Workplace communication - "If you REALLY..."

Imagine before you a small child and a parent – the child is exploring notions of power. How much they have of it, where it begins and ends – not that they’d call it that or be aware of it, but for all intents and purposes that’s what it is.

The small child says, possibly with not much hope of success: “If you REALLY loved me, you’d buy me a pony.”

The parent, taken by surprise, wonders if they’re doing a good job of this parenting thing, may feel guilty for working long hours and not giving quality time to their child. Desperately wanting to be loved, the parent may not spare a thought about the pattern that could begin to evolve if they immediately satisfy the request and those that will inevitably follow. (I certainly don't mean to imply that life will be forever fraught if you give a child a gift, mostly things are fine!)

The child, grows into a young teenager and is asked to help with household chores, specifically to hang out the washing. Possibly embarrassed to be seen hanging out her mother’s bras and her father’s jocks, but more importantly having learnt to manipulate by trading on love, says in a plaintive, pleading tone (which she’s learnt tugs at her mothers heartstrings and brings the desired result): “If you REALLY loved me, I wouldn’t have to do chores and could go play with the other girls.”

Fast forward a couple of years. The youngster, now of driving age, and fully conscious of the power he holds, it having been reinforced time and time again, uses the proven technique: “If you REALLY loved me you’d buy me a car.”

Lo and behold, there’s a lovely new (to him) car. But, horror of horrors, one night he comes home late, slightly under the weather, with the car dented and bent. He says to a parent: “If you REALLY loved me, you’d tell the insurance company you were driving, so I’m not penalised.”

Obviously what follows isn’t predetermined. This kind of power hunger certainly won't happen to everyone, but for some people,  they feel alive and strong when they can manipulate others with language. Feeding this type of addiction to power can become an end in itself. If the person is a bully, this can be disastrous for those caught up in the web.

In the workplace:
The words evolve to be more appropriate for the workplace, but the desire to manipulate others and watch how they respond and capitulate remains. “If you REALLY cared about this department you’d: “work unpaid overtime/not agitate for a pay rise/not lodge a complaint about bullying/sexual harassment.” In fact, the manipulation can be in any sphere and cover many different scenarios.

For those of us brought up to be “good” people, to not rock the boat, and to respect authority, this form of psychological game playing can be very hard to resist. Of course you care about your workplace and the department!

How to respond:
The best exchange I witnessed was so simple, so effective that it’s stuck with me for years. The target, (I’ll call her Jenny and come back to her later on) simply responded to the “If you REALLY …” statement with a calm: “That’s an interesting point of view, I’ll take it on board.” And went on with what she had been doing. This was so simple, so effective as to leave the chronically manipulative co-worker temporarily without words. (And between you and me, looking mildly foolish.)

Sadly, what is simple is not necessarily easy.

The difficulty can be to become aware of the pattern of manipulation. It’s helpful to clarify the scenarios where you get “trapped” so you are aware of them. As the Scouts and Guides say “Be prepared”.
The attacker wants and expects a result. Some want you to squirm and justify your actions, others want to waste your time. Some are bullies. Rarely are they interested in a rational, mature discussion.

Harmless fun?
I once had a co-worker; I’ll call him Tom. He was fun and efficient to work with, but had a dreadful habit of baiting another co-worker who I’ll call James. Tom would deliberately bait James with the tried and tested words “If you REALLY cared about the environment you’d get solar panels installed and get all your windows double glazed. “ Tom didn’t do this maliciously, but simply for the sport of seeing James get totally wound in knots trying to justify how his home was heated and cooled.

James would become flustered and go quite red in the face. Tom just sat there dropping in a word here and there, a bit like a fisherman winding in a fish. At the end of the embarrassing experience when James had been unable to justify why his home wasn’t powered with solar cells, and had flounced off, Tom would look at his watch with satisfaction and announce how much time James had spent on this fruitless exchange. This happened time and time again with Tom gleefully keeping a tally of the time wasted.

Some verbal bullies are like ravenous sharks feeding on your  responses.

As an observer, it was hard to know how, or even if, it was possible, to prevent James getting caught. James took the bait, AND the hook, line and sinker. Repeatedly.

Does James care about the environment? Yes, desperately. Does this mean he needs to justify his decisions about solar panels to Tom? No, not at all. Tom isn’t interested in the reasoning and doesn’t want a mature discussion. As I’ve said, he’s initiated the ‘conversation’ for a very different reason.

What could James have done? James consistently gave his attacker Tom, exactly what he wanted and expected. As well as feeding Tom’s feeling of power, by taking the bait, James was agreeing with the implication that he didn’t care about the environment.

