Encouragement Archives - Greatness Magnified

Believing People Want to Do Well: Searching for Hidden Greatness Even in Toxic Behaviours

July 28, 2021 By Sarah McVanel Leave a Comment

Having conducted or lead a team that has engaged in over 100 team consultations, I can tell you that I can count on one hand the number of people who set out to deliberately and systematically tear down other people, their team, and the organization.

Yet, how often are we pointing fingers? There’s got to be a “bad apple” to sus out, right?

Nope. This only serves to create further damage, distracting us from the real and root issues; the very opportunities to “fix” things and find sustainable solutions.

I know what you’re thinking. “But you’ve never met Shiela/Kwasi/Alex!” Well, it’s true I haven’t, and it’s yes, there are a handful of people that deliberately toxify the people and environments they work in.

It’s just not as often as we casually assume and assign blame to.

When you think of Shiela/Kwasi/Alex, can you say with certainty that they were toxic to the core? That their intentions were intentionally, premeditatedly and deliberately destructive? (If so, I am so, so, so very sorry. You do NOT deserve that.)

Instead, I think you will find this:

Very few people make it their mission in life to harm and hurt others.

(To be very clear, I am not saying toxic behaviours are never present; this needs to be dealt with decisively. It’s tricky. Read on and let’s explore this together.)

The rest of us are doing the best we can, and sometimes our capacity is low. In those times, we may not:

make the best choices
ask for help
look at the resources we have available
have the energy to find solutions
feel hopeful and optimistic
give the benefit of the doubt

Sometimes we can bounce back quickly, other times for a litany of reasons, we stay low for a while. However, being malicious is rarely the intention, it’s often frustration, roadblocks, a lack of resiliency, not talking through key issues, and other heavy “stuff of life”.

So what can we learn from this?

It’s very easy to lose hope when we’re in the middle of an interpersonal conflict storm that things will get better. This isn’t about “taking it” if you’re being disrespected and treated poorly; feedback is essential to letting someone know that their behaviour isn’t acceptable or aligned to expectations (yours, the team’s, the organization’s).

I have an idea that will give you the motivation to take action: Assume they don’t know the impact of their actions and words.

At first, this may seem unkind. “Hey Sarah, aren’t you assuming the worst in someone?” Actually, it kind by way of empathy: you shift to a state of curiosity as to why, right now, their baseline of “doing the best they can” is lower than their normal best. If you have any chance of recognizing their greatness behind the icky stuff, we need to draw on even a tiny reserve of empathy.

Unless you have confirmation that their behaviour is deliberately problematic, assume there’s a solution yet to be co-created.

Jumping to judgement and dolling out “jerk” cards like samples in a Costco will create way more problems in the long term.

Specifically:

Tunnel Vision – the longer issues go unresolved and assumptions set in, it leads you to see more of what’s not working in them, and be less likely to see evidence to the contrary (check out the Ladder of Inference for a framework for this process)
Toxic Scorecard – as the data “mounts” about their deliberate and increasingly problematic behaviour in your eyes, you get farther and farther away from a lower pressure conversation bridge, “Hey, can we talk?” (It’s like that Seinfeld episode where he couldn’t remember the name of the person he was dating, but it got past the point he could ask her, leading to a very comic end of that episode; in real life, unresolved issues are the opposite of funny.)
Learned Helplessness – seeing that you don’t have any control over how someone treats you or behaves can create learned helplessness; if you really don’t see any possibility that things will be better, why would you try?

Where to start?

I want to offer you this if you’re feeling completely helpless to make things better:

Look for any small sign that things are or could be better
Understand the situation since some scenarios are better than others
Examine the resources available
Ask for help to revolve longstanding issues
Lean on people you trust (without gossiping as it impacts how they see the other person)
Acknowledge yourself by simply trying to make the situation better
Feel grateful you were not the one contributing to this negativity as they are likely hurting
Remember that the future is not written yet
Seek to understand that you have learned
See how, or hold the faith, that you will have gotten stronger and more equipped from having been through this
Reflect on a time that was even worse than this and what you leveraged that helped even a little
Think of a situation in your work life that was harder and remember how you got through it
Remember you always have choices

I will leave you with this.

This experience can equip you with greater empathy for the people who are struggling (when someone comes to you for help as that trusted person).
This experience can help you notice when someone finds themselves in a stuck position from you having been there yourself.
This experience can help your future self by resolving this now and when you experience something like this in the future, you will remember how you took charge (and no doubt made progress in improving things).
This experience can help you look first at the circumstance versus jumping to an assumption it’s a personality and behavioural flaw.
This experience can help you cool your jets as it’s no fun to have to go back and apologize and challenging to break from an unwavering position.

