So – vendors are no problem. I sometimes have difficulty with my bosses or clients, but usually I am a favourite. My real challenge is people who are my equal, usually women, who attack me. In my corporate life they were co-workers, in my client life they are usually indirect people within organizations that I deal with. I will tell my story here, keeping everything anonymous. Here are some challenges I have had in the past:

• Miss J: Miss J was a co-worker that I used to work with. I was not her direct boss, but I was a senior member of the team charged with guiding the newer staff. This was Miss J’s first job, and she made an amazing impression in the interview making everyone say “she is the one”. At first, we were all impressed with her work ethic and quality of jobs. After a while, she started to accuse me of doing strange things I did not do, such as telling her to work overtime. In each case, the things I said could have theoretically been construed as what she said, but they weren’t. Things were a bit tense with my boss at the time, so she sided with Miss J, leading me to resent both of them very much. Things escalated with her, and eventually I just kept myself in the protected shell of my cubical. Later, she started targeting my boss with the same behaviour with the HR department. If I was to do it again, I would have sided with my boss, and we could have repaired our relationship. But, stupidly, I sided with Miss J. She eventually got fired, and embarrassingly, my boss found e-mails where Miss J and I were making fun of her. I left the company, regretting the toll that this took – especially hurting my boss who was a nice woman.
• Madame K: Madame K was someone I worked with since I started my own business. By the time I met her, I had dealt with this situation a few times with different women. She joined the organization I was working with about 6 months after I did. The team was very excited since she had a unique set of technical skills that were really helpful to the organization. I was also interested, since I am always excited to meet cool, strong women. When we first met, my heart sunk, and my stomach started to feel sick. From the beginning, she was spouting off wrong facts about my field, with no knowledge. I did not speak up, since I did not want to embarrass her, but if I was to do it again, I would have likely said something. She got demoted from leading the project, and I took the leadership role. She would nit-pick everything that I did afterwards, copying everyone, which made me crazy. I tried to escalate the nit-picking, but the client’s philosophy was that emotions were childish, and the whole thing was. I think he saw me as as much of a contributor as she was. Eventually I left the client – Madame K is still there but in a further diminished role.
• Lady B: Lady B was a young, new person I worked with who was on a client site. She was beautiful, personable, positive and effective in her client-facing role. I helped her with various projects, and trained her on others. She and I eventually went out for coffees to talk about life, and when I had a birthday party with work friends, she was invited. Things started to get a bit hectic with this particular client, and I was ready to leave. The boss had information that he could only have gotten through the conversations with her, and used it against me even clawing back revenue. She also went behind my back and betrayed me in the worst way since I started my business. If I was to do it again, I would never have trusted Lady B and I would never have confided in her.

So – essentially, I think that since these things keep happening, there must be something that I bring to the table as well. In each situation I made mistakes for sure, but I think there must be some larger, umbrella-mistake I am making to be a target for these people. I was the target of “mean girl” behaviour from some family members growing up, so maybe it is Freud’s repetition compulsion – I have to keep repeating this situation until it is resolved. Or perhaps I was just unhappy for other reasons in the situations above, and was looking for excuses to leave. Or – maybe it is just me seeking chaos in m life, right when the storm has calmed a bit.

Some of it, I believe, is a really toxic dynamic of women in the workplace, but I don’t believe it happens to all women. So – I am going to try to work through it in my current situation, and journal it here, using the advice from various experts. I hope this can help others as well. Here is the background on my current situation:

Soccer Mom: Soccer Mom is on the management team of one of my current clients. She is well-respected in the organization, and has played a key role in building the business. She is determined and warm and really loves her kids, and was very congratulatory when my son was born in January. However, she keeps coming in and trying to manage my projects. She will manage on top of me, telling my vendors what to do and causing a lot of confusion. She will also source new vendors without my knowing, with a brief that does not make sense for the project. Unfortunately, she does not have the technical background or experience to be able to do this work, so it always ends up being a mess. I wish she would simply stick to what she knows and is good at, rather than encroaching on what I am doing.

So – rather than this turning into another situation that drives me crazy at the time, and leads to regret, I am going to try a few different things. First, I will follow Bob Sutton’s advice. He is the author of The No Asshole Rule and has a lot to say in his article: Latest Tips for Surviving Workplace Assholes. Here is my plan:

Limit Contact: Although it is hard to avoid her, I can minimize my contact. I have tried that in the past, and that has worked so I will continue.

Polite Confrontation: I will talk to her about the situation and see. She does not seem “crazy” so hopefully a polite confrontation will help her see how much this is bothering me and why.

Practice Indifference and Emotional Detachment: I think obsessing about it is not healthy for me, so I will work on not letting it bother me so much and focus on the positive things (my son/husband, projects in my work I am enjoying, friends, working in the garden etc) – perhaps this will make the confrontation easier as well.

