EQ4PM

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

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

People Hate Their Jobs?

I read a post over at Ellen Weber's Brain Based Business blog that made me sad.  The post was called Top 10 Reasons People Hate Work.  It talks about some of the challenges that people face at work, like relationship problems, lack of problem resolution and goal achievement, negative and verbally abusive people, and stress.

I don't take exception to any of these problems.  Nor do I believe that these types of work environments don't exist because they certainly do.  What makes me sad is that people continue to work in these types of environments or in environments that they hate.  That is depressing.  That sounds like poor choices, victim-hood, or self-abuse.  Why would people do that to themselves?  It is a choice, after all.

Ellen closed her post with a challenge: What other reasons do people give for hating their work – that you could suggest a strategy to solve?

In the spirit of the current presidential debates, I am not going to answer the question that Ellen asked.  I don't want to think about other reasons that people give for hating their jobs.  I think it gets us to focus on the negative. 

Instead, I would suggest that we re-frame the question by moving from victim-hood and self-abuse to responsibility.  Here are some questions we can use to shift the focus from victim-hood to responsibility:

• How am I contributing to the current situation at work?
• What can I do differently to make a positive impact?
• How can I manage my emotions to stay positive in a negative or toxic environment?
• How can I change the tone or mood at work?

The key to moving away from victim-hood is to focus on the positive steps that we can take.  These may include personal stress management, cutting back on work hours, and avoiding or confronting negative and verbally abusive people.  We can also seek help from our manager, the HR department, or even reach out to co-workers who want to stay positive and healthy.

As a last step, consider a job change.  If you have done what you can to stay positive, manage yourself, and change your work environment, then you should seriously consider changing companies or jobs.  Why would you want to work at a place or job that you hate?  Doing so says a lot more about you than those you work with.  And if you are attracted to that environment or choose to stay even when you hate it, it would lead me to believe you were part of the problem.

Working with Difficult People #02

As the second installment of working with difficult people, I'd like to examine some of the profiles of difficult people from Stanley Bing's very entertaining book Crazy Bosses.  True to it's name, the book talks about the various psychopaths who make it into the ranks of management as crazy or difficult bosses.  Bing focuses on 5 categories of lunatic managers:

1. The Bully
2. The Paranoid
3. The Narcissist
4. The Wimp
5. The Disaster Hunter

Let's look at a quick profile of each of these from Bing's books and share some tips for dealing with them.

The Bully

The profile of the bully is someone who is moody and often rageful, inconsistent, manipulative, aggressive, insensitive, and difficult to deal with.  A real life example is Joseph Stalin who thought little of killing millions of his own people to promote his own agenda.

Dealing with Bullies 

Bullies keep their subordinates off balance.  So it is helpful to expect the unexpected when dealing with bullies so that you are not surprised.  I once had a bully program manager who would strive to come in earlier than I did and find out about any problems that occurred overnight so he could berate me for them.  Once I learned to expect his surprise morning attacks he stopped doing them because they were no longer effective in upsetting me.

Keep your distance.  Bullies are the types that hurt the ones they love the most and those closest to them.  So don't get close to them.  Having a bully boss may be a good time to start working from home.  Be careful though because bullies place a premium on loyalty and severely punish anyone they perceive as disloyal.  So try to strike a balance between being loyal without getting too close.  Stay out of the kill zone.

You never know when ou are going to need a friend so maintain good relationships with everyone else.  Try to stay on good working terms with your peers and other managers in the organization. 

That bully program manager I had was brutal.  He thrived on teasing and belittling others.  He loved to go on the attack during meetings and usually singled out those who appeared weak.  I survived by being compliant, by keeping my distance, and by using humor to deflect his attacks.  It wasn’t easy though and his constant barrage of attacks took a toll on me.  I was relieved to finally be able to leave his organization when the chance came. 

The Paranoid

The profile of the paranoid is someone who is afraid, very afraid.  They don't trust others and suspect that everyone has their own personal agenda because the paranoid has an agenda.  They read malice into everything they see and imagine everyone to be focused on bringing them down. They keep track of every real and imagined hurt and are on the lookout for ways to pay back others.  A real life example is President Richard Nixon. 

