Adopt smart approach to dealing with office irritants

People have friction with their colleagues. It happens even at stellar places to work.

Variations in personalities, working styles, cultural norms and emotional intelligence always exist. As a result, there will frequently be differences of opinions and conflicts. In fact, in order to create a healthy and functional team, we need diversity in all of these areas. Sometimes, however, these differences make it tough to work together.

As a leadership coach, I help CEO, executives and others navigate these challenges. There are a few suggestions I usually give when interpersonal drama heats up at the office.

1. Check your reaction

The first thing I suggest is to check in with yourself and look at the reaction you’re having to the situation. Is it someone else’s behavior that’s out of line? Or are you overly sensitive to what’s happening?

Often, we have triggers around certain types of behaviors and situations. If someone is triggering one of these for you, it’s really not about him or her, it’s about you. Examining and dealing with your reaction to the situation is where the real work needs to be done.

2. Assess the likelihood of change

If you’re sure that you’re being reasonable and the friction is really a function of the other person’s behavior, then you need to take a step back and assess the likelihood of that person changing. It’s difficult to change, and most behavior is driven by underlying psychology, which takes time and work to first figure out and then to modify.

If it’s unlikely that someone at work will change, then you’re probably better off finding a coping mechanism.

3. Calculate the cost of change

Once you have decided that it’s possible that the other person can change his or her actions, then look at what the cost of the change will be. Most importantly, you need to think about the possible secondary impacts of any sort of change.

The resulting new behavior might be worse than the current one. Often these types of changes have unexpected ripple effects on interpersonal dynamics.

4. Give feedback

Once you decide to take action, start by giving the other person some feedback. First, I always suggest you ask him or her for permission to give feedback and wait for an OK. This enrolls the other person in the process and helps him or her accept the feedback.

Start with the specific behavior that is affecting you, and then explain the impact it has. Stay far away from implying their intentions or effect on other people. Finally, ask politely for the new behavior you would like to see.

5. Develop coping strategies

Sometimes we either decide that it’s not worth requesting a change, or we request it but it’s just not happening. In these cases, developing an effective coping strategy is the best solution.

Try re-framing the behavior in your mind to adjust your reaction. For example, if someone always is on his or her phone during meetings, it’s easy to think that he or she doesn’t respect your time. Instead, take a few deep breaths and consider that he or she may have too much work, can’t manage time well and must scramble to meet a deadline.

We often over-personalize people’s behavior as being about us, when it rarely is.

6. Make your own change

If you conclude that you really must take unilateral action, focus on making a change in structure, processes and/or routines to shake things up.

While you can’t always get someone to change behavior, if you change the situation, he or she will need to respond. In the cellphone example, for instance, if you are the boss, you can adopt a rule of no cellphones at meetings and have everyone put their devices in a bowl. That will cause a new, hopefully better, behavior to emerge.

I always remind my clients that changing other people is an arduous and often fruitless task. The flip side is that we have all the power in the world to change ourselves and our thinking. And while neither approach is easy, we do have options.

Sometimes, simply knowing there are options will help us get out of victim mode and create forward movement.

Bruce Eckfeldt is a speaker, writer and business coach.