Stop Pissing Me Off What to Do When the People You Work with Drive You Crazy (27 page)

Certainly, we don’t need to reveal everything at work or in any negotiation; that’s never smart. Yet, if we can be the first

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to open the door and be just a little bit vulnerable, we will witness miracles in our negotiations. In contrast, if we stay stuck on arguing for our positions, the conflict may never be managed creatively. The classic story used to illustrate this difference is about two sisters and an orange. Two sisters lived in an isolated house, far from any convenience store. They had only one orange in the house and they both believed they needed and wanted the orange. If they stay stuck on their position of “I want the orange,” the conflict is unlikely to be managed creatively.

They may decide to compromise—an idea that’s considered enlightened by many in our society. If they compromise in this situation, they might decide to cut the orange in half. Compromise frequently results in a very interesting situation: both parties end up with half of what they thought they wanted!

In contrast, if the sisters are willing to reveal their underlying needs and interests, they may be able to find a creative way to meet all of them. For example, why might someone need an orange? They might need one for cooking, juggling, making a pomander, painting a still life of fruit, or for many other reasons.

In this situation, if one sister wants the juice of an orange to bake a cake and the other wants to use the peel (the zest of the orange) to bake a muffin, they are both able to receive what they want—if they’re willing to be vulnerable enough to say why they want the orange.

Revealing our underlying needs frequently sparks creative solutions. If we’re concealing our true interests, it’s hard to fuel an innovative solution. In addition to being unwilling to be vulnerable, we may also fail to reveal our needs and interests because we fall in love with our solution; we become attached to our conclusion as the best or only way. Sometimes

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we even choose our friends based on our solutions. We favor only those who agree with us.

The following table shows some additional examples of positions, needs, and interests that may help you understand the difference.

PoSition

intereSt

You must stop chewing gum!

I need quiet. You pop too loud!

I have to transfer.

I need Jill to stop micromanaging.

Stop tel ing me what to do!

I need you to appreciate what I do right.

These advanced conflict techniques can help unstick a repetitive conflict. First, though, we need to make sure the parties are paying attention in the first place.

Five steps to get anyone to listen to what you have
to say

Sometimes it does need to be “all about us,” but first we need to make sure that we approach someone in the right way. Needing to be right, recycling conflicts, fighting about surface issues instead of those underlying, and failing to reveal our own underlying need or interest are all ways that doom us to failure. What we need to do instead is to make sure that we try something (anything!) different to get this much-needed attention.

The truth is, most people these days have modern ADD; what psychiatrist and author Edward Hallowell calls “a severe case of modern life.” Or what Linda Stone, the technologist who labeled the disease of the Internet age “continuous partial attention”—two people doing six things, devoting only partial attention to each one. As Stone points out, “We’re so acces|  208  |

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sible, we’re inaccessible. We can’t find the off switch on our devices or on ourselves. . . . We want to wear an iPod as much to listen to our own playlists as to block out the rest of the world and protect ourselves from all that noise. We are everywhere—except where we actually are physically.” Thomas Friedman, the
New York Times
columnist, calls this the “age of interruption.” He observes that he was much smarter when he could do only one thing at a time.

With all this noise, how do you catch someone’s attention?

Considering the inattentive age in which we live, here are five steps to make sure that people are actually listening to what you have to say:

1. Make sure that they (and you) turn off all cell phones,

“crack berries,” beeping watches, and small TVs on which they’re watching the pregame show. In my

seminars I always threaten to give any cell phones that beep, burp, or ring to my thirteen-year-old twins, who are dying for cell phones. “We’ll see,” I announce cheerfully, “how many minutes they can rack up in one week!” Use whatever means you have, whether it’s humor, threats (short of violence), or rewards, just make sure that you have their undivided and unplugged

attention.

2. Find out what they need to have in order to listen. An apology, a better time, or meeting at a coffee shop or bar instead of the office may all lead to more productive discussions. Find out what setting would be most comfortable for them. They may not have ever thought

about what they need to have in order to listen but everyone has something.

3. Find out what motivates them. You can ask and ask and ask but if there’s no motivation on their side, you

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will not get the results you need and want. You may

have to collect some intelligence to find out. Go ask Norma Know-It-All; every workplace has one. You

know Norma. She’s the person who always possesses

more information than she should about everyone’s promotions, office affairs, and facelifts. Your adversary may be motivated by understanding, help with a difficult project, a promise to fix her up with your brother, or your famous chocolate chip cookies.

4. Remind them of their promises. I hope that you’ve used the techniques in Chapter 6 to ask them to do what you want. If so, remind them of their promises

and state something such as, “You’ve agreed to this but it’s still not happening. What’s in the way of this?”

Warning:
Do not ask this question in a snippy tone of voice (you know, the one that drove your mother nuts). Ask in a kind and sincere way. Feigned confusion works well in these encounters. Make statements such as, “I’m puzzled why this hasn’t happened.” “I’m

confused by (whatever they did instead of what you asked.)”

