Blaming at Work Creates More Blame

Research from the University of Southern California has great suggestions for managers on creating healthier atmosphere's at work. Here's the article and an excerpt below.

“Blame creates a culture of fear,” Fast said, “and this leads to a host of negative consequences for individuals and for groups.”

A manager can keep a lid on the behavior by rewarding employees who learn from their mistakes and by making a point to publicly acknowledge his or her own mistakes, Fast said. Managers may also want to assign blame, when necessary, in private and offer praise in public to create a positive attitude in the workplace.
© 2009 Laura Lewis-Barr all rights reserved

Skills from the Theatre for the Workplace--Observing Nonverbals

When I moved from working in the theatre to working in an office, I was astounded by the difference in attitudes and norms. My new organization and the workplaces of my clients seemed filled with unhappiness and dysfunction. Could I use my theatre training to help transform the malaise I saw everywhere?

While my clients constantly sought to improve their competitive advantage, I was amazed to see that they often ignored the most glaring personnel challenges. Companies were spending thousands of dollars streamlining their processes through Six Sigma or Lean programs. They analyzed their shop floor data and hunted for the slightest area to refine. But the most vital data—the continuous signals coming from their staff—was often ignored.

At her desk, Jayne scowls. Her co-workers may gossip, “That’s just Jayne.” But why is she scowling? What message is Jayne sending (or trying to hide)?

In the theatre, we paid close attention to all types of communication. We recognized that each verbal or nonverbal expression was filled with important information. Our work centered on sending clear messages and decoding nonverbal signals. Why were companies ignoring these crucial skills?

At work, we disregard the scowl. We say, “It’s none of our business.” We don’t want to insult Jayne. Maybe she’s just having a bad day. Anyway, what could we say?

When we ignore nonverbals, we miss clues that reveal levels of engagement in a project or team. We miss feedback about effective or ineffective procedures. We miss developing our teams and building trust or even community.

If Ann’s anger at Marge is never resolved (or even acknowledged), it doesn’t disappear. Our emotional upsets will emerge later in team meetings, office gossip, or mysterious difficulties that spontaneously erupt. Mislaid papers, misunderstandings that lead to team confusion, and even (seemingly) outside obstacles can result from communication failures from unresolved emotions.

Why don’t we acknowledge the large emotional elephant in the cubicle? Because we don’t know what to say or do. Too many of us are afraid of emotions and convinced that there is no way to communicate safely and effectively when emotions are acknowledged.

But there are proven best practices to ensure safe, effective communication, even when emotions are powerfully in play. These techniques include “I statements,” active listening, and understanding the difference between assertive vs. aggressive dialogue.

Armed with these methods, we can courageously observe and acknowledge any anger or unhappiness in our coworkers or ourselves. Observing our emotions is the first critical step. Once acknowledged, we can decipher the message of our feelings. We can then begin to compassionately admit the emotional undercurrent (subtext) of our daily interactions. We can use this ready source of feedback to make our workplaces happier and healthier.

A Workplace Secret Weapon

Take this workplace challenge: everyday take a 20-30 minute break to walk or run (preferably outside, especially if you have some green and birds nearby). For this experiment, walk in silence without headphones or talking companion.

Please report back on your experiences. There are some incredible benefits to this practice. We’d love to hear if you’ve had the same (wonderful) outcomes from these daily, physical, silent, (preferably outdoor) breaks.

How to Create a Job They Will Love

Psychologists tell us that people have a basic need for autonomy, so the challenge is to create a workplace that is democratic, where everyone has the opportunity to participate in making important decisions.

Psychologists tell us that people have a basic need to feel related and to belong, so the challenge is to create a workplace that is collaborative and feels like a community.

Psychologists tell us that people have a basic need to feel competent, so the challenge is not to induce people to do a fixed series of tasks but to re-examine the tasks themselves.

