The Art of Manliness - The 7 Types of Work Jerks (And How to Deal With Them)

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast you're working

00:00:11.640 under a boss who really rubs you the wrong way so you quit your job and take another but in your

00:00:16.140 new office you find yourself stuck with a co-worker who bugs the tar out of you the presence of

00:00:20.760 annoying incompetent and underhanded people isn't a particular workplace problem but a universal

00:00:25.560 human problem in any and every group of people they're going to be bothersome and troublesome

00:00:29.820 personalities so if you can't entirely escape them how do you get along with your fellow humans at

00:00:34.340 work my guest today has some research backed advice her name is tessa west and she's a professor of

00:00:39.680 psychology and the author of jerks at work toxic co-workers and what to do about them today on the

00:00:45.140 show tess describes the seven types of jerks you run into at work the kiss up kick downer credit

00:00:50.420 dealer bulldozer free rider micromanager neglectful boss and gaslighter and shares what drives the

00:00:57.400 respective behaviors and how to deal with them after the show's over check out our show notes at

00:01:01.420 aom.is jerks at work

00:01:03.520 tessa west welcome to the show thanks so much for having me so you are a professor of psychology that

00:01:23.000 has specialized in interpersonal communication particularly interpersonal communication that

00:01:28.360 happens at work curious what led you down that path and why have you focused on workplace communication

00:01:33.560 you know it's it's kind of interesting i started doing research as an undergraduate at uc santa

00:01:39.040 barbara but before i did that i sold men's shoes at nordstrom's and kind of some of the most fascinating

00:01:44.440 work experiences i've had i've been watching people compete for customers and do things like try to

00:01:50.360 figure out how much money someone has look at their clothes look at their mannerisms you know try to read

00:01:55.240 the room to figure out how you know they could upsell a client so these kinds of things so i was

00:02:00.220 really fascinated you know how people interact with each other and how perfectly decent people will

00:02:05.940 become pretty horrible in the right circumstances you know they'll steal clients from friends they'll

00:02:11.160 do things like hide shoes that are the most popular size to gain you know more money and i found

00:02:17.400 that fascinating and i kind of use that experience to really you know propel me into this research career

00:02:22.320 about understanding how people interact with each other at work what are the subtle ways in which

00:02:25.980 they try to sabotage each other but also the ways in which they try to help each other so i think that

00:02:29.920 really that early teaching experience really came from just working in sales and you know what's

00:02:35.320 interesting too we spend a lot of our life with people at work like you know a lot of times that when

00:02:39.780 we think about i gotta improve my communication it's like well i gotta improve my communication with

00:02:43.340 my spouse but i mean you probably spend more time with your co-workers than you do with your

00:02:47.880 spouse yeah absolutely you actually spend much more time with your co-workers than your spouse and

00:02:53.220 you know people are always surprised at this finding that the stress you feel at work bleeds over into

00:02:58.420 the stress you feel at home more than the other way around so if your marriage is going poorly or you

00:03:03.200 had a fight with your kid that's going to affect your life at work but if you have a fight with a boss or

00:03:07.640 co-worker that's going to really affect your life at home and it's going to affect your health it's going

00:03:12.540 affect how you interact with people you know whether you you know get irritated with your son

00:03:17.520 or you snap at your wife these kinds of things and i think we often kind of underestimate how strong

00:03:23.100 that path is from our work stress to our home life yeah it's funny i actually i met up with a friend i

00:03:27.820 hadn't seen in a while a couple weeks ago and we're like how are you doing man he's like man it's it's

00:03:32.920 been rough like i had this this guy at work who's just a complete complete jerk and it's like affected

00:03:38.320 the rest of his life and he says i try not to but it's just every day it's relentless and i was like

00:03:43.280 man that really like i'm like what are you gonna do it's like well i can't quit right now because

00:03:47.200 i gotta support my family it's kind of he's like in a rock and a hard place yeah it's interesting

00:03:52.460 people complain about these things and you know we don't no one teaches us how to deal with this stuff

00:03:56.860 so kind of one thing that i think is super interesting about that story is like he probably