How would my friend Jenny who you met earlier have responded? I suspect she would have stuck to her line: “That’s an interesting point, I’ll take it on board.” If James had learnt to say something like this, even after a history of being trapped in an ever tightening circle of half finished, awkward sentences, Tom would have had little room to manouvre.

Some other possible responses could go along the lines of: “Of course I care about the environment, I’ve got some brochures to look at and am comparing solar options.” And then James casually wanders off not waiting for Tom’s reply.

Or perhaps, “Yes, of course I care about the environment, there’s a lecture at the local college next week, would you like the information so you can attend?” Your tone of voice won’t be dripping with sarcasm and it shouldn’t come out as a put down. You are simply, respectfully replying, adult to adult, as if the initial bait was an honest request for information.

Elgin in ‘The Gentle Art of Verbal Self Defense at Work’ (p118-9) says: “What the verbal abuser wants is the confrontation. The scene. The fight. The row.” She goes on to say that the abuser doesn’t want to be ignored, but “wants your full and undivided attention. The bait itself is trivial to verbal abusers, (and it is) valued only for its potential to provoke you”. “They care about demonstrating that they have power over you and can control your behaviour”.

“Therefore, anytime you take the bait in a verbal attack and participate in the verbal violence loop, you are letting them get away with it.”

If something like this has happened to you on more than one occasion, identify the themes that catch you and rehearse your responses with someone you trust. It might feel awkward to change a pattern, but the benefit will be well worth while.

All the above are true stories in which I've been involved in some way.

You might find the related post "How to say 'No' graciously" interesting. It's here.

Suzette Haden Elgin's web site on Verbal Self Defense is here.
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Workplace communication – teams, games and sport.

I’ve been reading Susan Haden Elgin’s “The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense at Work”, (Prentice-Hall 2000) not an easy read, but very interesting.

Elgin is writing about business communication and mentions the fact that dominant adult males control most of the power in America and that many of us spend large amounts of time interacting with dominant adult males. (I have no reason to think things have changed since 2000 or are significantly different in Australia.) She explains that “… most American men today define anything that involves negotiation as a game, at least temporarily, and they switch to gameplaying behaviour for the duration of the negotiation.”

She states that women, other nationalities and different ethnic groups don’t always agree on the meaning of ‘negotiation’ or understand the terminology of gameplaying behaviour and that this leads to massive communication breakdowns in many business settings.

What is your experience at work? Certainly in the workplaces I’ve been in, gameplaying terminology is prevalent. Such comments as “The ball’s in your court”, “Are we all on the same team here?” “We’ll get some runs of the board with this one”, “Don’t waste the play”, “That meeting was a bit of a free for all” or “Good play”, are commonplace.

Often there are a lot of non-verbal signals too, with the action of passing a ball to others at a meeting to denote the next person to speak. There are visual gags and asides that leave the non-initiated perplexed, out of it and wondering what on earth is going on.

Sometimes it’s even more pronounced with the expectation that personnel will attend football, tennis and cricket matches and entertain clients at these venues on weekends and in the evening. If this fills you with dread or loathing, perhaps you and that particular workplace aren’t entirely suited.

I want to make three points relating to games, sports and teams.

Firstly: What does the word game mean to you? Is it something light-hearted and perhaps trivial? Did you love sport at school? Or was it a time of purgatory? Does it matter one way or the other if you win or lose? How do you view the language of games?

Are games to be taken seriously, to be won, do they mean something to you? If they do to everyone but you in the office, what will the effect be? If you’re not speaking the same language, how does this affect your workplace dynamics?

If we don’t understand or relate to the language that is being used, where does that leave us?

Secondly:  How do significant people at your workplace use game playing terminology? Does it pepper their speech? Are you talking the same language? Do you know how they view games? Do they love team sports or do they prefer non-team sports? How does a boss’s love of sport, the fact that he or she takes sport extremely seriously affect everyday work interactions and negotiations?

Do you like being part of a group or team?

Thirdly: How do you view team sports?
I listened to an interview a while ago where two groups were debating the benefit of team sports at school. They were rational adults, full of goodwill and respect for the ‘opposition’, but it was glaringly obvious that they simply couldn’t (not wouldn’t but couldn’t) understand the perspective of the other side.

Those in favour of team sport were adamant about the many benefits of belonging to a team that weren’t easily achievable elsewhere. They talked about the pleasure of belonging, being part of a team (that word again) working towards achieving something together, of having a goal, focus, discipline and purpose. They revelled in the joy of winning! Their entire lives, on field and off, were viewed in a sporting context.

Those against spoke about the pain of not being chosen, of being reluctantly included when the Phys Ed teacher insisted, of being clumsy, not fitting in and of being perplexed about the rules, confused and uncomfortable. They remembered doing anything to get out of dreaded sport at school, forging notes, faking illness - anything to avoid the humiliation of participating. I think it is fair to say they abhorred sport and everything to do with it.