On this last point, let me remind us, humans, that it’s perfectly normal to find ourselves in the grips of cognitive dissonance. Where we have such a strong stand, that it creates psychological discomfort to change it; it takes a lot of humility to say that we are wrong and we have a different way of seeing things. This can stop us from finding a sense of “me and you” and perhaps a more resourceful way of managing a relationship or situation.

Curiosity, empathy, and, I believe, greatness, are always present. It’s not just a gift to the person receiving this understanding. It is a gift to you.

If you missed the last two blogs in this series, you can catch up here:

You are already greatness my friends. Remember that always.

PS – Why not share this with someone who might benefit from this?

Be Wary Of Unaddressed Conflict

July 21, 2021 By Sarah McVanel Leave a Comment

Collective unhappiness creates social glue.

You know how when you’ve had a bad day, you call up a friend or somebody that is one hundred percent reliably on your team? Finding the closest person you think will listen and perhaps even commiserate with you when you’re unhappy at work is like that “phone a friend.” Before you even know it’s coming out of your mouth, your venting, criticizing, sabotaging, or any number of truly unhelpful behaviours.

Instant gratification comes when the other person nods their head or shares a similar experience about that person or agrees with you that “this place stinks “or generally gives them lots of attention.

When a sense of community doesn’t find a soul, this is the fertile soil in which bullying, incivility and conflict can grow.

I had a cool insight from a book I’m reading. It’s not a business book or even self-help; it’s a novel. (It’s a good read. You may want to put it on your summer reading list.) I digress. It’s called “The Lying Game” by Ruth Ware. A story about four friends in private school who banded together by coming up with lies and gave each other “points” for when people believed them. The story picks up years later when they’re adults, and they aren’t sure what lie created some form of devastation. So that’s what makes the plot interesting.

As these accomplished women come together in a reunion of sorts, triggered by this negative incident of the past, they are nostalgic for their relationship and proud of how their game brought them together. They begin to realize it was actually the very thing that kept “THEM” so very separate and isolated from others.

They were proud of their clique, and they didn’t need anybody else but each other in school. They’ve stayed friends granted disconnected ones, and the deepness of their connection was one that they were all proud of. Even though it meant they ignored others’ greatness, let alone recognized and valued it.

Until a lie was so big that they began to question if it was worth the lies they told that functioned at the time as bonding, they knew their lies frustrated or hurt other people. Over the course of the book, they begin to realize that maybe the lies actually hurt themselves most of all.

“A wall, after all, isn’t just about keeping others out. It can also be about trapping people inside.”

Bullying, silos, and “us/them” thinking is not only toxic for the person on the receiving end. It also sets a trap for us.

Unhealthy conflict sucks the air out of healthy team conversations, stokes the fire of mistrust (“if they’re saying this about them what do they say about me when I’m not here?”), and kiboshes commitment to the relationship. It makes compliments feel cliche, appreciation unappetizing, and recognition unbelievable.

What to do when others gossip to you?

If you’re like me, you detest being part of unhealthy gossip and you cannot let conflict go “hoping” it will get better. You may wonder what control you have over stopping it. You may even have had an epiphany in this article, that gossip creates social glue, and finally have an answer to why it happens in the first place.

So what do you do when you find yourself suddenly in a conversation with gossip, criticism, conflict and divisive behaviour? What do you do when it’s clear to you that what you’re hearing is clearly an unaddressed conflict that if left unaddressed, will make that relationship turn ugly and fast?

It’s tempting to see it as “between them”. However, your silence may in fact fuel the fire. It may even stoke it by not saying anything. The sheer fact that you’re hearing, granted not by design, one person or group’s view, you may be viewed as taking a “side”.

I know, total bummer. Unfair. Stinks. And, I think we can all recall a time when sadly, that is exactly what happened.

**The longer we stay unneutral, the higher the wall build.**

Even if there’s some small part of being, at that moment, part of being on the inside, more connected and united with another person, consider if the wall it’s building is what you want. This is particularly true to keep a close eye on if something they say resonates with a past conflict, resentment or frustration you’ve had and maybe not addressed or even admitted to yourself.

Let’s say you’re feeling undervalued and that there’s favouritism. Perhaps you’ve withdrawn a little as a result. You may have missed an opportunity to be part of the bigger picture, to be part of the collective, to add value. You have a choice: commiserate with that other person about how you too have felt this, or ask yourself if there is a way that together, you can tear down walls and resolve conflict? Rather than add another brick to the wall.