00:04:00.920 has a ton of different tactics he uses to deal with conflict with his spouse or his kids

00:04:05.240 but who teaches us how to have you know effective fights with people at work no one does and so we

00:04:11.620 just sort of grin and bear it suck it up we try to suppress those negative emotions when we go home

00:04:16.440 which we know from social science actually never works actually makes things worse we we tend to

00:04:20.720 show more of those things the more we try to push them down and then we just feel trapped often and i

00:04:25.280 think it sounds like that's what your friend is going through so you got a book out help people

00:04:28.960 navigate these workplace conflicts it's called jerks at work toxic co-workers and what to do about them

00:04:34.640 so let's start off with definitions how do you define a jerk at work like what makes a jerk a jerk

00:04:39.080 yeah you know full disclosure i actually don't love the word jerk i think it it implies a certain

00:04:46.200 amount of intent to try to ruin people's lives or make them unhappy and i think most jerks are kind of

00:04:52.200 accidental jerks you know they're not actually doing these things to sabotage people so when i think

00:04:57.340 of what is a jerk at work i think of it more in from the perspective of the target it's an eye of the

00:05:02.200 beholder you know i i feel like someone is mistreating me they're micromanaging me they're

00:05:06.860 neglecting me they're speaking over me and that feeling that labeling is where i really get my

00:05:12.160 definition but i do think it's a tricky thing to do to try to figure out who exactly is a jerk and so

00:05:17.480 you know one thing i tell people is if you aren't sure it's really helpful to really ask around and

00:05:22.620 look for consensus and if everybody agrees that kind of behavior is unacceptable at work then you're

00:05:28.420 probably dealing with a jerk if only one person agrees with you yeah maybe not so much maybe you

00:05:33.840 know there's some kind of interpersonal conflict you have with that person but it really comes down

00:05:38.800 to how people label those who are around them and how they behave okay so it sounds like sometimes

00:05:43.300 oftentimes jerks don't know that they're jerks like they don't know what they're doing

00:05:46.360 you know they know they're doing something that they think is actually effective at work so so people

00:05:51.960 are always really surprised when i tell them that most of the strategies people try at work are

00:05:56.740 actually things that someone taught them or they picked up somewhere and they think they're actually

00:06:01.140 going to be effective at getting work done at getting their team members to like them and in fact

00:06:06.220 the opposite is true our self-awareness sucks most people have no sense of how they're seen and i think

00:06:11.660 a lot of jerks are doing things that they were taught are actually effective ways of managing or

00:06:17.160 cooperating with others and they just simply aren't and they've never gotten that feedback and so i like

00:06:21.820 to emphasize that sort of accidental work jerkery happens all the time at work i think it's

00:06:26.200 actually much more common than things like intentional sabotage and i think the other

00:06:30.660 thing we often sort of don't think about is what are the people in power doing to the people who are

00:06:36.500 one or two steps you know below them and these kinds of practices really trickle down so if our

00:06:42.100 manager is being mean to us they're micromanaging or they're ignoring us or whatever it is they're

00:06:47.200 probably getting that signal from their own manager and from their manager's manager so we often think of

00:06:52.600 our relationships is kind of in a bubble i have this boss who sucks who's mean to me but we're not

00:06:57.280 thinking about how that boss is being treated by their boss and how that behavior is really the issue

00:07:02.600 that we're dealing with it's just trickling down to affect us at work and as you said earlier when we

00:07:07.680 started this conversation no one teaches you how to manage difficult people and i've been noticing

00:07:11.680 as i progress and kind of get more experience that's an important skill to have because you're going to

00:07:17.020 encounter difficult people or difficult conversations all the time and because no one knows

00:07:21.600 how to handle it they end up just like not doing anything and it makes it worse for everybody

00:07:26.240 yeah you know this phenomenon of quiet quitting that's going on right now i think a lot of that is

00:07:31.280 people just throwing their hands up and saying screw it i don't want to deal with these difficult

00:07:34.840 people at work anymore instead of kind of learning these strategies to detect the problems really

00:07:39.700 early which i think is really kind of key to solving a lot of these issues is what are those early

00:07:44.560 red flags those early warning signs that something's going wrong by the time we're disengaging from a

