17 | How to navigate difficult workplace relationships (including your boss)

In today's episode,  Erin explores workplace dynamics through the lens of Brooke Castillo's concept of 'the manual,' a framework for understanding and managing challenging relationships. Erin provides tangible examples of common interactions that often leave us feeling frustrated.   She offers clear strategies for how to  depersonalize and move on.   Tune in to learn how to enhance your professional relationships and optimize workplace communication.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

My single favorite concept that I have ever learned that had such a big impact on me feeling less frustrated, annoyed or personally offended by other people's behavior. If you want to learn more about this concept and how to apply it to your life, stay tuned. Hello, hello, welcome back everyone. I hope that you are having a great week. I am hopping on to talk to you today about truly one of my absolute favorite concepts that I use when I am coaching people. This is a concept I learned from Brooke Castillo many years ago and I would say this has had the most significant impact on everything in my life my relationships, my working relationships, my personal relationship, my romantic relationship. It is a concept that I wish I knew many, many, many years ago. So today I'm going to talk to you about Brooke Castillo's concept that she calls the manual. I'm gonna talk to you about how it applies in the workplace and how you can use this concept to really dial down the drama, all the drama that our brain gets into your frustration with other people, your frustration with how your boss or coworkers function, which can take up a ton of energy and a ton of anxiety that is often really unnecessary and will burn you out in your job. So I'm going to talk to you today about the concept that Brooke calls the manual. For some reason, my brain interpreted this to be rule books. That's sort of how I've always talked about it.

Speaker 1: 1:43

The manual is equivalent to a personal rule book or a personal worldview, and the concept is that you and I and everyone in the world is walking around with a manual in their brain for how people should behave, what's appropriate, what's not appropriate, what's respectful, what's not appropriate, what's respectful, what's not respectful, what's most effective, how we should behave when we're collaborating, all of it. You can like literally think about it as a big, thick book. We all have one in our brain, and the part that becomes really tricky is most of us assume that everyone shares a similar rulebook or a similar manual, and the truth is people have very different manuals for many, many, many things in our lives. Particularly when we all move into a workspace where we need to coordinate to get to various outcomes, where we need to interact professionally and personally, it becomes very nuanced and very messy. So the issues come into play because we tend to assume that we share similar rule books. We tend to expect everyone to follow our rule book because we assume that it's obvious, right. So like if we assume behaving in a particular way is respectful and not behaving in that way is not respectful, we assume that most people share that with us and then when someone behaves in a way that's outside of our rulebook, we really can evaluate their intentions in a specific way. We can start to make it mean that they're being disrespectful, et cetera. So the other thing that tends to happen when it comes to rulebooks in the workplace is that we misinterpret other people's rule books from a very simplistic lens, and the lens tends to also be very personalized. So I'm going to take this concept we all have a rule book, we all have a way of moving through the world, we all have a worldview that we function from and we tend to assume other people are functioning from that same space. And I'm going to apply it to a situation and I'm going to show you how it gets us into trouble and I'm going to talk to you about what to do instead.

Speaker 1: 4:10

So let's use Sally, because I like to use Sally for all examples for some reason. So let's assume Sally goes in and gets feedback from her supervisor. Her supervisor dives directly in and tells Sally three things that she wants her to do to improve her performance. Okay, sally has a rule book that says you should offer positive feedback and let people know what they're doing well before you tell them what they need to correct. This is what's appropriate. This is what equals good managing. Her boss, however, has a different rule book. Okay, what's going to happen is Sally leaves that encounter. She's playing this whole thing through in her head and she immediately feels like my boss is disrespectful, she is not a good manager. She doesn't think I'm performing well. She should not behave this way.

Speaker 1: 5:21

Let's assume that in this scenario, sally's boss has a rule book and she believes the sandwich method, which is kind of a traditional method of like tell someone what they're doing well, then give them some critical feedback, then end it with something they're doing well. It's been done for many years. It's something that used to be kind of taught as how you, you know, give effective feedback to your subordinates. But let's say that Sally's boss believes it's condescending. Everybody knows that. It is sort of a strategy. It's superficial. People can see through it. Her boss might believe my co-workers don't have time for that. They know what they're doing well. My job is to give them constructive feedback so that they can improve.

