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Taming the Office Tyrant We all know who the office tyrant whose territory is littered with corpses and marked with angry growls, expletives, invective language and acerbic memos. All these signify the domain upon which the wary tread gently and the uninformed stumble dangerously. Either the indignant official, disapproving parent or outraged executive are behavioural hallmarks of the tyrant who often wins through fear, threat and bluster. But, in the end, no-one wins when the savage beast is loose, least of all the beast. However, the dilemma is what to do with the tyrant. Venturing into the den can be as fearful for CEOs as it is for staff, particularly when the tyrant represents a hefty investment in years and income and who also has strong "political" affiliations within an organisation. We all know that some-one, anyone, must do more than simple bell the cut. A tune needs to be sung to the savage beast and, even better, it should be tamed. Three case scenarios might be of interest. One was a senior executive who included the "magic word" when giving feedback. Another often threatened to sack or end the life of perpetrators of minor indiscretions whilst still another played disapproving parent scolding wayward children. The cause may change and the excuse may be disguised by a dedication to professionalism or focus on quality, but an angry response is always linked with fear for oneself. So, the tyrant yells when toe job does not go right, the perfectionist threatens and the disapproving parent uses emotional blackmail to force the action they want or prevent similar occurrences happening again. In each case, the first step is to remember the behavioural trigger. This does not mean the event, which is a the activating event. The key is to understand the emotion and in all cases it was fear - whenever you see a fight (or flight) response you can be sure that fear is the trigger. In handling the "difficult cases" passed to us, we followed the "Dalai" LAMA Method - Listening, Acknowledgment, Mentoring, and Action Planning. So, the first step was to "hear" the tyrant …. really hear! In your organisation, that means, a senior person listening to the tyrant and communicating what has been heard. This will do two things:
Acknowledgment was a critical step because it involved reflecting on successes and occasions when the outburst was withheld, which built a basis of success - a strong foundation for building change. Mentoring involved jointly developing :
Action Planning meant jointly creating circuit breakers that were put in place between the activating event and outburst, plus incentives for change and when and how they are given. In two out of three cases, these strategies worked very well. In one case, all these soft skills went only so far because the fear and behavioural patterns were deeply entrenched. So, we added CWIT Face - Cold Water in the Face. This meant during one session we added a discussion about the consequences of repeating the offending behaviour. Of course, the fear level went up again but, any truly effective Mentoring also involves reality testing. In this instance, the shock was enough to cause a halt, rethink and gave breathing space for a new behavioural pattern to become established. ©1997 Leigh Kibby |
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