00:07:50.020 relationship or we're just saying you know i i just can't handle this anymore i don't know what to do

00:07:54.780 it's probably too late and it's really about learning those early strategies so you don't find yourself

00:08:00.040 wanting to quietly quit or you know a sabotage someone or gossip about them or whatever it is

00:08:05.480 all right so in the book you break down the jerks at work into seven types of jerks and the first one

00:08:11.420 is the kiss up kick downer so how do you know if you're dealing with a kiss up kick downer what is

00:08:16.920 a kiss up kick downer yeah so this is probably my favorite type of jerk this person is very two-faced

00:08:23.180 so they behave one way in front of leadership so bosses tend to really like these folks they're high

00:08:28.040 performers they do well at work they know how to say the right things to the right people but they

00:08:33.400 mistreat the people who worked with them or beneath them so they tend to kind of kiss up to the people

00:08:38.520 in power and they kick down to those who are working below them so they'll do things like try

00:08:43.040 to sabotage you or insult you in front of a client make you feel bad about yourself question your

00:08:48.480 expertise and it's really that kind of two-faced nature that defines a kiss up kick downer and you

00:08:54.140 encountered a kiss up kick downer when you were selling shoes at nordstrom yeah you know in sales

00:08:59.440 people are really incentivized to do whatever it takes to get ahead and this person i worked with he

00:09:05.060 he he was really great at selling clients loved him he was very warm and friendly and charismatic

00:09:09.580 and good looking and all those things but he just sucked to work with he he would sabotage other

00:09:14.980 people's sales he would you know take shoes from the back room and hide them that if there are popular

00:09:20.240 sizes these kind of small acts that had plausible deniability so if anyone was to question him he could

00:09:26.980 call it a mistake he could deny it and it became very much kind of this he said she said debate that went on

00:09:33.120 and the boss almost never sided with us they she almost always sided with the kiss up kick downer

00:09:38.080 because he was selling shoes yeah he was selling a ton of shoes and the important people the customers

00:09:43.660 really liked him so she just told us that we were being babies you know we need to suck it up that we

00:09:48.600 have to kind of learn to work with someone like this and she didn't see any of these signs herself and

00:09:53.420 so she kind of questioned us assumed that we were just really envious of his numbers is there a type of

00:09:59.280 personality that's drawn to becoming a kiss up kick downer yeah you know i think in the book i talk a

00:10:04.500 little bit about machiavellianism people who are kind of willing to do anything it takes to get ahead

00:10:09.080 willing to kick down just to climb that to the top of that ladder and i think you know this trait which

00:10:15.000 is associated with things like narcissism with authoritarianism is really signature for these folks

00:10:21.320 they they're really only concerned with impressing the right people not necessarily doing the right thing

00:10:27.200 and you also talk about one of the things they do they're really good at they're able to read the

00:10:31.400 room effectively they have like really strong social cues so they can figure out well who's in

00:10:36.560 charge who has influence i'm gonna cozy up with that guy so i can you know get what i want yeah you

00:10:43.280 know this skill of reading the room of knowing kind of who has power and who doesn't is something that

00:10:47.940 we vastly underestimate at work and you know the ways we pick up on this are really subtle things like

00:10:53.700 imagine you walk into a meeting who is the boss talking to right before the meeting who do they

00:10:58.500 turn their attention to during that meeting you know who are they laughing with who do they touch

00:11:03.280 on the elbow is a sign of kind of rapport and camaraderie these small little behavioral signals

00:11:08.440 will give you the lay of the land they'll tell you who's in charge and what that hierarchy looks like

00:11:13.080 and people like kiss up kick downers are just really good at using that information

00:11:17.080 and accurately perceiving that status hierarchy so what do you do if you're you're dealing with a kiss

00:11:23.040 up kick downers like you said you when you brought it up to your your boss she was like well you know

00:11:27.820 you guys are just envious what's going on there i'm gonna ignore you so how can you deal with that

00:11:32.380 in an effective way you know i think the most effective thing isn't to confront this person

00:11:36.680 it's actually to take a step back and do a little bit of networking and kind of behind the scenes

