and mark on it the successes, small and large, that you have experienced over your career. By reviewing our past successes, we can put our current setbacks into perspective and see them as temporary.

And if I am wrong about Bill Gates and my judgment that he feels self-confident enough to make a joke, I will go out on a limb and offer my coaching services to him.  Heck, I am pretty sure that I can help him feel more self-confident.  Clearly, my exorbitant fee won't be an issue for him.  Hey, it may even make him laugh. 

In fairness, I guess I should also offer this same deal to Warren Buffet and Carlos Slim Helú, the other two individuals who collectively make up the three richest men in the world.  Warren and Carlos, if you have self-confidence issues, please feel free to contact me directly for help!  Go on, make my day.

Cheers!

Anthony

The Hungry, Angry, Lonely and Tired Project Manager

I have been speaking quite a bit lately about the importance of emotional intelligence and risks of making dumb mistakes due to a lack of emotional intelligence.  I call this my Smart People, Dumb Mistakes Tour and it has been underway since last fall.  The idea is that there is a difference between intelligence (or IQ) and emotional intelligence.  Even really smart or successful people are at risk of making a dumb mistake when it comes to emotions (e.g. Eliot Spitzer or Lisa Lowak). 

Project managers especially need great people skills and would do well to avoid those dumb mistakes.  One of the key concepts that I have found to resonate with PMs is the idea that we are operating in stressful environments and at risk of some type of emotional breakdown or loss of control.  Many of us are doing more with less, staying connected and "on" all the time, and feeling overwhelmed in the process.  We are surrounded by people and situations that push our buttons and threaten to push us over the edge.

The best project managers tend to stay positive and unflappable no matter what comes their way.  I am jealous of those men and women.  For my part, I have to continually strive to do better and better in this area.  

One thing that helps me is to recognize that no matter what the stimulus, I still have a choice about my behavior.  I can choose a response that leads toward my goals, or I can react emotionally.  In fact, I devoted my last monthly newsletter to the topic of, Respond Don't React.  Here is a key graphic from that newsletter.  (FYI - You can sign up for my monthly newsletters from my home page). 

The key to being able to choose a response versus just reacting emotionally is our level of emotional resilience.  At a recent speaking event, a participant reminded me of a short and simple acronym for helping us gauge our level of emotional resilience.  It is the acronym HALT. 

HALT stands for Hungry, Angry, Lonely and Tired.  Those four serve as a gauge of our level of emotional resilience.  Whenever you are Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired, your resilience is low and you are at risk of having a negative reaction or emotional breakdown.  You are less likely to make good choices about your responses to stimulus.

The key thing that HALT tells me is that I am at risk.  It is a quick test.  And those HALT items are pretty common indicators for most people.  If you wanted to elaborate, you could come up with additional things that might set you up for a breakdown.  This is a list that my audiences have given me:

• Illness and Fatigue
• Criticism
• Lack of Exercise
• Failing to reach my Goals
• Feeling Overwhelmed
• Always on with WIFI and my Blackberry

Here are some work situations that push my button and put me at risk for a breakdown.  See if you can recognize the HALT aspect for each of these situations:

• Working Late - When I am working long hours on a project. I am working late at the office and everyone else has gone home.  I am likely to be feeling lonely and tired,  I might also be hungry, and could easily be resentful and angry about all of it.
• Long Term Conflict - When I work in an environment where people don't like each other and are constantly fighting, it is stressful.  It is easy for me to feel angry and tired.  I am more likely to isolate myself and therefore feel lonely.
• Business Travel -  When I am traveling for work, I frequently find myself at the mercy of the airlines; flights are delayed or cancelled, or I sit on the tarmac before taking off or after landing.  I can be hungry, angry, lonely and tired when that occurs.
• Driving to and from Work - My current commute is 1 hour and 15 minutes.  Enough said!
• Long and Contentious Meetings - I may not be hungry in a long meeting, but when there is a lot of conflict, it is easy for me to feel angry, lonely, and tired.