Practice “Small Wins”: I will try to think of ways to practice small wins so she will leave me alone.

So – stay tuned for updates!

Thriving Office contains two 39-minute tracks: “Busy” and “Very Busy”. Both are filled with the sounds of voices, phones, computers, drawers and more.

You can hear samples on the site – interesting idea .

]]> http://ch.aoti.ca/2007/06/thriving-office-making-a-small-business-look-big/feed/ 1 http://ch.aoti.ca/2007/05/flaming-e-mails/ http://ch.aoti.ca/2007/05/flaming-e-mails/#comments Wed, 30 May 2007 14:44:29 +0000 Stefanie http://ch.aoti.ca/?p=117 I used to work in a place with Lotus Notes, which let us attach little themes to our e-mails – like a thumbs up, confidential, stuff like that. One theme was an envelope with a flame on it. When those were sent, it almost never involved an important business issue. No, those were communicated in person or through a formal e-mail from upper management. A flaming e-mail was always one person with an axe to grind with another, usually about a very petty issue. The angry invectives would then go back and forth until someone stepped in or there was a direct conflict.

I have never seen an angry e-mail exchange result in a greater understanding to between the two parties. I have never seen it become a foundation for compromise.

Instead, it is a relationship ruiner. If you really hate someone, and you want to wreck a current and future relationship with them, get in an e-mail flame-war with them. It works, guaranteed.

I got one of these the other day, and I responded with:

"It seems that we have a disconnect here that can only be dealt with in person. Please call me."

I then left a message with them saying the same thing. Yeah, we are busy. We are tired. But, e-mail is a problematic communcation method in conflict because it is unidirectional (you can’t sense the other person’s responses like you would in person), difficult to determine tone (someone could look angry therefore scary when they are really just upset therefore vulnerable) and they can be written on a whim (there is no wimping out on the way to someone’s office and no throwing out the envelope before it goes in the mail). So – I think it is best just to take the old-fashioned direct route when it comes to conflict… and talk.

I remember one of the most successful Account Reps I worked with, said that 10-15 years ago she used to wear suits on her sales calls every day. She called mostly on designers and other creative people. One day, she was in the elevator and was getting off at one of her clients, and a man said "you are getting off at the wrong floor, you want to go to the bank". After that, she realized that no one was wearing suits anymore at her clients, so she stopped as well.

But, somehow, some people are reading and watching Donald Trump, and thinking that is "real business". In his industry, in Manhattan, his style and stance likely proves effective. I know someone who worked in Real Estate Development in New York and it is the type of atmosphere where that aggressiveness works… and everyone is wearing suits. But, I find that Donald Trump’s influence has expanded beyond that, influencing people to act in ways that might not be helpful to them.

For example, one tech head-office team from the West Coast I worked with looked more like a touring rock-group than they did executives. They had printed t-shirts, piercings, faux-hawks, the whole deal. They were casual… so acting like Donald Trump with them and wearing a suit would insight laughter, not results. Another executive, who was a bit of a mentor to me, was a woman in her 50s who wore absolutely no make-up, let her natural gray hair show and always dressed comfortably. She was very calm and peaceful but did not suffer fools gladly, and would argue vigorously against something if it didn’t make sense. She respected logic and forward-thinking – acting aggressive, over-confident, and being cut-throat would not be effective with her either.

I think being a good business person has a lot to do with understanding the atmosphere that you are in and adapting to it. It takes one style to bring out the best ideas and performance out of creative people. It takes quite another to negotiate the best deal. And another entirely to effectively manage a non-profit volunteer group. But – somehow this new guard of business people seem to think that all it takes is a suit and swaggering over-confidence. I’m sorry, but it doesn’t. A suit doesn’t suit every occasion.

My sister-in-law, who is a physician, had the same problem when she started interning – the nurses assumed she was a nurse too, and there was a very awkward moment when she was asked to change bedpans! My brother, who is also a physician, never had an issue. Of course, my sister-in-law and I set them straight, but if you think that the old-fashioned attitudes are gone – think again!

The opposite is also true. I worked with a man who owned a PR company, which he started in his early-20s. He said the secret to starting his business young was that he started balding when he was 22, so people thought he was older and more trustworthy at an early age. I guess I never had the ‘luxury’ of balding .

This weekend something else strange happened. During Easter, people kept asking me about my son – how old he was, what grade etc. My son? I don’t have a son! Then I figured it out – my 5-year-old nephew and I are very close, we kept playing together and he kept coming to me and there is a pretty strong family resemblance – so from that they assumed he was mine. Again, I set them straight – but it surprised me that people thought I was a Mom when I think of myself as a single-urban-career-chick ready for the next adventure.

