Dear Getting a Grip:  I work at a high-tech company and everyone - they think on the down low - is inventing The Next New Thing. Our company’s wannabe entrepreneurs insist on telling me, at length, nostrils flaring, how big their Thing is going to be.  That Thing changes from day to day, if not from hour to hour.  On the one hand, I admire their spirit and the company that pays my salary was certainly founded by an entrepreneur.  On the other hand, “Shut up and do some work!”  Entrepreneurs may get a lot of glory in the press, but I’m sick of trying to work with them.

Dear Work:  Entrepreneurs are legendary for using up the people in their lives.  Through their parents’ love and loans, through their significant others’ love and lack, i.e. doing without during the development of The Thing, through their co-founders’ enthusiasm and can-do, through their workers’ stamina and spirits, entrepreneurs can pare away resources and goodwill until people cut them off to save themselves, or become just too depleted to give any more.

In addition to being fed up or used up, if your company’s policy states that what’s invented while an employee works for the company belongs to the company, or if the policy forbids employee entrepreneurship, you've got an ethical issue going as well.

Getting a  Grip:  Entrepreneurs can be so sharp, so visionary, so exciting to work with or for, that time spent with them is transformative.

But the impassioned cannot hear, whether they’re entrepreneurs, environmentalists, or eighth graders.  Trying to explain to your entrepreneurial co-workers how challenging it is to work with them, how scattered and inefficient you find the work flow, how resentful you might feel about doing all the listening and none of the talking, how unfair it is for them to talk with you about topics against corporate policy, eh, they can’t or won’t listen.  “It’s the idea, man!  Nothing else matters!”

To them, maybe, but not to you.  The only way to handle those who won’t listen is rather than to speak, act.  Put up a hand, walk away, draw a line in the sand.  Will entrepreneurs like you for this?  Nope.  Will they hold you in contempt for not appreciating their ideas?  Yep.  Will they probably increase their talk, lobbying, and insults before they desist?  Yep.  Eventually, in the silence, you can keep your integrity and get some work done.

***

Need to start “Getting a Grip” on a personal problem at work?  Need workplace advice?  E-mail your question to grip@handshake20.com.

Getting a Grip, a workplace advice column, is written by Anne Giles Clelland  Getting a Grip  regrets that not all questions can be answered, personal replies are not possible, and questions may be edited for brevity and clarity.

Getting a Grip appears monthly in Valley Business FRONT.  A version of this column appeared in the March 2010 issue.

Dear Getting a Grip:  Hey, I recycle, I wash and reuse my plastic storage bags - I even compost!  So why at work does Miss Greener Than Thou have to constantly nag me with her passive aggressive, “You sure are making a lot of copies!” and “Do you really need that many paper napkins?”  She doesn’t seem to realize that her green evangelism isn’t converting me, but turning me into a resistance fighter.  I know it’s immature, but whenever she feeds me her born again greenisms, I feel like taking, horrors, two whole paper towels in the washroom instead of just one.  Who put her in charge of my conservation efforts?

Dear Compost:  While “going green, “ “conservation,” and “sustainability” are important to define and take action upon both at home and at work - and you and Miss Greener Than Thou seem to share this view - with regard to Miss GTT’s communication style, you seem to be seeing red rather than green.  Your frustration with her tactics makes sense.  Regardless of her purported intentions, she seems more interested in controlling your behavior than in inspiring you to join her cause.

Getting a  Grip: When people believe the actions of others have dire consequences - destruction of a soul, destruction of a planet, destruction of human rights - they can get minds as zealous and dogmatic as those they want to change.  As you point out, aggression, passive or otherwise, results in resistance.  Confrontation, especially in public, results in shaming, humiliation, and resentment.  Adopting a position of moral or behavioral superiority pushes people away.  By using force, those with the most humane messages can create deaf ears.

You have several choices.  You could leave a non-green printout of this column on her desk, but that’s passive-aggressive. (Still, I bet it shows up on the desks of a lot of eco-evangelists out there.)  You could share your frustrations with her and ask her directly to desist with monitoring your behavior, but zealots tend to want to harangue rather than listen.  Or you could take the high road, devise your own “green” initiative beyond Miss GTT’s paper-counting, and invite others to join you.  If they do, fine, if they don’t, fine.  Whether it’s a goal of yours or not, you’ll probably have more influence on others than does Miss GTT’s micromanagement.  Instead or reacting to someone else’s intrusions, you’ll be taking action on what you value - responsible, individual choice.