Neither side understood the others perspective, they weren’t being difficult, there was simply a deep gulf separating them.

How do these perceptions, prejudices and beliefs about teams carry into the workplace where sporting terminology and game playing is prevalent? If you hated sport at school, how does that affect you in a workplace? How does your disinterest and lack on knowledge affect the sport lovers?

What do the words team sports mean to you? What images thoughts and feelings arise? “ Be a good sport” (and do something you don’t want to do) “It’s not winning, but how you play the game”, “Don’t be a sore loser”, “This game is for the boys, we don’t want sissies here”, “It’s a bit of a boy’s club here”, “Can’t take the rough and tumble?” (said in a derisive tone)

You might like sport but prefer to work alone.

If you don’t like games and have residual negative feelings regarding team sports, could this affect your body language when the terminology is used in a work setting? How does this affect others?

Like Elgin, I firmly believe effective workplace communication matters. When the terms are unfamiliar and come from the world of sport and games, which not everyone is familiar with, mis-communication can and will take place. Expectations about roles can, as Elgin says, lead to outright confusion and clashes; there will be hurt, baffled and angry people. Unlike her, my experience is that both men and women can be alienated by game terminology - personality type is more relevant than a division along gender lines.

It’s a bit like being in a foreign country for those who aren’t natural games people. They don’t understand the terminology. At best, they may watch and listen with curiosity, but it’s a closed book, which needs courteous, patient, respectful explanation.

Some turn tail and run when team sports are mentioned.

I believe it’s incumbent on both sides, whether male or female and of whatever nationality or ethnic group to work hard to communicate maturely and clearly in terms the other can relate to and understand.

I also believe it’s incumbent for all people involved to listen to any questions or confusion with your whole attention, without interruption or derisive, insulting comments.

It makes good business sense to get the best from the WHOLE workforce without alienating those who are not in the “in group”. It is simply good manners to try to communicate clearly and to work at it ‘till you succeed.


One last thought: If you don't understand team sports and games, does that necessarily make you a poor employee where gameplaying behaviour is prevalent? Is there a place for all personality types which makes for a richer work environment?


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Happiness tip - Move!

Have you thought of having 'Happy hour' at home? Not the Friday afternoon one, guzzling cheap wine and warm beer (no offence meant to my British readers), but something a lot more personalised.

I'm referring more to doing something for yourself, something that makes you feel special and which supports your values. It doesn't have to be a major change to your routine or even take a whole hour.

I've been pulled up short a couple of times recently by friends who have ever so tactfully pointed out that I'm not practicing what I preach.

One of the things I value is feeling healthy, but I wasn't allowing any time for exercise. Not good Sue.

Movement other than from desk to car and back again had gone by the board. I'm not keen on sport and don't like gyms - but I knew I had to do something, or my poor little body was going to seize up or atrophy or something horrible. I know exercise is good for my brain, I know it's good for my body, I know I feel better when I move - but I hadn't made it a priority in my daily schedule.

If I truly value feeling healthy I need to allow that value space to flourish. It simply can't happen if I crowd the day with other stuff (including work).  But how to squeeze it in to an already full day? Happy hour for the body? It's a good ideal and might work for some, but nope, that's not going to happen for me, not every day - that would end in frustration, failure and feeling defeated.

But what I can do is start where I am, and take small, achievable steps, non threatening tiny steps, in the general direction of my value.

What I've done is set my phone alarm for twice a day to remind me to move. The alarm is a chirpily sweet bingly beep, it's lighthearted and cheerful to remind me that exercise is possible and achievable NOW! 2 or 3 minutes doesn't sound much, but it's in the direction of a core value and that's good, right? Happy minutes for my body, brain and spirit!

I've been moving more (could this be called exercise?) for a couple of months now and it's not scary or intimidating. I can do 2 or even 3 minutes (stop laughing!) and sometimes more. I have a small wooden box, just the right height to step up and down, up and down - 20 reps, twice a day, and then some twisty things to help my middle become more mobile. I know I need to keep it up for a bit longer for it to become a habit, but it's very much part of my routine, equal to brushing my teeth after meals - not a chore, not disliked, just there to be done.

The benefits so far:
a) I haven't noticed any particular loss of time from other things (like work).
b) I feel generally better physically and more energised and alive after even this small amount of movement.
c) I feel good about myself - I'm supporting a core value and feel good at achieving my simple goals.
d) I was able to walk and walk and walk in China, up steepish inclines, along rough tracks, for kilometres around Shanghai with no stiffness at all. Now, that was a real benefit and far better than any commercial 'Happy hour'. I could so easily have said: "Oh, 2 minutes is nothing, it's not worth doing". It was a direct, tangible benefit ... yippee!!

