Hints and tips: Dealing with awkward people–Tip 1

A pair of psychologists called Alan A. Cavaiola, PhD, and Neil J. Lavender, PhD surveyed more than 1,100 employees and captured their thoughts in a book called “Toxic Co-workers: How to Deal with Dysfunctional People on the Job”.  This is the first in a series of short blogs with  tips based on their work.

1.  Reflect on your own history: When we get upset by someone or something, the event can be like pulling a trigger and we go BANG! Not surprisingly, we refer to this state as being triggered.  The key thing to know about this is that the person or event isn’t so much the issue (upsetting as it maybe in its own right) rather it is the place it takes you to.  It triggers off our primitive Flight/Fight mechanism, and depending on our nature we either come out swinging or run and hide.  So the first hint in the book is that this may not be about them but about you.  So go somewhere quiet and safe and take the time to ponder what it is that really upset you.  What did you feel?  What does it remind you off?  If what is happening in the office is an echo of things that happened in the playground, then perhaps you have more to deal with than the person or situation at work.  None of this is to say that there might not be a genuine issue with them, rather that you may need to go deeper to get to the root of the issue.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 26th, 2015 at 08:00 and is filed under Hints, Tips & Techniques. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.