***

Need to start “Getting a Grip” on a personal problem at work?  Need workplace advice?  E-mail your question to grip@handshake20.com.

Getting a Grip, a workplace advice column, is written by Anne Giles Clelland  Getting a Grip  regrets that not all questions can be answered, personal replies are not possible, and questions may be edited for brevity and clarity.***

Getting a Grip appears monthly in Valley Business FRONT.  A version of this column appeared in the February 2010 issue.

Dear Getting a Grip:  The women at my office and their low-cut blouses…  What are they thinking wearing bar-hopping attire to work?  A guy’s gotta look, doesn’t he?  I’m not a creep, a stalker, or a predator.  I’m a healthy, heterosexual male.  Will you tell the ladies to at least button up one more button so I can get back to work?

Dear Not a Creep:  While I don’t have the power or interest to impose a dress code, I can see your point of view.  Literally and figuratively.  People select clothing for reasons ranging from indifference, to adornment, to tradition, to intent.  Should co-workers wear this and not that?  Unless a company dress code exists and management enforces it, the question doesn’t really matter.  Our particular morals or taste have no control over what, how much, or how little our co-workers wear.

A guy may think he’s gotta look, but it’s dangerous corporate territory.  Whether you look, joke about the desire to look with co-workers, or talk over the looking with a manager, you’re right that you can look like a creep.  You may also be accused of sexual harassment, which is legally actionable.

Getting a  Grip: What we give our attention to ultimately is a matter of choice, whether to an office mate’s cleavage, to the plumber’s half-exposed rump, or to a rose-tinted sunrise.  None of those “make” us look, although we may not be fully conscious of choosing.  When we feel like something outside of us is driving our choices, we’ve given our control to it and we’re no longer behind the wheel.  While it may feel natural to look, it’s natural to feel hunger and wait to eat.  Figure out what’s taking your sense of choice and power from you at work, and take back that wheel.  After work, places abound where it’s not only permissible, but expected, that you sit back and look and look and look.

***

Need to start “Getting a Grip” on a personal problem at work?  Need workplace advice?  E-mail your question to grip@handshake20.com.

Getting a Grip, a workplace advice column, is written by Anne Giles Clelland  Getting a Grip  regrets that not all questions can be answered, personal replies are not possible, and questions may be edited for brevity and clarity.

Getting a Grip appears monthly in Valley Business FRONT.  A version of this column appeared in the January 2010 issue.

As humans, we are thinking and feeling creatures, even when we’re doing business with each other. Awareness of both gives us strategic power.

• Consciousness of my thoughts and feelings gives me the strength of both in my negotiations.
• Attempting to force feelings out of my awareness takes energy I could otherwise focus on the transaction of business.
• Even if I am successful at cutting myself off from perceiving my feelings, they’re operating at an unconscious level, perhaps in non-mission critical ways or even in anti-mission critical ways.
• Cultivating empathy with myself - the ability to understand and relate to my own feelings, situation and motives - strengthens my ability to empathize with others. If I can emotionally and rationally put myself in my customer’s place, I’m much more likely to be able to offer a product or service from my company that truly meets the customer’s need.
• If I am one of those who pooh-poohs the importance of feelings, and I’m negotiating deals with people who have the full power of awareness of their thoughts and feelings on their side, combined with an ability to empathize, they have a competitive advantage over me. In a negotiation, they may truly know me better than I know myself.

Many believe awareness of our feelings weakens us for business.  “Don’t take it personally,” we’re told repeatedly.  Translation:  “Don’t let feelings affect your actions.”

And that is the challenge with feelings.  Many of us are undone by feelings.  When we “let them out,” they tend to overwhelm us.  We feel, we act, then think “What were we thinking?!” We haven’t been taught how to use feelings to help us choose actions.

How to work with feelings can actually be depicted in a very rational formula:

Translation: “Ah, I’m having a feeling.  Let me pause to think about that.  Okay, I think I see options x, y, or z.  I’ll choose to take action on y.”