(Frederick Herzberg put it best: "If you want people motivated to do a good job, give them a good job to do.") From Challenging Behaviorist Dogma: Myths About Money and Motivation By Alfie Kohn

Dreaming of a Happier Workplace

I had a strange dream this morning. I was helping a new employee who had just been hired in our department. We worked comfortably together but then, at the end of the workday (as can happen in dreams), I suddenly realized that this new worker was actually a former colleague. How did I not recognize her?

In the past my former co-worker, “Cathy,” had caused great disruption and chaos in our department. She had felt like an adversary to many of us. But since I had no recollection of this in my dream, we began our “first” day at work together with ease and collegiality. My dream-state-temporary-amnesia allowed me to treat Cathy with warmth. If I had recognized her, our interaction would have been much different.

How many conflicts could be averted if we had selective amnesia with our rivals or foes? Our conversations would then be free of the tiny microexpressions and unconscious vocal tones that send out defensive messages (despite our best intentions). The problem is, our brain scrutinizes our environment for threats and then sears these threat-memories deep into our mind-- for our protection. Our brain doesn’t want us to have amnesia precisely because we would then be more vulnerable to dangers around us.

Emotional Intelligence theories and techniques help us understand our brain’s design. We can then, depending on our circumstances, work to utilize or circumvent our evolutionary programming.

While we can never have complete amnesia about past events, we can at least be conscious of our feelings. These can give us a clue to the unconscious signals we are probably sending. That is why self-fulfilling prophecies work. If I come into a conversation anticipating the worst--my expectations are likely to be fulfilled because of the signals I’ve sent.

Even if we can’t control our unconscious nonverbal behaviors, we can try to compensate for them. If I were to meet with Cathy today, I could emphasize listening, eye contact, smiles, and a gentle tone of voice to counteract other signals I may inadvertently send. Then we might have the same easy relating that we had in my dream.

Destructive patterns of interacting are very hard to change since both parties become stuck in patterns of aggressive or defensive signals. Still, knowing our feelings can help us break these patterns and create new exchanges with our coworkers.

Yikes! Yelling at Work?

In a survey of more that a thousand U.S. workers, 42 per cent reported incidences of yelling and other kinds of verbal abuse in their workplaces, and almost 30 percent admitted to having yelled at a co-worker themselves.

How healthy is your workplace?

How do you deal with negative feelings at work?

Fighting at work (with a smile).

I’m always amazed to hear the stories of how people subtly fight at work. Through procrastination, gossip, stonewalling, and other passive-aggressive methods, co-workers can find clever ways to obstruct progress while appearing helpful.

So much conflict can be hidden under the surface of our actions and conversations. In the theatre, this is called “subtext.”

Here are some examples of ways employees fight while smiling. Names have been changed but the scenarios are true.

1. Creating obstacles. “Tracy” is a talented office manager, but if she feels slighted, her ability to solve problems comes to a screeching halt. Suddenly, numerous intractable obstacles appear. If one is solved, another emerges. Some coworkers have called Tracy, “controlling” and they complain of her micromanaging. Others have learned to keep Tracy “in the loop” and report no problems. They have realized Tracy’s need to feel needed. While some coworkers are stuck in constant battles with Tracy’s procedures, others have found a coworker with incredible talents and a powerful work ethic.

2. Stonewalling. “Joan” feels insecure in her new supervisory position. Because of this, she confesses (to her closest friends) ongoing suspicions of her colleagues’ motives. Because Joan is convinced that most of her staff are against her, she rarely listens to their concerns. Instead, convinced that they want her to fail, she schemes to achieve her goals without her staff’s input. Tracy (see above) works for Joan. Can you imagine their battles? While friends sometimes challenge Joan to question her beliefs, their words make little impact. Joan’s fear overrides every other message.

3. Gossip. “Carla,” also works for Joan, and like Tracy, values being included in decision-making. Carla detests Joan’s autocratic style and has grown to want her boss to fail (those fulfilling Joan’s greatest nightmare). Carla gossips about Joan and has predisposed many in the organization to dislike the new supervisor.