Dealing with the Paranoid:

Like the Bully, the Paranoid may experience rapid swings of emotions.  Frequently fearful, they can also go on the attack with anger and rage at the slightest bit of perceived disloyalty.  Under no circumstances do you want to confront or attack the paranoid; they'll never forget it and will likely seek revenge long after you have forgotten.  Finally, it is important that you exercise your own emotional self-control and confidence.  Don't get sucked into fights you cannot win. 

One characteristic of the paranoid is that they try to suck the confidence from you. To remain confident, remind yourself of the things you have done well over the years to land in the position you are in. 

The Narcissist

The profile of the narcissist is someone who is obsessed with themself.  They think of their top three priorities as me, myself, and I.  While not as dangerous as the Bully or Paranoid, they can be incapable of thinking outside the box (that is, outside of themselves).  They may think nothing of asking you to do difficult, uncomfortable, or unacceptable things.   

Dealing with the Narcissist

When dealing with the narcissist, forget thinking about anything other than them.  They are the most important star in the universe.  In fact, it has been said that the only difference between a narcissist and God is that God doesn't think he is a narcissist. 

Bing advises readers to keep the narcissist comfortable, suck up as much as you can stomach, make them effective in spite of themselves and let them take all the credit for success.  It also helps to laugh at all their jokes and fawn over everything they do.  Playing hard to get is usually ineffective with a narcissist especially since there are likely plenty of others ready to suck up if you don’t.  There may even be a long line of suckups ready to win over the narcissist.

You can see all of these techniques and other winning strategies for dealing with Narcissists simply by watching the candidates on The Apprentice suck up to Donald Trump.  Or if your stomach can take it, go for the sleaze factor and watch desparate women do anything to win over Brett Michaels or Flavor Flav on their disgusting reality TV shows.  This is one situation where I feel you can learn a lot from TV.

The Wimp

The wimp is scared.  They feel overwhelmed with the demands of their job and their own feelings of insecurity and inadequacy.  They try to read the tea leaves to lean in the right direction.  They’ll also jump to take credit for an idea once it looks like a good one, whether or not they originated it, and they distance themselves from the bad ones.  They may be found hiding out in their office where no one will ask them what they are doing.

From an emotional intelligence standpoint, I don’t see any crime in being scared.  Warriors are scared!  We all feel fear; it’s what keeps us from doing things that get us killed.
It isn’t the fear that makes individuals wimps; it is a lack of courage.  The wimp lacks the courage to move through the fear to do the right thing, in spite of the consequences.

As a group, Bing doesn't believe that wimps are very threatening.  I have to disagree though with his characterization of President George H. W. Bush as a wimp; I thought Bush did a great job during the first Iraq war.  Now if he had said President Jimmy Carter, I would have quietly agreed with him even though I like Carter's post-presidency record.

My vote for wimp would be British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.  Which is actually a pretty wimpy vote considering he's long dead and his living relatives probably don't live anywhere close enough to be a threat to me.

Dealing with wimps is pretty straightforward.  You need to take the heat for any bad decisions or faulty plans.  You also need to show them your loyalty and love.  You won't be alone; others will want to do the same.  You will also need to look out for your career because the wimp certainly won't stick their neck out for you or promote your advancement.  Finally, though the wimp will be loathe to even recognize them let alone execute them, you need to bring forward the plans that are really needed.

I had an opportunity to have a wimp for an executive sponsor once.  Initially I thought it was OK that he never wanted to get involved in the project or meet with me.  Eventually I realized that it was hurting the project so I pushed for the meetings and his needed actions.  I had to continue to push him to take actions and it was a lot of work.  But because he was a wimp, he wouldn’t have done anything without that pushing.

The Disaster Hunter

The final type of crazy boss profiled in Bing's book is the disaster hunter.  The disaster hunter is a major accident waiting to happen.  They seek more of everything and their thirst will drive them toward brilliant failure.  They cannot contain their need for more power, sex, booze, and publicity.  Though they are successful, they thirst for more and are unable to exercise any form of self-control.  Telltale signs of the inevitable destruction are hysteria, depression, screwing up, rehab, sexual acting out, and workaholism. 