00:11:41.920 digging up what's going on so what i did was i found someone at work who worked in the the coffee shop

00:11:47.320 so they were super well connected they they weren't in charge they weren't powerful but they knew

00:11:51.620 everyone and they knew people who had dealt with this person in the past people who had actually

00:11:56.560 transferred to other departments because they hated working with him he was such a pain

00:11:59.820 and that person really helped me figure out what other victims are out there and how widespread is

00:12:06.340 this problem i think one thing people are tempted to do is to confront and deal with this as if it's a

00:12:11.260 one-off issue between them and this person at work but often it's kind of more like a cancer that's

00:12:16.140 spreading throughout you know a lot of people have conflict with this person a lot of people have left

00:12:20.640 you know because of it and figuring out how widespread the problem is so you can then go

00:12:25.480 to your boss with that information is much more effective than just complaining about the behavior

00:12:29.940 yourself bosses get nervous when they think a conflict is widespread when they think a lot of

00:12:34.760 people are affected by it they get less nervous if it's just you complaining so i think you know that's

00:12:39.920 kind of the lesson i learned is you have to network you have to find those kind of critical social

00:12:44.780 you know socially connected folks at work who know the lay of the land who know who else has had

00:12:49.900 issues with this person talk to those folks see if they're also willing to kind of come forward and

00:12:54.120 tell their story and then go to your boss with that and one thing you you emphasize is you want to when

00:12:59.040 you're collecting this data you want to focus on facts and not feelings i think there's a tendency

00:13:03.100 well this person made me feel bad he's doing that well i mean that's that your boss can be like well

00:13:07.820 that's just you you need to take control of that yeah but if you just actually just like here's

00:13:12.040 what happened he did this this person had the same experience that they can actually make a

00:13:15.880 decision on that yeah you know there's this movement right now of being able to kind of bring

00:13:20.140 your whole self to work talk about your feelings i tend to be very cynical about that approach because

00:13:26.260 feelings are subjective you know it's very easy to say someone is overreacting it's very easy to kind

00:13:31.760 of discount how someone feels who cares it doesn't matter how you feel anyway come with the facts

00:13:37.260 have data you know write down times and dates things that hr would care about if it got to that point

00:13:44.260 telling your boss that you feel disrespected that you feel like you don't know what he trusts you

00:13:49.880 you know you feel insulted your feelings are hurt they're just going to kind of groan and roll their

00:13:55.260 eyes at you and say i'm sorry you're feeling that way let's work on your feelings instead of oh wow

00:14:00.540 those behaviors do seem a little sabotage you let's like actually try to figure out a way around that

00:14:05.360 issue so i i'm hesitant to tell people to lean in with their feelings lean in with the facts and the more

00:14:11.380 people who can corroborate those facts the better okay another jerk is the credit stealer i'm sure

00:14:16.520 everyone has dealt with this if they worked on a school project in a group there's definitely uh

00:14:21.940 some credit stealing going on but it happens all the time in the workplace what's interesting about

00:14:25.980 credit stealing is that it's the biggest one of the biggest sources of conflict in the workplace

00:14:30.880 yet people are terrible at detecting a credit stealer so what's going on there why is that

00:14:37.080 you know credit stealing is probably one of the most ambiguous behaviors we deal with at work

00:14:42.180 so you know most people think they deserve more credit than they actually get i think it's kind

00:14:46.980 of a human bias to think we we contributed more than everybody else so you kind of have that working

00:14:52.020 against you i also think when you look at how credit stealing actually happens at work it's never

00:14:58.000 someone standing up and going i take credit for that idea that was my brilliance you know it's much

00:15:03.720 more subtle it's that they restate your idea maybe more eloquently than you said it and because they

00:15:10.020 have status and influence the idea then sticks to that person or they go behind the scenes to the

00:15:14.940 boss or maybe they even are your boss and you know overemphasize their contribution to something

00:15:19.800 it's vague it's ambiguous and it tends to just kind of happen slowly over time so it's really hard to

00:15:25.700 label and it's really hard to detect and it's also just kind of really you know laden with a lot of