Once I know what in particular is likely to set me up for a failure, I can be alert and see that as a sign of risk.  I can mitigate the risk, when I recognize it, by taking immediate action to remove myself from the situation.  This might include stepping out of the building for some fresh air or going home for the day.  This could be getting something healthy to eat or going to the gymn. 

I can avoid that risk entirely by taking good care of myself well in advance of being in this condition.  This might include getting more rest, eating better, exercising, or taking time off from work.  I can meditate, pray, spend time on hobbies, or connect with family or friends.  This falls into the category of 'self-care' and it is something that many project managers could improve on.

In an ideal world, I would be kind, graceful, and compassionate with everyone I meet every day.  Until I figure out how to do that, I need to use techniques like HALT or my list of triggers to avoid and recognize when I am at risk.  I can also improve in the area of self-care with the hope that an investment in me will pay off in having more grace and compassion for others.

Thanks,

Anthony

Sad Times; The Untimely Death of Galba Bright

On Monday I was shocked to learn that fellow blogger and emotional intelligence enthusiast, Galba Bright, passed away of natural causes.

Galba and I were both featured in an article in the PMI Network called, Beyond the Hype.  We had been corresponding back and forth for the prior year and were delighted to be featured together in that article.  He has been a frequent commenter here on this blog and has always been supportive of my work. 

I will miss you Galba!  Thanks for all the inspiration and support!

Anthony

EQ Lessons from Shigenori to Shakespeare

My friend and fellow EQ enthusiast Shigenori Takekoshi runs a successful Project Management training company in Japan.  He is teaching PMs about how to be more effective and how to leverage emotional intelligence. 

When Shigenori came to visit me last fall, ostensibly to learn about emotional intelligence for PMs from me, he taught me an important lesson about emotional intelligence.  That is the ability to separate an incident, action or circumstance from my feelings about it.  That is, he taught me that something happens, and then immediately after it I have a feeling about that something.  The feeling I have is a result of both the thing that happened as well as my interpretation of the thing that happened.

If we were to map it out, it might look like the diagram below.  Situation, interpretation, then feeling.  First we have the something that happens, the situation, circumstance, or event.  Then we have our thoughts and interpretations of that situation, which will likely be unconscious.  This is the filter through which we see the world.  Finally, we have our feelings that result from the situation and our interpretation.  The feeling may be sad, angry, scared, happy, excited or tender.

This lesson from Shigenori was very helpful to me.  It crystalized the concept in my mind.  I had been very focused up to that point on the feelings but hadn't spent as much time on the interpretation and situation. 

Feelings are still very relevant because they provide the starting point, the awareness or realization.  Every emotion highlights for us that something is going on beneath the surface and in that sense, they provide great information.  Remember that Peter Salovey said that all "emotion is information". 

The point that my friend made was to show that once we begin to separate our feelings, our interpration, and our situation, we empower ourselves to change our emotions.  Perhaps Shigenori learned this from Shakespeare's Hamlet.  Hamlet, obviously well trained in emotional intelligence, said:

"...for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."
- Shakespeare's Hamlet

Consider the following example.  How do you feel when it rains?  Many people feel sad when it rains.  It is usually dark and rain limits our outdoor activities.  Think about how you would feel if you were a farmer with crops that need to be watered.  You might feel happy and excited.  Or if your house was in an area where wildfires were burning out of control, you might be happy to see rain.  So our feelings about the situation are affected by our interpretation and our thoughts.

By changing our interpretation of our situation, we can change our emotions.  If we feel scared or angry about something, we can explore the thoughts and interpretations and change those so that we feel happy and excited.

The challenge is that many of us are not aware of either the emotions or the thoughts and interpretations that led to those emotions.  As a result, we create unnecessary sadness, fear or anger in our lives and in the lives of those around us. 