5. Document the meeting and e-mail a summary of your discussion and agreement to them. Also send it to your (or their) supervisor if that person has been involved.
if you Must escalate, do it with style

Once you’ve tried all these last-ditch conflict techniques, then, and only then, should you escalate. Sometimes, you do need to appeal to a higher authority: your manager, HR, the president of the company, or whomever. When you do, make sure that

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you’ve tried everything else first, and, most important, that you’ve documented all these attempts. After each conversation in which you try to resolve the problem, for example, send your combatant an e-mail confirming what you discussed and what he or she agreed to do. So that you don’t sound like a nag, try to do it in a friendly, upbeat style such as this: “Just so I don’t forget, here’s what I think we agreed upon. I’m very spacy these days, so I like to write things down so that I remember.”

Remember, the one person in the room that it’s always safe to make fun of is yourself.

When you document all incidents of bad behavior of your workplace nemeses, be specific, not conclusory. You want to document specific verifiable facts, not opinions, biases, or assumptions. How do you know that something is verifiable?

I like to suggest that it has sensory detail: something you heard, saw, touched, or smelled. If it’s something someone said, document that in quotes. It’s a fact, for example, that Jerry came to you and said “Sue sexually harassed me too.” It’s not a fact if you write down “Sue sexually harassed Jerry,”
unless
you observed that happening.

Without documentation, you really don’t have much of a chance these days taking things to HR or your manager. Everyone is documenting, so HR expects a paper or e-mail trail. When I conduct workplace investigations these days, I’m always amazed at what employees are documenting. I sometimes wonder how they could possibly get any work done; all they’re doing is documenting! I always advise managers that they need to document as well so that they win the war of documentation. They don’t want to end up with the employees having better documentation than they do.

Here are some examples of the difference between conclusory and specific, verifying documentation:

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concluSorY

SPecific/verifiABle

Betsy’s attitude sucks.

Betsy refused to talk to me yesterday.

Betsy’s a witch.

Betsy threw a file at me when I asked for

my reimbursement.

Betsy needs to adjust her

Betsy was laughing hysterical y and

medication.

jumped up and down on her desk with

no clothes on when I walked in on Friday.

Be sure to note the date and time the specific behavior occurred, and whether there was a witness.

Before you approach your higher authority, make sure that you review your organization’s policies on complaints. You may be required to present your concerns to a specific person or in a specific format. Your policy should state that your complaints will be handled confidentially and that you’ll be protected from retaliation. If your policy doesn’t include this kind of protection, you may want to consult an attorney or your state’s fair labor practices board or fair employment and housing board first. When you do sit down with HR or your manager with your complaint, try to stay unemotional. Present the facts and make a specific doable request: something that person can do, not something that resides within someone else’s authority. Don’t ask, for example, for them to allow you to present your reimbursement requests to someone else if Betsy is the only employee in accounting. Don’t ask to be transferred to another office if you know the CEO has frozen all transfer requests. Try to convince your supervisor or HR to agree upon the follow-up or next steps. Ask when you can expect them to get back to you. Follow up with an e-mail thanking them for listening and telling them that you look forward to whatever resolution they’ve suggested.

It’s not always easy to know what we need, and because of that, the exercise of documenting specific facts can sometimes challenge us. We’re more adept at whining than really articulating

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our underlying needs. We need to break this cycle and talk about what we do want, not what we don’t want.

Also—and this can’t be reiterated enough—you
must
have these conversations in person, not through e-mail. If the individual works in another location use the phone, but you at least need to wait to start talking until you have a live voice at the other end of the phone. Then follow up with an e-mail or letter summarizing your conversation in writing.

consulting outside authorities

At some point in this process, you may want to consult an outside attorney, your union representative, your state’s fair labor practices board, the Workers’ Compensation Commission, or the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Even if you decide not to pursue a claim through these agencies, you may want to seek their advice first. Most of these agencies have publications and online resources that explain your specific rights in different situations. If you decide to consult a private attorney for advice, seek a referral from your state bar association. Attorneys are very specialized these days; you want someone who specializes in employee, not management, issues.

Be aware that you can seek an attorney’s advice for a specific question in confidence, without your employer becoming aware that you’ve done so. When you call to set up an appointment, find out what the attorney’s fee is for a specific amount of time and make sure that he or she has agreed to that before you begin the meeting.

Attorneys are bound to confidentiality. They can also advise you as you complain to and negotiate with your employer, without revealing that they’re ever involved. Sort of like your own private wizard!

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Before you talk with any of these outside authorities, you may want to do your own legal research on your rights and responsibilities. I’ve listed some reliable sources in the Resources section (Appendix A) of this book. If, for example, your workplace difficulties involve workers’ compensation claims, wage and hour disputes, or discrimination, it helps to be educated before you complain. Knowledge is power in these situations.

If all of these efforts also fail, you may want to just walk on, which is the subject of the next chapter.

your