Speaker 1: 6:12

So Sally and her boss are now in a room together. Her boss is functioning from this rulebook, where she's like I'm not going to be condescending, I'm not going to give her sandwich feedback, I'm not going to just tell her things that she's obviously doing well, I'm just going to get down to it, give her the changes I want her to make and we're all going to move on from our day. And meanwhile Sally's on the other side with her rulebook and she's thinking this is so disrespectful. Why right? And you could argue both people are wrong, but being right or wrong becomes much less significant than being able to move through that interaction without it creating a lot of drama or taking up a lot of time. So what I want you to be able to see in this setting, which is often so much easier to see when we're outside of the situation, is that these two people are just functioning from very different worldviews. But what you can see in the example I gave you is that both worldviews are pretty rational, that I've offered two perspectives on why someone would behave this way in a way that can probably make sense to most of you as listeners. You might identify with one more than the other, but you can see how, from a rational perspective, it makes sense to most of you as listeners. You might identify with one more than the other, but you can see how, from a rational perspective, it makes sense to both people.

Speaker 1: 7:47

What tends to happen when we're moving through really life in general but we just see it really heightened in workspaces is that we have our rational rulebook and we are able to articulate very rationally why we believe what we believe, why we think people should behave this way, why we think what we're thinking is the most effective way to go about this. When we're interpreting other people's behavior, we tend to lose all rational thinking on their behalf. So instead of looking at the situation and asking ourselves like what could be the reason for Sally's boss to function this way, what rational reason might she be applying what our brain tends to do it's similar to how they describe attribution theory is it will just take a character flaw and slap it on our boss and assume that our boss is behaving that way because they have some major character flaw. So people will say things like my boss is just like a total narcissist, doesn't care about anybody, looks down on everybody around them and just wants to tell us why we're all terrible. Okay, it's our brain taking our rational rulebook, using it to interpret that behavior and then assuming a bunch of character flaws of the other person. And what I get to see in coaching that is so helpful in my own life and helping me move people through theirs, is that everyone has rational explanations in their own brain for why they're behaving the way that they're behaving. And when you can get your brain to empathetically try to understand someone else's rulebook in a way that is rational and gives them the benefit of the doubt, it will save you so much time spinning in drama about how other people behave. I am not saying you can't have boundaries, you can't have expectations, you can't decide when something's unacceptable to you. All of that is fine. But I am talking about all of these nuanced encounters where two people come in contact with each other in the workplace and it creates a ton of mind, drama, exhaustion and frustration. That can often be easily avoided when you simply allow yourself to understand your rule book and how their rule book might be different and you try to interpret it through a rational lens from both perspectives.

Speaker 1: 10:37

So what I'm offering here is that first you get very clear that you have a rule book. It's kind of like love languages. We tend to understand that, like we all have love languages is like in the zeitgeist now, and people tend to understand like we all have a different love language. We all want to be loved differently. We all understand what love looks like differently and a lot of people kind of understand that language in their intimate relationships. It's similar in the workplace. People have very different interpretations of what it means to give feedback, what it means to be respectful, what it means to collaborate, how we should most effectively function in a meeting, and when all of those people get in a room together and all of those different assumptions come to the table, it can get messy. So what I want you to do is get very clear that you have a rule book and to first become very aware that other peoples are different. You need to move through the workplace knowing on so many nuanced issues, people around you have different rule books. Some are the same, like we all probably agree. We're not going to like smack each other at work, right, we all agree. We're not going to name call, and certainly the company creates rule books for the culture that everyone is asked to buy into or agree on, but there's so many other nuances below the surface when it comes to all of these different ways that we're collaborating, connecting and coming in contact with each other.

Speaker 1: 12:05

So let's move through another example that I think will be helpful. Let's say you walk into work. You say hello to Bob. Bob is really short. He barely looks up from his desk. He says hello to you. He doesn't really acknowledge you very much. You walk away feeling like Bob is rude, bob doesn't like me for some reason. If you're feeling insecure in your job, your brain's probably going to tell you something like Bob thinks I'm not competent enough in this role. So you have a rule book that says you should look at people when they say hello to you. You should acknowledge them At work. You should engage in maybe kind of short back and forth how was your weekend? How are you? How are you doing? Whatever it is, you might just have an assumption about how much you should engage with someone when you're saying hello at the beginning of the day. So if I asked you why Bob behaved that way, your brain's going to go into potentially a lot of drama. He's just kind of a jerk. He's rude to everyone. He only cares about himself. He doesn't care about anybody else. He thinks he's better than everyone else.