00:15:30.840 human biases and so i think for that reason people often feel like the credit's being taken from

00:15:35.700 them but they have a hard time kind of pinpointing exactly when it happened and the circumstances

00:15:40.180 surrounding it well especially this happens a lot in workplaces where they're new you're doing a lot

00:15:44.460 of collaborative work right so you might be spitballing with people and you might throw an idea

00:15:48.400 out and someone hears that and you know maybe not intentionally but it got embedded in their their brain

00:15:54.140 and then they later you know a week later say hey here's this idea like well that was my idea what the

00:15:59.620 heck yeah you know we also that that happens all the time i think and i think both people would

00:16:04.980 probably legitimately think they deserve credit for it what happens with collaborative work too is ideas

00:16:10.040 are in the air they're in there all the time it's actually kind of developing the idea that takes work

00:16:16.500 and that tends to be group kinds of projects group behavior and so it is very difficult to allocate credit

00:16:21.640 i think on top of that we all have a spotlight effect we all remember what we said what we contributed

00:16:26.840 but we're not actually paying that much attention to what other people are saying and contributing

00:16:30.880 so we remember what we said and when we said it but you know if you were to ask us five minutes later

00:16:36.140 well what did tom and bob and sally say you know i have no idea all i know is that five minutes into

00:16:41.740 this meeting i came up with a really brilliant idea everyone's walking around like that no one's

00:16:46.360 going to be very good at actually figuring out who's contributed what and when yeah you ask any any

00:16:51.320 couple like who does the most housework i guess the estimates they get like every person in the

00:16:56.200 partnership thinks they've done more housework than the other person because you you know what you

00:17:00.480 did but you don't know what the other person did yeah and i think i actually did a study on this

00:17:04.660 once everyone thinks they've done about 80 percent of household labor um i certainly feel that way

00:17:10.500 the other funny thing that happens and this happens at home and also at work is invisible labor

00:17:14.820 so a lot of the work we actually do isn't seen by other people it's not recorded it's kind of more

00:17:20.860 indirect it's like giving advice or helping someone else flesh something out and that work doesn't

00:17:26.180 really get incorporated into credit allocation when we give people credit for hard work or for ideas

00:17:31.580 we often kind of don't incorporate the invisible stuff the stuff that no one sees that goes on behind

00:17:36.320 the scenes the small phone calls or the walk to the coffee shop where we gave someone advice or help

00:17:41.000 them work through a problem and i think that also contributes to this issue

00:17:44.320 and the other tricky thing with credit stealing is that you point out oftentimes the people who are

00:17:48.840 stealing credit whether intentionally or unintentionally they are typically your closest

00:17:52.900 relationships at work like they're close co-workers a mentee or even your boss

00:17:57.740 yeah i actually bosses are the number one credit stealers in the workplace and it's usually someone

00:18:03.580 who's kind of in middle management who actually does by definition get credit for the work that their team

00:18:09.440 does and so sometimes they slightly over claim that in an effort to look like really strong leaders

00:18:15.380 to their own boss so a lot of this kind of credit stealing that's going on behind the scenes is

00:18:20.120 impression management it's trying to look good to my boss to look like i've done a ton

00:18:24.080 and i think you know for that reason it's really hard for us to actually confront these folks at work

00:18:29.380 when someone who has power over you is stealing credit you know a lot of people are like what do i do about

00:18:34.180 that i can't just like yell at this person so yeah it's a it's a difficult issue so how do you do i

00:18:39.320 mean the other thing that makes it tricky is that if you call somebody out on it they're gonna like

00:18:42.840 well you're just being petty you need to be a team player what are you talking about so what's the best

00:18:48.320 way to approach this you know i think the temptation is to call it out in the moment but i actually think

00:18:54.100 the best things to do are kind of more preemptive so if you're doing group work you really have to have

00:18:59.880 a system of actually keeping track of contributions and not just for your own team but actually when

00:19:05.320 you present those contributions to others so kind of one of the most effective things i've actually

00:19:09.520 seen teams do is when they present teamwork to a boss or a leader instead of saying we detected problem

00:19:15.820 x and we solved it with problem y they say things like you know brett detected problem x tessa solved it