Using a feeling, thinking, acting order - FTA - rather than a feeling, action, what was I thinking order - FAT - gives me all the power of my humanity to make thoughtful, sometimes necessarily calculated transactions and negotiations. 

Thus, when someone says to me, “Don’t take it personally,” I say, “Oh, I take everything personally.  But I do it strategically.”

***

Anne Giles Clelland, M.A., M.S., has degrees in education and counseling.  She writes a workplace advice column for Valley Business FRONT.  She is the founder of Handshake 2.0.

Dear Getting a Grip:  I work in a small office and a co-worker consistently leaves food in the refrigerator until it spoils, refuses to empty his trash, will not answer the office phone if the receptionist is with a customer, and, frankly, takes part in nothing we do - including celebrations. He does his job very well and is valuable to the company. He is not unpleasant, but rarely engages in casual conversation. Is there a problem here? If so, what can/should we do about it?

Dear Daily Routine:  During a discussion of the cover of a New Yorker magazine - featuring a perfectly yoga-fashion-clad woman, perfectly cross-legged to achieve perfect enlightenment, her eyes cut viciously to the insect buzzing around her head - a colleague said, “There’s always a fly.”

Whether during meditation practice or when discovering one’s lunch is slimed by a co-worker’s rotting container beside it, there’s “always a fly,” some occurrence that interferes with our plans, vision, even dreams.  Sure, we can try a flyswatter on this fly - have a meeting with the “will not” guy, share expectations, ask for alterations in behavior.  He probably won’t change, but he may.  But the new hire will constantly leave the paper tray empty on the photocopier.  There’s always a fly.

Getting a Grip: How people live their lives, even in our proximity, is beyond our control.  We can make requests, but ultimately they choose.  In the workplace, our co-workers or employees may do good work, but won’t always do what we want in the ways we want them to.  That’s just the buzzing of the human condition.

***

Need to start “Getting a Grip” on a personal problem at work?  Need workplace advice?  E-mail your question to grip@handshake20.com.

Getting a Grip, a workplace advice column for Handshake 2.0, is written by Anne Giles Clelland.  Getting a Grip regrets that not all questions can be answered, personal replies are not possible, and questions may be edited for brevity and clarity.

***

Getting a Grip appears monthly in Valley Business FRONT.  A version of this column appeared in the October 2009 issue.

Dear Getting a Grip:  A co-worker constantly makes attempts at humorous comments, always at the expense of others.   When challenged, she replies, “I was just kidding.  Can’t you take a joke?”  Yes, I can take a joke, but her comments are critical and demeaning, not funny.  Yet, if I question her, I look like the one without a sense of humor, as if I’m the one with the problem.  I dread being in meetings with her and avoid her whenever possible.  I’m enjoying my workplace less and less.  What do I do about this office jokester?

Dear Not Funny:  A comedian in the office is like a bully in the middle school.  We fear that a stand for justice will make us the new victim and result in abandonment or shunning by peers.  Like a bully, an office comedian seeks power over others and this disregard for mutuality is experienced with a very human level of dismay, even betrayal.

A show needs an audience.  Public efforts to confront an office comedian usually result in empowerment of the performer, not the people.  If you have co-workers who feel the way you do, and a supervisor who will mediate, a small group “intervention” may let the comedian know the stage is smaller than she thought.  Although the comedian is unlikely to change behavior, the meeting establishes that you no longer intend to be a captive audience.

Getting a Grip: Instead of leaving her show because she has the power, leave because you do.  Your presence is a gift and you have the right and power to choose to whom to give it.

***

Need to start “Getting a Grip” on a personal problem at work?  Need workplace advice?  E-mail your question to grip@handshake20.com.

Getting a Grip, a workplace advice column for Handshake 2.0, is written by Anne Giles Clelland.  Getting a Grip regrets that not all questions can be answered, personal replies are not possible, and questions may be edited for brevity and clarity.

***

Getting a Grip appears monthly in Valley Business FRONT.  A version of this column appeared in the December 2009 issue.

Dear Getting a Grip:  Every year my company holds a holiday office party.  Every year I debate whether or not to go.   This year, you decide.  Yes or no?