Speaker 1: 13:23

If we take that same situation and we zoom back and I asked you to give a rational, generous interpretation of Bob's behavior you might get to something different. For example, bob might feel like I'm paid to focus on my work. My coworkers know this. Everyone is super busy. I say hello to everyone who says hi to me, but I tend to be very sucked into my work and so I don't want to like look up and stop because it's really hard for me to get back into what I'm doing. But everybody knows this. We all respect that everyone's busy, so people don't need a lot from each other.

Speaker 1: 14:00

You can see how, in this scenario, both people could be interpreting this interaction incredibly differently and from very different assumptions of how one should behave in the workplace. And when you can get to the space where you give a rational, generous interpretation to Bob's behavior, you will hold on to things much less. You will assume Bob is functioning from this space, you will give him the benefit of the doubt and you'll move on with your day. It just cuts out so much drama in your brain that your brain tends to spin on. So what I want to offer you is just the simple steps of understanding that you have a rulebook and that everyone's not going to share it.

Speaker 1: 14:54

Doing your best to understand what other people's rule books are by simply offering a rational, generous interpretation for their behavior. I'm not saying you need to ask people specifically like what is your rule book, what's your manual for how people should behave. You can figure that out very quickly by simply asking yourself how would they answer the question of why they behaved that way? What would they say was the reason for it? And people do not ever point to a character flaw. No one says I behave that way because I'm a big jerk and I only care about myself, right? If you can get to the place where you're able to describe Bob's own rational explanation, then you're really getting to a place where you're understanding his rulebook, his worldview, his assumptions for what he thinks is appropriate or not appropriate.

Speaker 1: 15:50

You can make requests I'm not saying that you can't and in fact, when you understand that people have these very different assumptions, rule books, understanding of what's necessary, it becomes a little bit easier to see why somebody might not be giving you something that you feel like you need. So, for example, if you are getting your feedback in a particular way from your supervisor and you're having a hard time with that and you feel like you need something different, when your supervisor says to you, hey, how's it going? What can I do to be helpful, it gives you the opportunity to make the request. You can really then identify that you have this own worldview, assumption, rule book for how to give feedback that you're evaluating your supervisor from. That's like getting messy. So you can simply say, yeah, I would love it if, in our one-on-ones, you could offer me a few examples of some things that you see that I'm doing really well, before we dive into some of the critical feedback. That's it Like you can make the request. Critical feedback that's it Like. You can make the request.

Speaker 1: 17:01

She or he may or may not give you that request, but you can always make it from a space that's really clear and from a space that's often cleaner, meaning, instead of it assuming a bunch of reasons for why someone isn't showing up the way you want them to or treating you the way you want them to, that they're showing up in a way that makes sense to them and is very rational to them and you in turn can make a request if you feel like you need to. What I often find for myself is that with this concept I am able to simply move past things so much easier, without even needing to make the request, that if I really give that generous interpretation and I assume my supervisor is coming from this space of like their job is to give me critical feedback and they need to do it quickly and they know I'm busy and they're busy and if I sort of get into their rule book, it will often allow me to just be like that's fine, I can totally handle this. I can adjust and be flexible with what I usually would need in this situation. Of course, you get to decide where your boundaries are. You get to decide what you're willing to tolerate and not tolerate. You get to decide when you want to make a request of somebody and when it's a deal breaker for you and you're going to exit that job. But when it comes to all these nuanced pieces in the middle, get really clear on.

Speaker 1: 18:23

Other people have their manual and you have your manual and oftentimes we actually don't need them to function the way we tend to function in order for us to be okay and in order for us to have a functioning, helpful relationship and to get from point A to point B with them, particularly if you can really practice flexing that muscle of giving them the benefit of the doubt what is the most rational, generous interpretation of why they are behaving or showing up in this particular way? And given that, how do I now want to move forward? So that is me offering to you my absolute favorite concept that I have ever learned in my time doing coaching, and I hope that this will come in handy for you at work. If you are finding that you are getting lost in the drama, lost in the insecurities, feel free to hop on over ErinMFoleycom, grab a free consultation. We can hop on a call and talk about one-on-one coaching. I will be back with more great information for you. Hope you all have a great week.