00:19:24.120 with this solution and then janine jumped in with this solution so giving individual contribution for

00:19:29.520 different parts of the project but that requires like pretty intense note-taking so i think kind of

00:19:34.560 one thing you can do is just build those practices in the other thing you can do that's preemptive for

00:19:39.260 individuals is learn how to have what's called voice at work so this means that when you speak up

00:19:44.260 people listen to you that the ideas that you share stick to you and not to other people and that

00:19:50.540 actually requires you to become someone that others respect that others listen to and they go to for

00:19:55.800 advice you know so it's not about really claiming credit in the room and getting for it it's about

00:20:01.260 walking into that room with voice being someone that others listen to and that those ideas will

00:20:06.820 stick to you and that actually takes a lot of behind the scenes work to figure out exactly how to get

00:20:11.540 there and i think it involves things like networking and you know knowing the kind of hidden curriculum at

00:20:16.920 work showing up being the person others go to for advice those things that don't seem to be

00:20:21.780 associated with credit actually are because they then kind of translate to that voice once you're

00:20:26.460 in the room you need street cred street cred yeah street cred for real cred yeah street cred for real

00:20:32.140 cred okay uh so credit stealers so basically you want to preempt it make sure you develop that voice

00:20:36.860 then also you get some other really just basic tactics when you are in a group project just assign

00:20:41.300 everybody here's what you're doing so everyone knows what everyone's doing and there's no temptation

00:20:45.260 to take too much credit for something you didn't do so another jerk is the bulldozer and this one

00:20:51.880 could be i mean i think everyone's dealt with a bulldozer at some point so what is a bulldozer

00:20:55.520 yeah i i really see bulldozers sort of um as having kind of two main traits so the first is the one that

00:21:01.760 we're all pretty familiar with the person who just has no inner monologue they talk over other people

00:21:06.120 all the time you know they take over those meetings these folks tend to dominate conversations

00:21:12.660 in contexts where there's no leader that will step in and actually kind of monitor talk time or

00:21:17.980 contribution time these kinds of things but the more dangerous type of bulldozer is the one who goes

00:21:23.920 behind the scenes to sabotage teams and i've actually seen this happen quite a lot in workplaces

00:21:28.760 where teams are making decisions that are super high stakes that will affect everyone for a very long

00:21:34.300 time like hiring decisions for instance your bulldozer doesn't like the the direction the group is

00:21:40.180 going in they will go behind the scenes and complain to the boss and they won't complain about the

00:21:44.800 decision they won't say things like i disagree with the decision what they'll do is actually

00:21:48.860 criticize the process they'll question the way in which the decision was made you know we didn't have

00:21:54.500 enough time to talk about this person or no one knew what they were voting on you know these things

00:21:59.180 that actually make bosses really nervous that is kind of their bread and butter is to do that to

00:22:03.840 sabotage decisions so if you have one of these people on your team you might not actually know it

00:22:08.160 because they're not bulldozing in the moment but your team is just never getting anything done

00:22:12.380 those votes end in impasses you're just constantly spinning your wheels you start to turn on each

00:22:17.320 other because for some reason this group is being really ineffective and i think that's kind of the

00:22:21.440 more dangerous form of bulldozing that we see at work yeah you talk about one of the things that

00:22:25.700 people be aware of is people who try to make everyone dependent upon them like they become the

00:22:30.120 bottleneck you gave the example of this programmer who he developed this program for this this system that

00:22:36.540 this company did and everything had to go through him and because everything had to go through him

00:22:40.840 he was he's basically he he had control of the situation he was kind of this but he wasn't like

00:22:44.540 your like your typical extrovert you know you think of a bulldozer he was doing it like beneath the

00:22:49.980 surface yeah i think one thing that we don't like to admit to ourselves at work is that we often kind

00:22:55.020 of hand off thankless work to bulldozers really early on in the process so these people don't tend to be

00:23:00.720 the most charismatic in the room you know they don't actually have that much voice what they do have

00:23:05.580 is ambition and the time to kind of execute tasks that the rest of us are just sort of bored with