Dear Holiday Spirit:  Facebook has nothing on the holiday office party for creating angst over the crossing of the line between personal and professional.

One way to decide is to perform a cost-benefit analysis, even in a spreadsheet if need be.  Each option requires yes/no weighing.  First the costs:  What are the personal costs of going?  Perhaps time away from your family?  What are the personal costs of not going?  Will you miss social time spent with co-workers who are friends?

What are the professional costs of going?  Might you tend to drink too much and say things that will plague you at work later?  What are the professional costs of not going?  Maybe resentment from the rah-rah supervisor who organized the event?

Now to the benefits.  What are the personal benefits of going…the personal benefits of not going…

Getting a Grip:  What do you want to do?  Given you have x number of years on the planet, how do you want to spend the hours during which the office party is scheduled?  If you want to go to the party, go.  If you don’t, don’t.  Sometimes deciding what to do can be that simple.

***

Need to start “Getting a Grip” on a personal problem at work?  Need workplace advice?  E-mail your question to grip@handshake20.com.

Getting a Grip, a workplace advice column for Handshake 2.0, is written by Anne Giles Clelland.  Getting a Grip regrets that not all questions can be answered, personal replies are not possible, and questions may be edited for brevity and clarity.

***

Getting a Grip appears monthly in Valley Business FRONT.  A version of this column appeared in the November 2009 issue.

Dear Getting a Grip:  My employer just doesn’t understand how much I have on my plate right now.  My mother-in-law has cancer, my son has turned into a soccer star so we’re constantly traveling to his games, and the plumber botched a repair job so we’re washing dishes in the bathtub.  I’ve had some negative performance reviews and I keep trying to tell my boss that things will get better.  Why can’t he take the “this too shall pass” attitude that I do?

Dear Bathtub:  Because this too shall not pass.  No matter what life has put on your plate that seems too much to stomach, as soon as you force it down or dump it in the potted plant when no one is looking, life will serve up another heaping helping of itself.  Life’s like that.

What makes for positive performance reviews is not how soon you can make what has happened go away, nor how much of life you can keep from happening (or attempt to), but how you handle what does happen.  Because it will keep happening.

Acquiring skills to cope with challenges, or even to triumph during them, is very difficult in times of high stress like you’re under.  Nonetheless, now is the time to begin.  Learning requires trial-and-error experimentation.  We all make errors.  With negative performance reviews under your belt, your boss will either appreciate your efforts or fire you for being too much on his plate.  Either way, you’ll have readied yourself for positive performance reviews with your current employer or your new one.

Getting a Grip:  Simply becoming aware that today’s challenges will be replaced by tomorrow’s can be fortifying.  The crisis reaction of “Oh, no, life has happened again!” eases into the productive response of “Ah, here’s life again.”  If life is a feast, an overfull plate can seem overwhelming.  A few utensils can help us fork up bites we can chew, even savor.

***

Need to start “Getting a Grip” on a personal problem at work?  Need workplace advice?  E-mail your question to grip@handshake20.com.

Getting a Grip, a workplace advice column for Handshake 2.0, is written by Anne Giles Clelland.  Getting a Grip regrets that not all questions can be answered, personal replies are not possible, and questions may be edited for brevity and clarity.

***

Getting a Grip appears monthly in Valley Business FRONT.  A version of this column appeared in the September 2009 issue.

Dear Getting a Grip:  Every few years I hire an employee who seems like a team player, but ends up challenging my authority.  The most recent one asks questions about my decisions, suggests new projects, and sends e-mails with rewrites of the company’s mission statement.  I find myself wanting to say, “I’m the boss, not you!”  What do I do with this meddling employee?

Dear Authority:  When an employee defies the authority of an employer, what to do is clear.  That’s a mismatch and the employee-employer relationship must terminate.

When employees meddle, or try to insert themselves into the management process, that’s usually another dynamic.  Sadly, much too often, and for a variety of reasons, families from which some employees come have had uncertain structures lacking parental authority.  To keep the family intact, often to survive, the children shifted from being care-receivers to care-givers.  They become expert at serving as pseudo “team players” to preserve the illusion of the parents in charge, yet the children served as the family’s decision-makers, managers, and coaches.