How Compassion for Others Is Compassion for Ourselves

If you were trying to address a wall you didn’t realize was there or had built so high, empathy and compassion are essential. Empathy for those who feel upset, empathy for people who don’t know others are upset, empathy for how uncomfortable and isolating it can be to be misaligned with others.

We look at a relation strain with compassion, as it is inevitable, we can see it as an opportunity to bring others into the fold, perhaps reinvigorating hope that a sense of “us” can be restored and dampening any desire to process pain and frustration through bullying, incivility, and gossip that act as master wall builders. In fact, the person who has the best chance of stopping walls from building up even higher is someone who feels like they aren’t always understood, don’t fit in, undervalued, yet sees this fellow person as a partner to tear down the walls rather than an ally to direct precious energy into further creating it.

It requires coming, intentionally, from a place of understanding and belief in shared humanity. In faith that everyone prefers to be civil and connected and collaborative. What if we assumed we wanted to be empathetic and compassionate and deal with conflict rather than assume that others don’t?

What if we looked for glimmers of greatness rather than evidence of differentness?

As the old adage goes, there’s one thing you can always change, and that is how do you think and behave in a situation. Between one “side” and the “other,” there’s lots of room somewhere in-between. You don’t have to be neutral, right in the middle dead centre. You probably don’t want to find yourself inadvertently teetering too close to the edge of one of those sides. After all, it is at the tail end of that continuum where bullying, silos, and incivility live (like we discussed last week).

The more you can make the case of the social glue closer to the middle of this continuum, the more people will follow you there.

In case you missed it, check out Part I of this blog post, Bullying Cliques and Silos: What They Have in Common and Divides Us All

And by sure to stay tuned for Part III next week!

Here are even more resources to help you create a conflict and drama-free work zone:

Bullying Cliques and Silos: What They Have in Common and Divides Us All

July 14, 2021 By Sarah McVanel Leave a Comment

My friend Renee Thompson, Incivility Expert in Healthcare, has been just as busy during COVID as she was before. Same with my friend Penny Tremblay, Mediator and Conflict Management Expert. Is this because these times create more conflict?

Well, as you know I’m not a conflict expert, or at least, my days of being a mediator are behind me; recognition is my jam, so abundant employee experiences, gratitude rituals, and visions of meaningful appreciation events dance in my head.

That said, I hear what clients are telling me, and that is they are seeing spikes in relationship turmoil.

I give caution to anyone who points at one cause, and says, “ah-ha! Another casualty of COVID! Workplace strife!” That assumes the two are explicitly linked. It assumes other factors aren’t at play. It assumes if we took away the factor that caused it, then things would be better or perhaps even go away.

Do you think for one minute if the strains your workplace were currently facing due to COVID – showdowns, workplace volumes, resource constraints – were lifted, you’d be able to proudly post a sign on your workplace’s lawn or website’s main page, “zero days since our last argument”?

Doubt it.

Bullying and Incivility…An Inconvenient Truth

Conflict at work was here before COVID, it’s here during COVID, and it will be after.

Conflict is normal and can actually be healthy. (Have you ever been festering inside because you can’t say what you need or are frustrated with feeling your voice doesn’t matter?) It’s functional. We need it. We may not like it, it makes us feel worse before it gets better, however, taking the easy way out and pointing our finger as the “easy” cause (COVID, intergenerational workplace, decreasing sales) often does more harm than good. It keeps the real issues underground and unexamined. Healthy conflict is needed for us to function interpersonally.

I know what you’re thinking, there’s no way it’s functional! It feels terrible! Which leads to more conflict! It also distracts us from our real work!

When I say functional, I mean it has a function. When people ban together against a common enemy, whether that is a peer or a boss or an organization as a whole, it creates a very important sense of belonging that people seek when they feel wronged, frustrated, or unhappy.

In other words, conflict is normal, it’s the fallout, and how unhealthy those behaviours are, that can create the dysfunction. Let’s not get conflict confused with bullying cliques and silos (or BS for short). BS is the manifestation of unhealthy responses to conflict, from not addressing it at all to toxic behaviours that fuel disconnection, and not from the conflict itself.

