Coping with Difficult Coworkers

Alrighty. So let's go ahead and get started. Welcome to today's presentation on dealing with problem co workers. I'm your host, Dr. Donnellice Snipes. Now, there are a lot of different varieties of what we call difficult co workers. And we're going to hit nine of the more common, challenging behaviors that we see in the, that we see in the workplace. But first, let's start talking about, or let's start it off by talking about what can we do about it? And then we will analyze each behavior. First, remember, that behavior is communication. So we want to ask ourselves, if this person is behaving this way, what is the benefit to them? Is it giving them a sense of power? Is it a way that they're trying to make themselves indispensable? Is it getting them attention? What is it that, in what way do they benefit from it? Because we don't do things that don't have a benefit. And sometimes our behavior communicates that we may be feeling a threat. So we're reacting with anxiety or anger. But we also want to ask ourselves, is this new? Is this a new behavior for this person? You may have been working with somebody for 15 years and all of a sudden they start developing some challenging behaviors. They may be more nitpicky. They may seem to be, you know, shirking their work and not doing their fair share. And if it's new, you want to ask yourself, I wonder what triggered that? Explore behavior. From a curious standpoint, it's a whole lot easier to do it than to do it that way, than to just kind of run yourself into a brick wall going, I hate this behavior. I don't understand it. Well, step back, hypothesize, express empathy and compassion, empathize with that person. Think about, you know, what must it be like to be in their head for them to act that way? Is it scary? Is it dark? Is it lonely? Is it, you know, what's going on Now? Sometimes you might recognize some of your co workers behaviors or even some of your own behaviors as that inner child coming out. And if we have a wounded inner child, which a lot of people do, that hasn't gotten to the point where it feels secure, where there are still issues with that negative inner voice, that constant criticism, feelings of fear of rejection or abandonment, then that person may react from that child's point of view. So they may react in a very primitive or childlike way, throwing a tantrum, being a bully instead of handling it with their grown up skills. Empathy and compassion can go a long way. Because when we empathize with somebody, when we think, how dark is it in their head? You know, it's harder to stay angry with them and easier to have pity. And that at least changes our emotional tune. People act and react based on prior experiences and their current schema. Remember, schema is a shortcut that our brain uses to help anticipate what's going to happen. We have schema for stoplights. We know based on the schema that if the light is yellow, then it is quickly going to turn red. If it turns green, that kind of throws us for a loop. So our schema help us predict the world. Unfortunately, a lot of us have schema that are outdated. It's schema that was accurate a year ago, five years ago, 10 years ago. But in this situation, in this context, at this point in time, it's not 100% accurate. So somebody maybe may be reacting based on outdated schema. And it's not your place, it's not your job to help them, you know, fix their schema or adjust their schema. But it is important to understand they may be reacting because in the past, when they've been in similar situations they were in, you know, they felt threatened, they felt anxious about something. We often recreate our family of origin at work. And whether you like it or not, a lot of times that's what happens. And if you sit back and you think about your family of origin and you think about the people you work with, you know, are there similarities in how you act and react to people based on. On the way you acted and reacted to different people in your family of origin? It's human, you know, it's part of those schema. If we are reminded of somebody, if somebody reminds you of your Aunt Betty and you really loved your Aunt Betty, then you may really get along with this person. You may feel, you know, some sort of a kissment with them from. From jump because they remind you of your Aunt Betty. Likewise, if you didn't get along with Aunt Betty, as soon as you see somebody that reminds you of her, you may have an instant dislike or an instant frustration because those feelings you have towards Aunt Betty are coming out towards this person. So we do want to recognize projection. We also want to recognize it works in reverse. We may remind them of somebody from their past, and sometimes their reaction to us is based on that projection and based on their feelings about that person in the past and not about us. They're just having difficulty separating it. That can help us deal with how we feel. It doesn't necessarily mean those interactions are going to get much easier. But if we can recognize that it's not about us, then it can be a little bit easier to take a deep breath and not personalize. They may not be aware of their behavior or its impact on you. It's really important to remember some people grew up in very toxic environments where it was common within the family, within their relatives, within their friends to be negative, gossipy, undermining, jealous, competitive, you know, all the things we're fixing to talk about. So the person may think that that is perfectly standard behavior, and they may not realize how it impacts other people who aren't used to that. You can sometimes assertively state your boundaries objectively, identify what's going on, and use I statements. You know, all of that goes