So – maybe this isn’t all that revelatory, but I tend to think of the world on a pretty equal basis. Meaning, you are your ideas, your words, your warmth, your experiences… not your looks, your race, your age, your gender or your act. I remember my Psychology 101 professor saying he perceived people as "floating brains", culling away all outside appearances and seeing people for what they are. But, I see most people don’t think that way. Actually, some people laugh their heads off when I explain the "floating brains" thing. It’s too bad because I think it is a pretty good ideal to strive for.

Here is the scoop. I was at my desk writing an e-mail, when a woman I work with came to me with a question on a new policy. She did not like the answer, and went on to raise her voice, make her face turn read, talk in cognitive distortions (saying things like "millions" and "all the time"), threaten me and put me down. I felt a bit irritated at first, but once she started raising her voice, I calmly said "I am not comfortable with how heated this discussion is". She then did calm down, and we discussed it a bit, and we came to an agreement.

When I thought of it, I have had no one yell at me like that in my professional life, for at least three years, so of course I was a bit thrown off. Twenty minutes later, I noticed that she was not at her desk, and was concerned. I walked around the office until I found her, speaking to my main contact at this client saying "she.. she… she…" As I popped around the corner, they were both very caught off guard… I had just caught them talking about me – they admitted it immediately. 

I said "let’s all talk about this" in a direct way and after about 45 minutes it was resolved. I know that this is very bold of me, given that these are clients and it is usually better not to rock the boat. Usually I have "don’t rock the boat" pasted on my forehead. However, I know that nothing dissolves a team quicker than when there is that kind of negative talk. Everything I have ever read on teamwork encourages dealing direct with people, then escalating if that does not work. When that escalation occurs, it is best to have a mediation, where all sides are present. So – yesterday I took a risk and faced it head-on, because I knew it would be better in the long-run. 

This problem, of talking behind backs, is unfortunately a woman’s problem. I hate to admit it, but it has only been on female teams where it has been an issue… but oh what an issue it can be. I’ve seen it all – tears, quittings, sabotage, firings… and hours and hours of ruminating discussions. Usually it involves something extremely petty and something that involves control. I will not hypothesize on why this happens since I don’t have the qualifications, but I think that if women are going to get stronger in the world, we have to stop wasting our time, talking about each other behind each others backs and feeling the concomitant stress… and we have to start working with each other in a direct, constructive way (even if it means taking some risks, and popping around some corners).

I was talking to my 7-year-old niece the other day about what the kids are now-a-days doing for fun on the playground in the winter. After talking about sliding and throwing snow, we got to one of my favorites – the snow castle. NB for those who live in warmer places – this is a big structure created by kids, where they take snow that is usually piled up by a plow cleaning up the street or the schoolyard and create it into a fort.

I asked my niece about her experience with the snow fort, but she said she stays away from it. "Usually there is a boy there who bosses everyone around. It is always a Grade 3" she said with downcast eyes (she is in Grade 1). Then I remembered, that yes, usually there was a kid who would try to be "King of the Castle" who would stand on or near the top of the fort and boss everyone else around, ruining all of the sculpting and creative architecture that can take place, and turning people into his little slaves.

I almost blurted out "that is why your Aunt isn’t married, because she hates Kings of the Castle – she wants to do her own thing". But I resisted since I don’t want to sound jaded in front of my special little niece… although the thought crossed my mind over and over again. Author Ann Lamott expresses her dislike of being bossed by a man that she is living with beautifully and I will paraphrase: "I don’t want big foot stomping around with the TV blaring asking me what time dinner will be on the table". It is the same way that I feel. I lived with that dominating man in my mid-twenties and although I don’t relish living alone, I will never go back to a life like that.

Kings of the Castle are not only in domestic life, but they are also in the work place. They are the ones that sap all of the spirit out of projects, and choose a domination role instead of a leadership one.  It is the man who will take over the more fun strategic and visible parts of the project, and order everyone else to do their parts to his exact instructions as if they were machines… instead of allowing everyone to contribute in their own unique way and only giving them visibility if something goes wrong. It is the woman (a Queen of the Castle which is in my experience a rarer occurance than a King) who will refuse to let there be any debate or discussion, and will force her opinion on everyone, even if it is not the best course of action or it doesn’t even make sense.

So – in the school yard, I am sure there are kids who will be engineers and architects, and who can envision incredible new ways to build the castles. There are also kids who are artists, and can think of neat ways to decorate the castle with sculptures or designs. There are also natural leaders (instead of dominators) who could bring out the best in people. But somehow, the King of the Castle is on top so no one can show their true talent. Yes, there are ways to dispose of the King, but rarely does it happen. Instead most people just do what my niece does – play somewhere else.

Since in the work place that is usually not an option, most people just check out emotionally and psychologically, becoming the King’s drones instead of contributing to their highest extent. How can we get around the King without becoming a drone? I want to know too. I will do some research and some living and write it in a later post… once I figure it out.