Tag: Workplace Anger

Book Reviews

How To Deal With Difficult People: Smart Tactics For Overcoming The Problem People In Your Life By Gill Hasson

by journeytoleadershipblog1 Comment on How To Deal With Difficult People: Smart Tactics For Overcoming The Problem People In Your Life By Gill Hasson

Difficult people are everywhere and often demonstrate difficult behavior.

Their behavior can be overtly hostile and aggressive or passive and dismissive.

They can drain you and break you out of your character because they may act differently than you expect or apply a system of belief you don’t abide to.

Discerning whether or not they are being spitefully or involuntarily difficult is quite tricky.

How To Deal With Difficult People: Smart Tactics For Overcoming The Problem People In Your Life By Gill Hasson #book #bookreviews #successmindset #selfawareness #selfdevelopment

1. Calmly walk away from difficult people

Some people are difficult even impossible all the goddamn time for no clear reason and will drain you of your energy and even destroy your life, no matter what you do.

In these circumstances, it becomes detrimental to walk away from the situation, to make a clean break and focus on the positives to come.

2. Try and understand the difficult person

To understand difficult people, you must first start by identifying your values, expectations of people and system of belief. You must also understand that you have legal and personal rights to defend.

Often times, our expectations of how people should act and treat us are what create misunderstanding, conflict and resentments.

If your expectations are too high, you will be let down in some fashion and if they are too low, you will be disrespected.

If your expectations are too rigid or unrealistic, you will suffer the consequences and involuntarily create difficult people.

Instead, don’t place any expectations on anyone but expect a positive outcome.

3. Take responsibility for your own reaction

Taking responsibility for your reactions will help you manage your emotions, gain control over a situation, direct and influence others.

It will also help you reframe your mindset and not play victim to your circumstances.

4. Learn what to say and what not to say to a difficult person

You can start by actively listening to them and then by finding out what to say and not to say.

Actively listening does not mean that you are actively agreeing with their point of view or that you are endorsing their opinion but it means that you are willing to acknowledge what they have said and to understand them.

Learning what to say or not to say is about being assertive, standing your ground, choosing how to respond to a situation, thinking about consequences, setting limits and finding an appropriate solution.

5. Deal with the difficult behavior and not the person

Learn to be assertive, to gain a solid sense of self, to stand your ground, to communicate your needs clearly and confidently.

Not asserting yourself and accommodating a difficult person will only lead them to disrespect you further and

Review

How To Deal With Difficult People: Smart Tactics For Overcoming The Problem People In Your Life by Gill Hasson serves as a practical guide to become more assertive, confident, courageous and to think strategically when it comes to dealing with difficult people.

How To Deal With Difficult People: Smart Tactics For Overcoming The Problem People In Your Life explores situations in life and at work that we have dealt with and still have to deal with. Gill Hasson puts many challenging situations into perspective and provides solutions to problems.

On the long run, difficult people are toxic and corrosive. It is detrimental to carefully monitor the impact of these types on individuals on our lives, mental and physical health.

Some of them enjoy creating chaos and toxicity around them and others do so involuntarily.

Sometimes, we are able to put physical distance between yourself and difficult people. Other times, because of our work situation or familial reasons, we have to put up with them and have to find different ways to put up with them.

Gill Hasson puts many challenging situations into perspective and provides solutions to problems.

Let me know below what you think about this book!

Favorite quote(s)

The thing is you can’t directly change other people’s behaviour; the only thing you can change is how you respond and deal with it.

In the past, you may have thought that there was only one or two ways to do this: either grit your teeth and hope that they’ll stop being so difficult, that things will improve, or get the difficult person to see just how difficult they’re being.
Both of these approaches are unlikely to fix the problem. In the case of gritting your teeth and hoping things will improve… they won’t. In the case of getting them to see
just how difficult they’re being, that’s unlikely too.