with assertiveness. If somebody is gossiping, for example, you know, saying something like when you. When I'm in the. In the break room and I hear you talking about, you know, all the stuff that's going on in Sally's life, it makes me very uncomfortable. So when I hear it, this is how it impacts me. Now they can choose what to do about that. If you say, when I hear you gossiping, it makes me very uncomfortable. That's not objective that somebody may not recognize what they're doing as gossip. So it's important to identify that behavior if you're going to have this discussion. Roll with resistance. Don't get baited. Sometimes people will ask you these leading questions because they want to get information that they can use against you. Sorry, it's the way it is. So be aware of people's. What they may do, their tendencies, but also make sure that you are putting your best foot forward and kind of jumping down to model the behavior you want to see and think before you speak. Is it truthful, helpful, inspirational, necessary and kind? Sometimes it's better to say nothing. Sometimes it's possible to say something positive. You know, sort of one of those halfway things, embracing the dialectics, if you will. But do be aware that anything you say, you know, can be used against you. Model the behavior you want to see. If you don't want to see gossiping, don't gossip if it frustrates you when people are hostile and negative and pessimistic and complaining all the time. Well, pay attention to when you may be doing that because it's important. We all get into a funk occasionally, and we may want to complain, but it's important to be aware of our behaviors as well as recognize what do you want someone to do I mean, there are going to be times when you or your co workers disagree with something that's going on and that's, you know, perfectly legitimate. The question is, what do you do after you complain? You know, if you state the problem okay now and my old boss used to have a rule, if you're going to come to me, we with a problem, you need to come to me with a solution. And that's really what I always tried to model for my staff was whenever I would bring a problem to them, I would also bring a couple of solutions. I would ask for solutions in order instead of just sitting there and being unhappy. I'm like, okay, mindful awareness, non judgmental awareness. I don't like the situation. What can I do to improve the next moment? And ultimately sometimes you need to remove yourself from the situation. Now you may not be able to do it 100% of the time, but if somebody is in the break room gossiping and it bothers you, you may find it is better for your mental health to remove yourself from the situation. If there is a particular colleague co worker that you have difficulty with or that has difficulty with other people, you may try to minimize your contact with that person. I've worked in places before where there have been people that have been challenging to work with and I had to work with them occasionally, but when I didn't have to work with them, you know, I gave them a wide berth. That's how I handled it because they happen to be like above me on the, on the chain of command. So you know, they were going to be there and I had to accept that and say, okay, this is not how I would like things to be. I wish things could be different. However, how can I improve the next moment? What can I do for me to make this situation more tolerable? So let's talk really quickly about the nine difficult co worker types that I identified. So the person who's negative, hostile or complaining, often that indicates that they feel exhausted, overwhelmed, disempowered, maybe even unsafe. But a lot of times disempowered and encouraging them to take it to the next step. You know, I hear you're frustrated about this. What are some solutions can be helpful, especially if you have to share an office with that person or something. If you're around them when they're being negative or complaining, not reinforcing, not feeding into that behavior and giving it a lot of undue attention and continuing to, continuing to empathize can be important too. Empathy is great, but we need to figure Out. Okay. Mindful, non judgmental acceptance of the present moment. Now, how do we improve the next moment? And if they don't want to go to the next step, then you may remove yourself. Choose to remove yourself from that discussion if possible. If you're in a staff meeting and somebody is doing that, you probably can't get up and leave the staff meeting. So it's important to recognize that you can only control your behavior and your reaction to their behavior. So you may have to develop some distress tolerance skills that you can use in that staff meeting in order to get through it so you don't get yourself stressed out because other people are feeling negative and disempowered about something. Gossiping is really common and sometimes it can. People can feel like they're doing it out of the goodness of their heart. You know, did you hear about what happened to so and so, which is where think comes in? You know, is this necessary to. Well, obviously, is it true? And is this something that's even necessary to talk about if somebody's significant other was injured or hospitalized or something? Yes, you might want to alert people to what's going on, but then figure out how to help them instead of talking about all the ramifications or why you think that happened to happen to them. So defining for yourself what gossiping looks like and you know, obviously avoiding that yourself, but recognizing that gossiping often gives people a sense of power when they gossip about someone, when they are telling their dirty little secrets or when whatever, gossip is usually not nice. And gossiping