Here is an example of something that recently happened to me.  I have been working with a training company to produce a distance learning course for emotional intelligence.  I sent the draft of the course to my contact at the company and waited patiently to hear back from him.  After a week went by, I sent a followup note asking him what he thought of the course and I also left a voicemail.  I still heard nothing back.  How do you think I was beginning to feel at that point?  Here is what it might look like if mapped out:

This particular event would fall in the category of cognitive disorder, specifically, filling in the blanks.  Faced with a particular situation (no response from my colleague), I chose to fill in the blanks with a very negative interpretation of the situation.  That led me to feel scared and sad.

Imagine my relief a few days later when I did reach my colleague and he told me that his mother-in-law had passed away and he had been out of town.  He liked my work and was excited to move forward.  I was excited!  Not that I was happy about the loss of life, but I was no longer filling in the blanks with my own interpretation of the situation.

This is just one example of a phenomenom that goes on all the time with all of us.  As I continue to learn about emotions and to get coaching and feedback from others, I see that these thoughts and interpretations of mine are more often my enemy than my friend.  They are robbing me of joy and replacing it with anger, fear, and sadness.  It is as if I have been programmed to be miserable.  Fortunately, I am learning and growing and that empowers to me make the necessary shifts in awareness.

I would love to hear your experience in this area.  Cheers!

Anthony

Now Available - The Emotional Intelligence Monthly Newsletter for PMs

About six months ago, I quietly launched the EQ Monthly Newsletter for Project Managers. The newsletter is published on the first of every month and contains news and tips to help project managers understand, develop, and apply their emotional intelligence. 

In the March 2008 monthly newsletter, I wrote about what makes project managers successful based on the research conducted by Ralf Mueller and J. Rodney Turner.  As you may recall from my posts here, Mueller and Turner are the authors of "Choosing Appropriate Project Managers", a book that details PMI-sponsored research into what makes project managers successful.  I have based my newest workhop (Leading Teams with Emotional Intelligence) on that research from Mueller and Turner as well as other emotional intelligence and leadership research by Victor Dulewicz and Malcolm Higgs.

You can always read the most recent month's newsletter on-line at: Last Month's Newsletter.  You can join the mailing list for the newsletter by hitting the submit button below. 

Sign Up Today!



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Cheers!

Anthony

PS:  I am delighted to see that Elizabeth Harrin of A Girls Guide to Managing Projects has posted a very positive review of my book on her very popular blog.  I always liked her writing but after reading her review of my book, I think she is absolutely brilliant!  Please check out her blog and see if you agree.

Are you Afraid of Success?

Which of these two statements best describes you:

1. I seek comfort and security.  I like when things are stable.  I like to take on projects that are similar to other work that I have done.
2. I routinely push myself out of my comfort zone to grow as a professional.  I like to live on the edge and I get excited about big challenges.

Here is the interesting thing: I tell myself that I want the second yet I live my life as if I want the first.  Let me explain.

I tend to get bored with easy projects.  I find it hard to be motivated on projects that don't challenge me and I have to push myself to just do my job as a project manager and to make progress.  I tell myself it is because I like big challenges and I eschew comfort.  This may very well be true.

In fact, I used to tell mentees that if you are comfortable in your job, you have probably stopped growing.  I used to tell them something like this:

When you first start a new job, you learn a lot in the first few weeks and months.  And you are the most scared at that time as well.  Over time, you tend to learn less and less.  So you will need to get used to being scared.  In fact, in order to maximize your growth as a professional, you need to change jobs frequently.  If you are comfortable, you are not growing.  Seek discomfort and fear, not comfort.

That's what I tell people.  It is like what my mentor Rich says, "you need to make friends with fear". 

But when I land a new challenge, I usually forget all that business about seeking discomfort and getting chummy with fear.  I get terrified.  Instead of feeling excited, I start to think about how I am not up to the challenge, how I will likely fail, and how embarrassed I will be when everyone realizes that I am a fraud.  My mind wanders to all the downside risks.  At that very moment when I should feel excited, I am feeling scared because I just don't feel up to the challenge.  My excitement becomes fear.

