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Have you noticed that the actions of some people often cause you stress and frustration? Does interacting with certain colleagues, bosses and/or direct-reports in the workplace cause your blood pressure to sky rocket? Have you ever wished you could do something about it? Well, you can! You can get those behaviors changed.
(Note that in this series we’ll be talking about changing a behavior, not a person. Understanding that a person’s behavior is separate from the person himself [or herself, we use the masculine form to represent both or either] is fundamental to changing our or anyone else’s behavior. Later posts will explain this in more detail.)
We have identified at least five distinct types of stress-producing behavior: Day Dreaming, Comparing, Time Traveling, Gut Reacting and Grade Schooling. Let’s look at examples of each. (Warning: you will think of people you know when you read these descriptions and you may see yourself here!)
- Day Dreaming: We sometimes say a person must be day dreaming when they seem unaware of their surroundings. Such people can cause serious stress in others without realizing it. If confronted they may be genuinely surprised. One glaring example is the order-taker at the restaurant drive-through speaker who mumbles or stringsallthewordstogether. He causes stress for customers who must repeatedly ask “what?”, for the kitchen staff who keeps getting incorrect orders returned and for the manager who must apologize to frustrated customers. Another common example is the person talking very loudly into a cell phone, disrupting the peace and quiet for everyone within hearing distance – – – usually the person is completely unaware that there ARE people around, not to mention the effect his loud voice is having on them. At work, this can be the boss who provides poor direction and blames others for the resulting confusion (expects employees to read her mind) or routinely and cavalierly says hurtful things about others in public. It can also be the colleague who embarrasses himself and others with inappropriate jokes or sexual innuendos, totally unaware of the pained looks on the faces of onlookers. People who are Day Dreaming are often oblivious to the stress they cause in the lives of others.
- Comparing: This is the often-subconscious act of looking at the happiness of another person and comparing it to your own mental state. Some people are only happy when they come out on top in such a comparison. They are happiest when others are miserable. When they act on these comparisons they can cause lots of stress in others. People who think this way will disrupt a pleasant conversation by interjecting a piece of bad news that instantly changes the feel of the gathering from happy to sad. Or they will use a “yes, but” maneuver: “Yes, winning the office’s sales contest would be great for our team but we are short two people and we have never been able to do it before.”
- Time Traveling: This behavior is generation-driven; the Baby Boomer who cannot stop herself from asking everyone who gets to a meeting even a minute late “What time does the 9:30 meeting start?”; or the Gen Yer who cannot resist asking the Baby Boomer having cell phone problems “That advanced technology giving you problems there, Grandpa?” The result is always more stress.
- Gut Reacting: People who routinely use this behavior are seen as the quick-draws at work, the people who always have a fast come-back to any comment. But they also often omit the think step that should always occur before the speak step. Their fast, knee-jerk response leaves no time for thoughts of “should I say this?” OR “will it hurt someone’s feelings?” OR “how could this comment be taken?” The result is often wounded pride and stress in others.
- Grade Schooling: This behavior is usually motivated by revenge, jealousy, power-trips or other markers of immaturity. Examples include sabotaging an initiative at work so the originator fails; calling attention to yourself (even negatively) because you need the constant reinforcement of being noticed (poor self- image); or doing something just because you can even if it causes stress in others, for example driving continuously in the left lane of a superhighway so you can keep other people from driving 56 mph in a 55 mph zone. People who do these things seem to be stuck with only the emotional maturity they had in grade school – – – they just never grew up.
In upcoming posts we’ll show you how to deal with each of these behaviors. You’ll see how to first decide whether to intervene, then how to get the person’s attention, and establish some rapport (if possible), and lastly how to request a change in the person’s stress-inducing behavior. We’ll show you how to do these things in the workplace but the techniques will also work well when shopping, in restaurants, with the family at home and in lots of other situations.
And if you think there are other categories of stress-inducing behavior, beyond the five we mentioned above, we’d like to hear from you. Email me at Mack@SolidThinking.org
Copyright: Solid Thinking Corporation
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