is often a response to a threat. The person feels threatened by you if they're gossiping about you for some reason. And that is how they deal with it. Now remember, some people just grew up in a environment where gossip was what happened. And it may not be malicious, it may just be be what they do and not saying that it's right. But it's important in my mind when I'm trying to deal with something like that to differentiate, because I feel less frustrated when it's not intentionally malicious than I do when somebody's gossiping intentionally to either undermine me or be a bully or whatever. So jealousy is one of those reasons that people may try to undermine you. They may try to gossip about you. They also may try to gossip or try to undermine you if they're overly competitive. I remember when I used to work in Community Behavioral Health, once a month all of the departments would get together and we would have to share our, our stats on our dashboards. And that was something of a competitive Sort of thing. And sometimes departments that weren't doing so well would make a point of directing the conversation to what other people failed to do instead of what they failed to do. So it's important to recognize, you know, why those behaviors are coming out, you know, and in those cases, they weren't taking ownership because they didn't meet their goals. The bullies. Bullies are often, not always, are often either feeling threatened by you or again, it's how they were. Have always been. They have been taught that they can be bullies and they get their own way. When you do something and you regularly get rewarded for it, then guess what, you're going to keep doing it. So it is important to examine what's the benefit for the bully and how it impacts you. And then, all right, if somebody's being a bully, what do you need to do? What do you need for your own safety and empowerment? And sometimes, especially with workplace bullies, it's important to get human resources or your supervisor involved. Sometimes it can be handled by having an assertive conversation with the person. It really depends. But ultimately you need to feel safe. And if you're in an environment where there is a bully or bullies, you're probably not going to feel safe. Nitpicking can also be a characteristic of difficult co workers. Where your co worker always has some, some sort of constructive feedback goes back to that. Think again. Is it truthful? Maybe. Is it helpful what they have to say? Maybe. Are they saying it in a way that's inspirational? Okay, maybe. Is it necessary? And that n is what gets us a lot of times, because a lot of times it's better to be silent. You know, as my mother used to say, pick your battles. So nitpicking again. Examine, step back and examine. What's the benefit to this person of being nitpicky? Maybe they truly feel like they're trying to help you. And if so, it can be helpful to have a conversation with them in private and, and help them understand, you know, your feelings and where you're coming from. And what would be more helpful instead of them giving you constant or semi constant nitpicky feedback, maybe identifying the things that they could work on. And then you can have a meeting once a week. Trying to find a solution to that behavior can also be helpful. The work shirker is the one who is on the teams and it often doesn't get their part done and everybody else picks up their slack. And that can be very frustrating. It's important to figure out, you know, how are you going to deal with this? Ideally, your supervisor is aware of what's going on, but. And helping to intervene and make sure everything gets done. But it's also important sometimes, sometimes to allow that person to experience the natural consequences of their behavior. You know, everybody else gets their part of the project done and that part's not done. But you've got to also reflect on how's that going to work for you. So work shirking can be really challenging because if a project doesn't get done in totality, it still may reflect negatively on you. So they've kind of got you backed into a corner. Another thing you can do with the work shirker is examine why are they shirking their work? Maybe they're really bad at time management, or maybe what they're being asked to do is overwhelming to them. My son just had to do a project for his class and it involved doing a presentation. And he does not like doing presentations at all. And he found every excuse in the book not to do that presentation. And it was important for me. When I finally, you know, sat him down and I'm like, okay, dude, the class is pass fail. You know, you don't have to get it perfect, you just have to pass it, knowing good and well that he's probably not going to do presentations in his future career. And then also just acknowledging how overwhelming and frustrating it felt for him. But looking at why is the person, and you know, I don't like this word resistant. You know, what is keeping them from moving forward? Do they not have the skills? Do they, Are they afraid of getting started? Do they not manage time? Well, what's going on and how can we help them get started? For a lot of work shirkers, or people who have difficulty getting things done, maybe they don't do it intentionally. Time management is usually a big thing. And with my staff, that used to be a really big thing for a couple of them for getting their documentation done. So, yeah, in those cases it was important for me as the manager or as the team leader to micromanage a little bit. And then finally the boundaryless coworker, the one that comes in and tells you everything and kind of expects you to tell them everything back. Obviously, you know, that is a interaction style that they have learned. They didn't probably didn't