And there is one other thing, or one other reason for this excitement/fear mix-up.  When I look back to my childhood, there was a pattern to how my Dad treated me when I got excited.  He had a way of bringing me down when I was excited; of taking the wind out of my sails.  I don't know if my excitement scared him or made him jealous but I know that at an early age I learned to hide my excitement from him or he would use it against me.  The thing I was most excited about was the very thing he would take from me or threaten to take from me.  For example, he made me quit the 8th grade track team as a punishment for some offense I don't remember.  The track team was something I was excited about.

Perhaps this is why I now get emotionally confused; I get scared when something excites me.  When I start living big and taking on big challenges, I wind up getting scared.  And not just scared, I get terrified. 

My pattern goes something like this (I know because I just went through this when I took on a new consulting assignment two weeks ago):

Live Big -> Go for it -> Get Opportunity -> Get Excited -> Get Scared -> Get Terrified

So what do I do to overcome this pattern?  The first thing to do is recognize the pattern.  This is the essence of emotional self-awareness.  That goes a long way to changing the behavior.  Once I know that I will get scared when I should be excited, I can anticipate that feeling and choose to make a shift (emotional self-management).  In the moment when I get terrified, I can choose to do it different.  I can see the fear for what it is and then remind myself of all the reasons I should be excited.  I am not surprised and I don't beat myself up for it, I just make the shift and move on. 

I am not suggesting that I am perfect but I have gotten better over the years.  I have empowered myself to behave in a more effective manner.  I still go through the excitement to fear cycle but now I move through it quicker and get back on my feet more rapidly.

So are are you going for it and living big?  Are you getting scared in the process?  What helps you to push through the fear?  I'd like to hear about your experience.

Thanks,

Anthony

Workplace Stressors - What stresses you out?

I read an article by Dan Strakal called The Top Seven Causes Of Workplace Stress And Fifteen Ways To Get Rid Of Them.  I found that the list is not very complete and that one very important item is missing from the list. 

Here is Strakal's list of the top seven causes of workplace stress:

1. Being out of sync with one’s career values
2. Consistently applying burn out skills rather than motivated skills
3. Being delegated responsibility without authority
4. Being expected to produce more work with fewer resources
5. Job and career uncertainty and insecurity
6. The pace of change
7. Balancing family and work obligations

I had two reactions to this list.  First, as a project manager, I have found that most companies expect you to do #3 and #4 all the time.  This is just part of the deal. 

But the more interesting reaction to the list was the missing item - interpersonal conflict.  In my experience, interpersonal conflict is the single biggest workplace stressor.  If you reflect on what people complain about, I bet you would agree that people don't tend to complain about the things on Strakal's list; they complain about their idiot boss, that one annoying co-worker, or the incompetent person stuck on their project team.  In fact, in nearly all of my workshops, I get all kinds of questions about how to work with "difficult people" and deal with conflict.

I believe that if you were to ask people about what stresses them out about work, they would be much more likely to cite interpersonal conflict and other forms of relationship breakdowns than the items on the list above.  Many people have not learned effective skills for resolving workplace conflict so they simply shut down, withhold, or leave the organization.  In fact, the number one reason that people give for quitting their jobs is not even on Strakal's list.  That reason is the relationship with their immediate manager. 

I did like the suggestions provided by Strakal for getting rid of the stress.  These focus on how people can empower themselves and change their situation; to not be victims to others.  Great list!

1. Am I bringing any of this on myself?
2. Are there things I can be doing to improve the situation?
3. Am I blaming someone or something else (my partner, my company, my children, traffic, etc.) for the degree of happiness I am attaining or not attaining in my life?
4. Am I actually taking control of what I can control and accepting what I cannot control?
5. Have I lulled myself into a false sense that my work and my non-work lives are beyond my capabilities to handle – am I copping out?
6. Do I know what my career values and motivated skills are? If not, how can I find out?
7. If I am unhappy with my work situation, what is my short-term action plan to transition to something better? Who controls this decision?
8. What are my long-term career action plans?
9. Am I being as time efficient as I can? Am I looking for ways to integrate tasks and projects?
10. Am I focusing on what needs to get done so that I don’t have to take work home?
11. Can I form a support group (possibly made up of trusted coworkers, friends, clergy, etc.) where I can safely share my concerns, vent my anger, and deal with non-productive emotions?
12. Am I a Type-A workaholic? If so, can I admit it and ask for help?
13. Do I use work as a convenient excuse to not deal with other facets of my life? (Primary relationship, self image, weight challenges, etc.)
14. What would it take for me to turn off the TV two nights per week and do something more energetic or socially responsible?
15. Are my tears and frustration at work really a symptom of something else going on in my life?