Even if a confident person feels anxious about dealing with difficult people, they don’t let fear and anxiety paralyse them: they deal with other people and situations despite their fears or worries. They recognize they have to start somewhere, however apprehensive they are.

You can’t control what others think about you, so leave them to their own judgements.

Ratings 4/5

Author

Gill Hasson

 

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Author

Bruce Tulgan

by journeytoleadershipblog2 Comments on Bruce Tulgan

authorBruce Tulgan is the leading expert on young people in the workplace, a business consultant, a management trainer and a keynote speaker. Bruce Tulgan is also the co-Author of Managing Anger In The Workplace.

Author

Donald Gibson

by journeytoleadershipblog1 Comment on Donald Gibson

authorDonald Gibson is a professor of Management and the former former Dean of the Charles F. Dolan School of Business, Connecticut. Dolan Gibso is also the co-author of  Managing Anger In The Workplace.

Book Reviews

Managing Anger In The Workplace by Donald Gibson & Bruce Tulgan

by journeytoleadershipblog6 Comments on Managing Anger In The Workplace by Donald Gibson & Bruce Tulgan

Managing Anger In The Workplace by Donald Gibson & Bruce Tulgan is a self-help book that explains anger and consequences, and provides advice to handle anger in ourselves and in others.

Managing Anger In The Workplace by Donald Gibson & Bruce Tulgan

Understanding Anger

Anger is a normal, natural emotional and physiological response to an attack on our personal safety, on our self-esteem and safety.

Anger modifies our perception, interpretation of events, and affects our communication and behaviors.

Some people aggressively lash out, some withhold and deal with their anger internally, others become passive aggressive.

Anger is difficult to handle in the workplace because:

  • Relationships in the workplace are complex. We spend most of our working hours with perfect strangers, with different levels of power and with whom we thrive to build a trustworthy relationship.
  • Our interests often competes with those of others.
  • Our financial and psychological security is at stake.
  • There are many factors within the organization that are beyond our control, which tends to make us feel vulnerable.

The consequences of anger in the workplace

Anger in the workplace can damage your mental and physical health, your career, your work performance, your reputation and your relationships. In extreme cases, anger can result in violence or even suicide.

Furthermore, anger not only affects individuals life but also negatively impacts those around them. Because they worry about the situation and want to avoid the at all costs, anger reduces their commitment and productivity at work.

People around the angry person experience feelings of “fear, sadness, diminished self-esteem, preoccupation with the conflict, increased caution, and thoughts of revenge”. If the behavior is tolerated by management, people will start to lose trust in their organization and in the capabilities of their leader. From there, a toxic workplace is built.

The benefits of anger in the workplace

Anger is always painted in a negative light but managed properly, it can have a positive aspect to it. To visualize the productive aspect of anger, create a conflictual fictional scenario and think about the possible healthy responses to the situation.

Anger helps to identify conflicts, problematic issues, to resolve them, to demonstrate or create employee commitment and involvement, to generate better results.

Specifically, channeling employees anger can improve the work experience by:

  • Sustaining employees for long intensive hours at work.
  • Augmenting perseverance.
  • Acknowledging change and diversity in opinion.
  • Driving healthy competitions, productivity and quality.
  • Updating policies and procedures.
  • Improving conflictual relationships.
  • Speaking up against wrongdoers and against unfair treatment.

The signs and symptoms of anger

Some people over-express their anger and others under-express it. Both are unhealthy and have long-term negative effects on individuals and on the organization. In order to deal with your anger issues, it is necessary to identify the signs and symptoms of your anger. Expressions of badly managed anger can easily become aggression, can be direct or indirect, active or passive.

In addition, in the organization, expression of anger is either modeled from the higher hierarchy and cascades down the line, is only allowed to high performers with bad behaviors or is repressed to create a culture of polite exchange and respectful relationship.

