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O P I N I O N
Schmucks in the office They’re everywhere, and the key to dealing with them is to understand and appreciate their bad behavior by exercising a little empathy.
W e spend a lot of our lives at work. So it makes sense to acknowledge that a difficult workplace can make life miserable. Often, there is a disruptive person at work who throws the whole place off kilter. Co-workers feel miserable, angry, and frustrated. They feel their creativity, productivity, and commitment drain away. They want something to change but don’t know what steps to take and often just hope the difficult worker changes. Which unfortunately never happens.
Michelle Joy
1)What is the pattern of behavior? Step one is try- ing to nail down the individual’s pattern of behavior. What exactly is disruptive about how they act? Maybe they are always overestimating their abilities and blaming others for any shortcomings. Perhaps the person explodes when their authority is “Empathy is the key to managing difficult workplace relationships. And in this context it means really trying to understand and appreciate the very person that you likely have the least desire to think or care about.”
THE COUNTER-INTUITIVE SOLUTION. But there is, in fact, a way forward. It can seem counterintuitive and downright frustrating, but it’s simple, and it works. The key is committing to it and entrusting the idea that each individual has a responsibility to help make the workplace better. The approach can be summed up in just one word: Empathy. Empathy is the key to managing difficult workplace relationships. And in this context it means really trying to understand and appreciate the very person you likely have the least desire to think or care about. But when we look at what might be driving disruptive individuals to act the way they do, we can begin to understand them, empathize with them, and even begin to work better together with these three steps:
Jody Foster GUEST SPEAKERS
See MICHELLE JOY and JODY FOSTER, page 10
THE ZWEIG LETTER November 27, 2017, ISSUE 1225
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