Sometimes the most helpful behaviour isn’t trying to dampen conflict, it’s to acknowledge it. BS festers and grows when left unattended; if you find conflict really tough, remember, BS that can grow from unaddressed, unnamed, festering conflict is harder. There are resources and folks who can help in figuring out the next steps in dealing with conflict, hopefully, before it morphs into BS. Folks like Penny and Renee and such as these posts:

How managing conflict is an inside job (Penny)
Creating a caring culture that does address conflict and toxic contexts at work (Renee)

The bottom line is this: pointing to a “situation” like COVID or that new project or the intern isn’t helpful as conflict isn’t a simple “fix” nor is it something we need to avoid at all costs. Just when it seems like it too overwhelming to deal with any more “tough stuff”, know you’re dealing with it anyway.

Wouldn’t you rather deal with it practically so it doesn’t hang around you like a bad smell?

The process of dealing with conflict won’t smell like roses, however, I think we can all agree, moving forward slowly is better than being stuck standing still. One step at a time.

I have a few more articles on the way for you that builds on this one, and in the meantime, for more ideas about dealing with conflict and creating connections at work, here are a few past articles you may find particularly relevant to revisit:

Thought Leadership: A Series of VIMEO Clips to Snack On

July 9, 2021 By Sarah McVanel Leave a Comment

Do you like to go to the drive-in?

Perhaps the drive-in is on my mind since my kids have recently discovered it. My daughter, the night owl she is, particularly loves it, riding shotgun with her bro, wind whipping through their hair as the sun goes down and joy of summer dancing in the air.

I personally can’t see the draw. (Not that I was invited, truth be told.) I was never be made for drive-ins. I don’t have the stay up, just yawn through it, next day grin and bear it sleepness tolerance. I’d rather lay on the couch watching Netflix with my hubby Mark (I know so cliche) and in bed by 10. #thisis40

Sometimes we don’t even have the attention span, after a zany day, for an hour-long episode. We catch a few clips of Between Two Ferns or “Best Of” SNL skits before heading to the land of nod.

Confession time: it’s not just at home that I enjoy bite-sized content.

Sure, I can totally nerd it out on a long Harvard Biz Review article or case study of a recognition-rich organization. And, I also really appreciate the shorter form TED Talks, snippets of videos, blog posts, and executive summaries. I will gobble up quality thought leadership of any length.

I’m probably not the only one where sometimes, less is more. That’s why I’ve started sharing clips of my talks in bite-size pieces. It’s a luxury I have now that talks are all virtual keynotes; my videographer Stacey Koudys can catch some juicy nuggets on video while she’s running tech backup for me.

We’ve been putting them on my VIMEO channel, and since we know you’re busy, we’ve shared a few here:

Start the Recognition Show!

Save Your Thank You Notes: Check out this little snippet from “The FROG Effect” recognition keynote at the Nurses Week Resiliency ReBoot 2021, where I encouraged all healthcare professionals to keep their thank you notes, texts, and emails! You never know when you’ll need it to refill your resiliency cup!

People Never Forget How You Make Them Feel: We’ve all heard this expression – people may forget what you said or did, but they never forget how you make them feel (Maya Angelou). When was the last time you truly practiced this with such unwavering conviction and intention that the person felt at least 10x better, more confident, and happier due to how YOU showed up for them? If your answer isn’t “within the last 5 minutes,” you know what to do.

Practice Self-Compassion: You know when we can FLIP failure and unconditionally recognize ourselves and others? When we lean into compassion. I dive into a quick tip on how to gauge if you are able to be compassionate to others, or if you first have to start with being compassionate toward yourself.

Leadership Intermission is over…now back to the show!

Who in Your Life Could Use Some Praise?: I’m so thrilled to share this snippet of a leadership talk I delivered a few days ago for a rockstar client. It’s a call to action: recognize someone who REALLY needs appreciation right now.

Failure Makes Us Human: We benefit from unconditionally recognizing ourselves and others rather than judging, criticizing and measuring how much “not good enough” exists. There is always room for improvement. Despite how smart, hard-working and organized we are, we can still bump up against the other “f” word – failure. Experiencing a failure isn’t the same as “You Are A Failure,” and yet we often interpret it this way.

3 Ideas for Recognizing Others in a Virtual World: Are you wanting to find ways to connect and appreciate in a remote context? The problem is not slow wifi, or videos turned off, or people in sweatpants. The problem is that before the rise of remote workplaces, we did not have authentic recognition practices hardwired into the cultural fabric. What we know today is the need for clarity and conviction in leadership to make recognition practices strong, authentic, sustainable, and owned by all.

Grab the popcorn, put on the readers, and enjoy.

PS. Hey, would you like to catch more juicy nuggets from my virtual talks this past Spring? CLICK HERE to join VIMEO to view more and to ensure you don’t miss out on any future videos.