As a group, the disaster hunters can be exciting to be around if you can avoid the inevitable blowup that occurs when they flame out.  Don’t be surprised if they ignore your warnings or advice as they pursue destructive paths.

Many US politicians would be considered disaster hunters.  Bill Clinton is a likeable example of a disaster hunter; most of our congressman are less likeable yet equally disastrous (consider Tom Delay, Mark Foley, Ted Kennedy, and Larry Craig).  Bing also suggests GW Bush as an example and I have to agree, based on how Bush has pursued the war in Iraq.

Dealing with the disaster hunter is generally easier since they are often less personally threatening to you than a bully or a narcissist.  The major danger is that the disaster hunter flames out and takes you with them.  Bing advises readers to make plans for an escape route of some sort in the event the disaster hunter flames out.  If possible, maintain some distance between them and their agenda and your own. 

You might also help them to flame out if the opportunity presents itself to accelerate their departure.  Certainly do not provide them any sort of safe harbor or help them when they are on the decline.  Don’t look back.   Whatever happens, you’ll want to be calm in the face of the hysteria of the disaster hunter.

I had a peer manager some years ago that was a disaster hunter.  While not dangerous to me, his behavior certainly caused him problems.  He was on the fast track and though quite affable, he couldn’t contain his thirst for alcohol and women.  At an after work party one evening, he decided to hop on a motorcycle with another woman from work on the back.  He was severely impaired from drinking and he crashed the motorcycle which gave him a concussion and broke his pelvis and the back of his passenger.  That accident set him back but it didn’t stop his drinking.  Several years after that accident, he had a couple of DUIs and lost his license completely.  His career was no longer on the fast track and he quietly faded out.

Have you had a crazy lunatic boss?  I'd love to hear about your experiences, good and bad.

Working With Difficult People #01

One of the biggest workplace challenges for many of us is our relationships with others.  When I ask my workshop participants what are their biggest emotional intelligence challenges, most responses relate to dealing with difficult people.  Consider these common examples:

• Team members criticize each others performance to the PM
• Uppper management openly criticizes individuals in meetings
• An individual sends a flaming email that results in unnecessary swirl of activity
• A peer goes over your head to senior management without talking to you
• A team lead inflates their own value and devalues work of others

As project managers, we need the ability to effectively deal with lots of different types of people in order to be successful.  Whether or not we’ll find them difficult or not is a function of two factors.  The first is our skill level as project managers at dealing with different people.  The second factor is the style, personality, and manageability of the other person we are dealing with.

 

If we were to plot these two factors against each other, it might look something like the drawing below that shows project manager skill level vs. the difficulty level of the other.  We are at greatest risk (the red zone) when our own skill level is low and we are dealing with people who are very difficult.  The lowest risk is when we are skilled and the other person is not very difficult. 

It is important to appreciate the contribution of both of these factors.  By looking at and improving our own skill level, we empower ourselves to deal with others effectively.  If we ignore our own power and focus only on the other person, we will sound like a victim who is entirely at the mercy of others. 

But we aren't responsible for all the problems of working with difficult people of course.  There are some people who are hurt, broken, mean, manipulative, psychotic, and flawed.  The fact is that there are some people that are hard to manage for anyone.  To ignore that and assume we are so good at leading that it doesn’t matter would be both a denial of reality and a confidence bordering on narcissism. It is also unrealistic and impractical to think about changing others.  Instead, we will look at ways of managing others that is most likely to give us the result we want and need.

So in these posts on working with difficult people, we will focus on building our skills at influencing and leading all people.  We will also strive to understand the various ways that people may be difficult so that we can be prepared to recognize and deal with them.  It is quite similar to managing risks; we need to be aware of what can happen to our projects and prepare plans to deal with them. 

Some specific things we will be looking at include:

• What are the nuances of the different groups of people we need to manage (e.g. managers, technical people, sponsors, other PMs, vendors, other team members)?
• What are effective leadership strategies for managing or leading those different groups of people?
• How do we recognize different types of difficult people?
• How can we remain unruffled and graceful when dealing with people who are difficult?
• How do we choose effective responses to difficult people to move toward our goals?

Are you challenged by difficult people in the workplace?  I'd like to hear your comments and feedback.