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What To Do When Someone Pisses You Off At Work
Every week in my consulting work advising senior executives on the people side of the business equation, someone invariably will tell me about a colleague or employee doing something that pisses them off. And, I will ask, “Did you talk to them about it? More often than not, they will respond, “Not yet, or, Nope, and I probably won’t.” And I will then ask, “Why not?” The most frequent answers circle around the following: “It won’t do any good,” or, “It’s more trouble than it’s worth,” or “The risk of it going sideways is worse than letting it go.”
I agree, it’s dicey having a conversation with another person about something they did that is a problem for you. And, sometimes we do have to make a risk/reward assessment that might end up in not taking any direct assertive action… for the time being. But, if you conclude that it’s necessary and important that you do something assertive about it, there are a few steps you can follow to increase the likelihood that the conversation will be constructive.
- Start with yourself. Get yourself centered by assuming that the other person is not consciously trying to tick you off. Most people don’t wake up thinking, “How can I annoy my colleagues today?” There are a few narcissists and sociopaths who wake up thinking about ways to get the upper hand but, for the most part, most…