We all tend to bring the pattern we used at home to work.  Employees from challenging homes are used to propping up leadership that has proven unreliable.  They actually had to try to control their family’s leadership.  They may not be conscious of how much they doubt and mistrust authority.

Getting a Grip:  The greatest gift leaders can give their employees is to draw a clear line between employer and employee, designate who’s to do what, and do the leader’s side with authority, credibility, and consistency.  Yes, employees may not like you over there all the time, and, yes, leadership is lonely and crossing the line may be tempting.  But when you have to say, “I’m the boss!”, it’s likely your boss-like actions aren’t speaking loudly enough for themselves.  Find fellow leaders as confidantes, thank meddling employees for their ideas, and lead the company so well that the meddlers can stop worrying about whether they’re the coach or you are, and be the true team players you hired in the first place.

***

Need to start “Getting a Grip” on a personal problem at work?  Need workplace advice?  E-mail your question to grip@handshake20.com.

Getting a Grip, a workplace advice column for Handshake 2.0, is written by Anne Giles Clelland.  Getting a Grip regrets that not all questions can be answered, personal replies are not possible, and questions may be edited for brevity and clarity.

***

Getting a Grip appears monthly in Valley Business FRONT.  A version of this column appeared in the August 2009 issue.

Dear Getting a Grip:  The chief financial officer of my company recently started attending an anonymity-based 12-step program of which I have been a member for years. This person is a cocaine abuser and has already had two relapses in a few weeks. I discovered recently that over the past few years she has been embezzling from our company to support her habit. She has been with the company for many years and has a long family history with the owner. Her actions put the jobs of 50 people in jeopardy and are, of course, illegal. However, I am honor-bound to protect her identity and my sponsor says to ignore it.  Help!

Dear Anonymous:  In spite of all the research, the “whys” of substance abuse and addiction remain stubbornly mysterious.  One frequently recurring factor, however, has to do with control.  In some way, the abuser felt powerless and the substance offered some semblance or illusion of control.

Those in recovery must develop an acute awareness of when they feel outrage over the behavior of others and a desire to do something about it.  Since this desire can be tied to original reasons for abuse, the risk of indulging it is perilously, tragically high.  This is why you have heard from your sponsor, “Ignore it,” undoubtedly paired with “Get thee to a meeting.”

You’re not wrong that the CFO is wrong.  But, today, it’s the CFO.  Tomorrow it will be the CTO.  The next day, the CEO.  Daily, you will witness behavior that harms others, risks others, endangers others.  Recovery doesn’t provide us with tools to hammer the lives of others into the way we think they should be.  It gives us tools to stay clean and sober long enough to build meaningful lives for ourselves.

Yes, you are honor-bound to protect the anonymity and confidentiality of a 12-step meeting. People who don’t keep their word with others don’t keep it with themselves either.  Moral defeats can sap the spirit and undermine recovery.

And you’re bound by logic to give the recovery process a chance.  If it works, your CFO will have her time to make amends and restitution.  If it doesn’t, you won’t need to break your word.  Someone else will finally mention the CFO’s inevitable progression into a living hell.

What about the company?  “We never noticed a thing.”  Yes, they did.  A corporate system where silence is kept when people are sick and suffering, and where money is missing, or isn’t noticed when it’s gone, needs to break down.  May all involved find the breakage an opportunity to piece together an honest corporate culture.

Getting a Grip:  Don’t let anyone take your recovery away from you.  Not your CEO, your ex-spouse, even your sponsor.  Otherwise, there will be not one person, but two, jeopardizing your company.  Keep the focus on yourself, follow the program, practice the principles.  Your ability to oversee others is not your gift to the world.  You are.

***

Need to start “Getting a Grip” on a personal problem at work?  Need workplace advice?  E-mail your question to grip@handshake20.com.

Getting a Grip, a workplace advice column for Handshake 2.0, is written by Anne Giles Clelland.  Getting a Grip regrets that not all questions can be answered, personal replies are not possible, and questions may be edited for brevity and clarity.

***

Getting a Grip appears monthly in Valley Business FRONT.  A version of this column appeared in the July 2009 issue.