Life comes at you fast.
It feels like it comes out of nowhere. I
was having a confounding discussion with a customer service rep about my car insurance. He clearly did not think what I asked for was in his job description. He didn't hide his dismay. It seemed like from that point on he chose to be deliberately uncooperative. I did not respond well to his "attitude." Let's just say we ended up being tools of each other's torture, to use Goethe's words.
I was left feeling befuddled and embarrassed at my own behavior. The rep couldn't have felt very good either.
The secret our brains are keeping.
So, what's going on if someone is showing some attitude unexpectedly?
The neuroscientist David Rock studies social interactions and why they do or don't go well. Rock says that in social interactions our human brains automatically move to determine "threat" or "reward." Our brains are assessing whether our sense of
status, autonomy, certainty, relatedness or fairness is being threatened. (You can find a really good summary of Rock's work on this by internet searching David Rock and Ed Batista.)
What you can do about it as
a manager of people.
1. Rise above it. When your employees respond to you in a way that confounds you, keep the threat/reward concept in mind. You can potentially thwart the escalation. Slow down. Cultivate some compassion with your conversation partner and yourself. Take a deep breath. Take a break. Own your part. Ask questions out of sincere
curiosity.
2. Plan around it. I hear so often from my manager clients, "What I don't want to happen is ______." They are already applying Rock's concepts, knowing their employee is going to feel a "threat" instead of a reward. Yes, that is inevitable. You can address this up front. Here's an example around autonomy.
You can remind them, "You are in control of how you choose to respond to this." Or you can point out the reward, "The opportunity in this for you is _____."
When you strive to treat people as they ought to be (Goethe again), you can help them demonstrate their best selves - one of the
best parts of being a manager. You help yourself do this too, in addition to creating much more rewarding and effective interactions.
Image: Microsoft Clipart