Have you been ignoring any core values that would enjoy being nurtured for a few minutes each day?

Could you spend time reflecting on your thoughts and feelings, relaxing or being mindful? 

How will you benefit?

Ping An - looking up - lots of steps! The terraces contained rice
and a wide variety of vegetables.

Ping An. Is it possible there were less
downward steps? We seemed to get back very quickly.

More China reflections over at Jumping aground.
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Stepping on an aphorism - or not?

Seen woven into a carpet in a Shanghai restaurant:

The darkest places in hell 

are reserved for those

who maintain their

neutrality in times of

moral crisis

or not

Shanghai

What do you think?

More photos and comments about my recent trip to China are over at Jumpingaground.
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Making space in a crowded schedule

Has anyone else noticed how easy it is to give sound advice to others, but how hard it is to take that advice yourself?

I’ve mentioned before how important good sleep, healthy diet, adequate exercise, mindfulness and hanging out with friends are for general wellbeing. Of course I know these things are equally, if not more important to pursue when things aren’t going so well. Having said that, it’s then that they seem to go down the gurgler.

A local employer, BlueScope Steel at Hastings, has recently laid off 270 people, and I’ve been involved in the services offered to help these employees retrain and find future employment, all of which I am not only good at, but thoroughly enjoy. I like being part of a professional team using my skills, lateral thinking, knowledge of retraining options and career development to help make the path from redundancy to re-employment as smooth as humanly possible.

These men who have worked with steel, have loved their work and the culture at BlueScope and many are really suffering with new, painful, raw emotions: grief, loss, frustration, panic, anger and fear. Being able to assist and support is a great privilege, but there is a personal impact as well.

Other than not getting enough exercise, eating poorly and having too much sugar and coffee, (all of which I advise others to beware of) one of the other things I’ve skimped on is blogging. Blogging has come to be surprisingly important in my weekly schedule by giving me a space to reflect and grapple with issues of values, ethics, integrity and many other things as well. But it’s also very time consuming: writing, visiting others, reading, commenting and replying to comments has gone by the board.

I’m keen to get back to discussions about bullying, as well as the recovery process and techniques for healing, including mindfulness, and I’ve missed visiting your blogs! However, for the time being, blogging and all its pleasures will have to wait as I focus on this work role, cook healthier meals and get adequate exercise and rest.


cheers

Sue
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a question

Can you identify what's involved in walking the extra mile so that you can achieve your current goal?

Frankston pier.

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Illness strikes 'the Report'

Isn’t it frustrating when something goes wrong with Blogger. If you’re like me you fumble around trying to see if it’s something obvious, grumble a LOT, then in desperation head off to the Help Forum to see if others have had the same issue. More often than not, an unknown person, usually operating under a pseudonym, will take up your question and do their best to help us fix the problem.

Sometime last year, I was extremely frustrated by a Blogger issue that I knew would be obvious to someone in the know. So being the sort of person who insists that “the only stupid question is the one you don’t ask” thought I’d better hightail it to the forum for help.

My confusion was sorted with the minimum of fuss.

It’s easy to forget that the help forum is “staffed” by real people who want to share their knowledge and contribute positively to the blogging community. They are unpaid, often unacknowledged, and, I suspect, rarely thanked.

One Blogger Help Forum bloke (who I’ve never met in person) has provided me with a great deal of technical support. the Report is peppered with outstanding Blogger information, good screenshots and explanations - that for the most part I can understand!

Unfortunately, Bob of the Report (and around 30 - yes you read that right, thirty - other blogs) has had an Ischemic stroke, and is pretty much out of action for the moment. I’m sure he’ll be working his guts out to overcome the problems he’s being faced with and will show the same focus on contributing to his own recovery as he’s shown in helping us overcome Bloggers irritating glitches.

Bob is very frustrated, not only by being unable to contribute on the Help Forum or write any posts, but because he can’t communicate as he’d like to. He hasn’t suffered any obvious paralysis, but finds typing excruciatingly slow and difficult. He has trouble interpreting words and his fingers simply won’t hit the keys he wants them to.

I’m sure that anybody who has dipped into Roberto’s Report or been helped by Bob on the Help Forum will agree that Bob has contributed significantly to easing the frustrations we experience with Blogger all too often. His help will be sorely missed, but he assures me he'll be back as soon as possible - "Good onya Bob!"

I just want to thank Bob for all his help. And so, Bob, thanks from me and from all the other people in blogland for sharing your expertise so generously. I'm sure we all wish you a full and speedy recovery.

Get well soon Bob, keep exercising, and look after yourself.

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