Joan, Tracy, and Carla also have different working styles. Carla and Tracy like order, predictability, and security. Joan likes spontaneity, risk, and quick decisions. As the supervisor, Joan hasn’t taken the time to understand her staff’s need for structure. Joan is certain of her staff’s defiance, but she is unaware of how she has helped create it. Because Joan assumes the worst from Carla and Tracy, she has never tried to discover what these women need to function at their best. Instead, Joan relies on brute authority and her staff finds ways to thwart her goals.

How does fighting manifest in your workplace?

The Power of Play

Are you getting enough recreation (re-creation) in your life? At work and at home, play restores us and helps us think creatively. Here’s more on how play changes our brains and helps us learn flexibility and adapt to changes in our environment.

The Small Emotions of Everyday Life

Nancy confided to me of a difficult relationship at work. She said she had been friendly to “Bill” when he first arrived, but his sour expressions angered her. He never acknowledged her presence and Nancy had had enough. She was now offering Bill an angry expression in return. She would show him.

“I’m not willing to be nice to him anymore,” she said. “He’ll just be a jerk and I don’t want to put myself out for that.”

Yet, at the same time, Nancy hated carrying a grudge and a severe look. She was usually a very happy person.

Emotional Intelligence doesn’t expect us to be saintly and there are probably times when we need to protect ourselves from another’s aggression or moods. But Nancy felt stuck in a distressing pattern. We gently began to examine her thoughts about Bill.

“I’m not sure why he hates me so much—“
“He hates you?”
“Well, not hate. He couldn’t hate me, he doesn’t even know me. But he clearly doesn’t like me. He’s friendly to other people.”
“Who?”
“People in his own department. I’m in another department.”
“Could there be another reason why he isn’t friendly to you?”

Nancy thought for a moment. “He could be shy.”
“That might explain why he’s friendly with people in his own department.”
“I guess. I’m not sure. I only know that he’s very unfriendly to me and I hate it.”
“You take it personally.”
“Yes.”
“So it could be that he doesn’t like you personally. Or it could be that he’s shy. Any other reason he might not be friendly to you?

Nancy couldn’t think of anything.

“Maybe he thinks you don’t like him?”
“I tried to be nice to him. I introduced myself. But he’s been nothing but rude to me.”

Nancy's nonverbals made her feelings clear. “You don’t like him….”
“No. I don’t.”
“Maybe he’s picked that up?”
“Maybe.”

We let the subject go and talked about other matters, then gradually drifted back to Bill and the subject of “emotional contagion.” I told Nancy about The Tipping Point, a wonderful book offering stories that illustrated emotional contagion—the way our emotions can “infect’ others. Some of us are more sensitive and pick up others’ moods rapidly. Maybe Bill and Nancy were feeding off each other’s negative energy. Nancy listened to some sections of the book. It made sense to her. Looking lighter, Nancy decided to cut Bill some slack—maybe he was doing the best he could under the circumstances. She didn’t want to help spread destructive emotions at work. She wanted to make her workplace, and the world in general, more positive. She would start with her own emotional messages.

I saw a shift in Nancy as we talked. She was no longer stuck on wanting “justice,” or even doing the “nice” action. She was able to move beyond her struggles with Bill when she saw a bigger picture: her small but important contribution to the world.

What idea has worked for you? How did a simple phrase, word, or concept help you shift into a new way of thinking?

Time Management and the Water Cooler.

During a workshop, Julie talked about long-winded co-workers she avoided. She felt bad about this and feared alienating friends at work. But since each individual could cost her 30 to 60 minutes of her day, Julie was frustrated. What could she do? She tried to be pleasant and keep her chats brief but her tactics often failed.

Julie noticed that she did enjoy talking with a few of her co-workers. What made them different from the others? These were people who added value to her day. They provided important information about her job, or, if the discussions became personal, the stories were briefer, more focused, and without repetition. Her other coworkers sometimes repeated the same stories or clichés for days--even weeks!

What value does your communication have for other people? Do you waste time rehashing old ideas or repeating the same information to each colleague individually?