just pick it up in order to interact with you. So they probably don't have wonderful boundaries. And, and it may be important to again, calmly, compassionately, assertively state your boundaries, model your boundaries and help them, you know, Recognize what's appropriate for interacting with you, and it's okay to say, you know, I really am not comfortable hearing about that. So the boundaryless co worker can also be something to deal with. You also have the boundaryless co workers that want to know every detail of your life. You know, who. Who's your partner, what did you do on Saturday, what are you doing this weekend, blah, blah, blah. They just, they really want to know you and be your bestest buddy. And that can be great at a certain point with certain people. But if it's somebody who you just met or somebody who you don't feel comfortable with, you know, there's obviously that building of trust and relationships that's really important in order to allow somebody to come into a closer boundary. Because we all have those, you know, different levels. We have the strangers, the people we know, occasionally in the community, you know, and. And so on and so forth. And each one we often have different boundaries for. So those are some strategies to start addressing difficult co workers. Again, go back to behavior as communication, empathize, get curious, and then ask yourself, you know, recognizing that you cannot change another person, you can only change your reaction. What is it that you can do in this unpleasant situation to improve the next moment? Okay, so I saw a few questions come in. And workplace situations can change. For example, when you have an audit coming in or something, that used to be big for us in behavioral health, tensions would go really high and people's behaviors would change, and they may start becoming, you know, exhibiting behaviors that they don't usually exhibit. You want to examine triggers in the workplace and see if there's something that's going on, but also recognizing that the problems people have in the workplace are probably the same problems they have in the larger community, and let that give you a little bit of insight, empathy, compassion. Hello, Janine, and welcome to Silver. We're glad to have you as a member. Thank you, Lisa. How can a person be guided into taking positive action if that person strongly believes that inaction is their safest choice? We can't control other people, unfortunately. But what you are recognizing is one of the characteristics of pre contemplation. People have sometimes don't have the skills. They sometimes don't have the insight. They sometimes are afraid to get started because they're afraid of failure, or they're afraid of losing control because they feel like they're being told what to do. The other thing that we need to remember is that we always have choices. We can change the situation. We can change how we feel about the situation, we can do nothing and continue to stay miserable. And unfortunately for some people, miserable is what they know and they're more comfortable with that. So we also want to ask ourselves, in what way do they feel unsafe stepping out of what they know, stepping out of their comfort zone? And how can we, if we want to nudge them along the way, increase motivation? You know, how can we be supportive to them and help them feel safe and empowered doing that? And maybe action as we define it is not the same as they define it. So it's important to go from their perspective and saying, all right, based on how you feel in the moment, what do you think could improve the next moment? What's one small step that would help you feel safer, more empowered, happier, and then moving forward, moving forward from there. A lot of people have grown up in situations in which inaction was back at, back when they were younger was safer. You know, maybe they grew up in a household with an addicted family member. Well, the, the bylaws of the addicted family are don't talk, don't trust, don't feel. So inaction was a safer choice when they were a child, when they couldn't fend for themselves. So they may have some outdated skills schema you may explore if you know this person really well. Now obviously this isn't co workers. This is, you know, in, in your personal life, if you know this person really well, you may kind of think to yourself, in what ways was it unsafe for them to be proactive or to be empowered in the past and how is it different now? And help them start seeing how they're more empowered and able to make changes. But a lot of it is really going to be on them to, as we say in recovery, reach their bottom. They get tired of being miserable and they decide, you know what, I'm tired of being unhappy. I do want a change. And unfortunately, Christine, you're right. In a lot of workplaces, not all by any means, but in a lot of workplaces, things can be very competitive and people are out for themselves. Thankfully, in behavioral health, that doesn't seem to be nearly as prominent. But in, in retail, in finance, in a lot of different things where people have accounts where people make it or break it based on what they do, there is a lot of competition and it can be, unless it's managed well, it can be a very hyper competitive, dysfunctional environment. Alrighty everybody. Well, thank you for being with me today and I will see you next week, same time, same st. Remember, come and bring questions that you have for me. They don't necessarily have to be related to the topic because I picked the topic like, an hour before we go live. But feel free to bring your questions and I will do my best to answer them at the end of the live presentation. So everybody, have a great day. Have a fabulous weekend. Be safe, be healthy, and and be content.