So what do you think?  What are your top workplace stressors?  What is your number 1 stressor?  I'd love to hear about it.

Anthony

Working with Difficult People #03

How do you deal with people when they are having a meltdown? 

Last week, one of the members of my team named Jimmy lost it.  We were in the implementation phase of a system upgrade and he was working over the weekend.  I was talking to him on the phone and he went off and started screaming.  Jimmy's tirade was not so much directed at me as it was at others.  But it was me he was screaming at in that moment and it didn't feel good.

Angry tirades are one of the worst kinds of emotional breakdowns.  Here are some other emotional breakdowns, sorted by level of toxicity:

1. Blaming and Criticizing
2. Withdrawal and Isolation
3. Door Slamming
4. Holding Grudges and Getting Even
5. Uncontrolled Crying
6. Email Letter Bomb
7. Angry Tirade
8. Hitting

Though I haven't seen it at work, I include hitting in the list because it would be about the worse thing you could do when angry. 

Interestingly enough, besides his angry tirade, Jimmy also did a lot blaming and criticizing.  My judgement was that he was scared; I think he was actually in a job that was over his head.  Fear seems to go hand in hand with blaming and criticizing.  Think about when children are afraid that they will get in trouble.  They often begin blaming everyone else around them instead of taking responsibility.

So what did I do when Jimmy was yelling at me?  Initially, I stayed very calm and simply tried to reason with him.  I was aware of my own emotions and noticed that I started getting angry as well.  I was not so much angry about the yelling as I was about his overall performance.  Jimmy had not completed his tasks from the night before as we had planned and he had delayed other people on the project.  So when he was screaming at me, I found myself wanting to pay him back for not doing what had been agreed. 

At that point in the conversation, I had at least three choices; let him continue to vent until he burned himself out, scream back at him, or leave the conversation.  My normal pattern would have been either continue to listen or to scream back.  On this day, I did the third thing which was to leave the conversation.  I told him I that I would not be yelled at and that I was hanging up.  I put down the phone and then promptly sent him an email saying I would not be yelled at and we could discuss it later when he was calm.  I think my note to him had a sobering effect. 

Getting off the phone felt better to me.  I don't want to take on other people's toxic anger or let it impact me.  What I learned later was that Jimmy had gone off on a number of people  before me.  Not surprisingly, his anger eventually caused him to lose his job at this company.

What I learned from this situation:

1. Emotional self-control is important.  Jimmy was not able to control his anger or other emotions.  He was viewed as explosive and eventually he lost his job.
2. I am OK even if you aren't.  The principal of emotional boundaries says that you are responsible for your emotions and others are responsible for theirs.  I am separate from Jimmy; he cannot make me angry or put me in a bad mood.  I don't need to get upset just because Jimmy is upset.  I can say things like "that sounds tough", or, "you sound angry".   
3. We need to take care of ourselves and not be a dumping ground for others.  If someone is yelling, we can remove ourselves from the conversation.  We sometimes need to take care of ourselves and tell others that the behavior is not acceptable.
4. Be aware of our own emotions.  When we are in a conflictual situation, we need to orient to our own emotions.  In this case, I noticed that because I was mad about Jimmy's late tasks, I was more likely to escalate the situation rather than be objective and calm things down.

I suspect that Jimmy is going to go on to another company and take those same behaviors with him.  Without an intervention of some type, it is unlikely that he will change.  I am OK with that.  I need to focus on myself and the things that I can change.  I cannot change others. 

How do you handle yourself when people yell at you?  I'd like to hear about your experience with these types of situations.

Thanks, Anthony