The source of anger

It is detrimental to focus on the source of the anger in order to resolve it. There are five main sources of anger:

  1. The cracks in the system that make us feel out of control, constantly “threatened and insecure”, frustrated.
  2. Perceived unfairness and injustice in treatment, in salary and in work load within the organization.
  3. Arrested goals because of everyone’s competitive interest.
  4. Difference of core values.
  5. Difference in power. On one hand, subordinates fear the powerful, are angry that the powerful has authority over them. On the other, the powerful appreciates the control and security, is angry when their authority is questioned, generally retaliates when that happens.

Addressing your anger in 6 steps

In Managing Anger In The Workplace, Donald Gibson and Bruce Tulgan introduce to a six step plan in order to manage personal anger:

  1. Do your best to avoid angering situations and people on a typical day. Also, assess yourself, your relationships and achievements. Then, invest in your well-being and learn to speak to assert your needs and rights.
  2. Detect the early physical symptoms of anger. Then, learn to dissipate your anger with physical and mental exercises.
  3. Anger has a habit of distorting your thought pattern and memory of a situation. It is therefore necessary to calm ourselves down and to logically assess the events.
  4. Gather your thoughts together and the recipient of your anger to disclose the reason for your anger. Don’t hesitate to prepare your speech.
  5. Take action and seek solutions to the situation by changing your perspective and your reactions.
  6. If the situation is not worth your time and energy, maybe it is time to let it go and swiftly move on.

Addressing other people anger in 5 steps

Dealing with someone else’s anger is a whole new territory and is a case by case study. One has to keep in mind the person idiosyncrasies, your relationship with this person, the way that person directs their anger (inward or outward), the level of anger involved, the source of the anger and the personality type of the person.

Also, avoid ignoring the person’s feeling, attempting to control their anger, shutting the person down or overpowering them. Instead:

  1. Master and assess your own feelings of anger.
  2. Identify “the underlying source of anger”.
  3. Schedule a meeting and prepare the conversation.
  4. Listen without interruption but without allowing the situation to escalate.
  5. Take action to reinforce positive behavior, to address the problem and find a solution.

Addressing anger in the organizational culture

Anger is unfortunately inevitable in the workplace. It is important to assess the state of anger in your workplace and on your team, to get people focused on the mission instead of personal differences, to establish a code of conduct, to require model behavior from leaders and to provide anger management classes.

Managing Anger In The Workplace by Donald Gibson & Bruce Tulgan (2).png

Review

Managing Anger In The Workplace by Donald Gibson and Bruce Tulgan is a valuable, eye-opening and instructive book, filled with case studies, practical guidelines to understand your anger, to analyze your response to challenges and the dynamics at work, to gradually and successfully handle your anger.

Needless to say, there are so many things that are out of our control, that make us lose our cool: a coworker says or does the wrong thing; a team member doesn’t meet deadlines; your superior yells at you or is unfair to you for no good reason.

Anger is neither good or bad but a natural emotion. Anger in the workplace can open us up to malicious attack where people feel that they can control your reaction or it can create a toxic workplace. That it’s why, it is important to manage and express that anger before it translates into physical symptoms.

This book offers tools and exercises and is genuinely helpful. It was written in 2003 but is still current. It is not an overnight miracle worker but it gives great tips to take discipline yourself, to take control of your anger and monitor your progress.

Favorite quote(s)

anger is a normal, fundamental, and even healthy emotion rooted in our instinct for self-preservation.

In cases where poorly managed anger is routinely tolerated and accepted by leadership, the organization may assume an angry culture, with negative effects flowing up the chain of command covertly and cascading down the chain of command all too obviously.

That’s why anger is often seen as the forbidden emotion. People who express anger are considered to be “irrational,” and “out of control,” two of the worst things that can be said about a person. This is particularly true in organizations, where people are supposed to leave their emotions at the workplace door. What many people don’t realize—or never consider—is that anger in itself is neither positive nor negative. If managed effectively, anger can be a positive and productive emotion.

Ratings 4/5

Author

Bruce Tulgan

Donald Gibson

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