00:23:11.060 you know putting together programs that we then become dependent upon to look through resumes

00:23:16.100 things like that those those kind of jobs that really should be allocated equally among people

00:23:20.760 the bulldozer will volunteer for them kind of very early on and then you really can't get rid of them

00:23:25.580 you can't kick them off your team because they're invaluable they're the only one who knows how to do this

00:23:30.520 thing and therefore you know you become very reliant on them they give themselves power early on by doing

00:23:36.500 this so yeah you give a list of 10 things to avoid giving a bulldozer so passwords for company media

00:23:42.080 accounts so yeah like there's social media accounts don't want to give them the passwords they'll just

00:23:45.480 control that thing access to the company website for updating knowledge how to work a new software

00:23:50.500 like anything where they had they become the entry point like you don't want them to have all that you

00:23:55.060 want to distribute that with different people yeah i think people aren't going to want to take on those

00:24:01.140 roles they tend to kind of be roles that don't push you ahead at work they're not rewarded they don't

00:24:07.260 give you a raise or promotion but they have to be allocated equally you know it sounds silly that

00:24:12.780 you know being in charge of the company twitter account something like that shouldn't actually be

00:24:17.720 powerful but it's it's public facing and bulldozers kind of can control a narrative so even little

00:24:23.720 things like that i think are really important to think about how do you want to do these things

00:24:27.560 also just kind of rotating those roles so that no one person feels the pain all the time sometimes

00:24:33.440 bulldozers are people who are not super high in power and status maybe they've kind of dug themselves

00:24:39.360 a hole and they're trying to get out and so they offer all these free labor jobs in order to get back

00:24:45.240 in people's good graces and you're sort of happy to give it to them because no one else wants them

00:24:49.300 i think that's usually sort of where they start to really sink their claws in at work

00:24:53.780 we're gonna take a quick break for your words from our sponsors

00:24:56.340 and now back to the show what do you do if you've got a bulldozer at work and how do you

00:25:04.660 make them not a bulldozer i actually don't think you can tell these folks stop bulldozing

00:25:10.020 you actually have to go behind the scenes first you need to figure out who are they talking to

00:25:14.180 you know what levers of power are they able to actually pull on to get their way

00:25:19.280 and the whole team really needs to be on board with going in and presenting this alternative

00:25:25.140 narrative so i i actually went through this last year with someone who tried to sabotage a hire

00:25:29.980 in the psychology program and what we had to do as a group is actually go to the decision maker

00:25:36.440 have one share reality between five of us that contradicted the bulldozer's version of events

00:25:43.120 in order to persuade our boss that this person was trying to sabotage something he was very

00:25:49.200 convincing and i think the boss was pretty much on board with him and believed him that none of

00:25:53.220 these things actually came happened the way that we said they did and so by coming together and

00:25:57.820 creating that alternative narrative you know hopefully you've sort of kept some records that

00:26:01.960 you can then go present is the best thing to do i think confronting these folks tends to not be

00:26:06.860 effective they're clever they'll find another way around to get to the levers of power you have to go

00:26:11.720 directly to the source and if you do have someone who just talks over meetings you need to have some

00:26:17.020 rotating role of someone who's keeping charge of who speaks up and when and does things like call on

00:26:22.220 lower power people in the room otherwise these bulldozers will just take over the entire time

00:26:26.100 you can't just simply tell them to stop well another counterintuitive tactic is if you have a

00:26:31.240 bulldozer you have to work with you got a problem that they're causing let the bulldozer solve your

00:26:37.500 problem how does that work yeah you know sometimes all these people want is to be heard and so imagine

00:26:45.220 that you have a bulldozer who just talks the whole time what you can do is actually put this person in

00:26:49.860 charge of using their voice to call on other people so i've dealt with bulldozers like this who you know

00:26:55.680 instead of trying to socially ostracize them or tell them to shut up i brought them to my office and i

00:26:59.980 said look you're very comfortable speaking up but these three new hires they're simply not so in the

00:27:04.640 next meeting can you make an effort to call on these three people so that we can give them some

00:27:08.340 voice you know you're great at interrupting others if someone else is talking too much can

00:27:12.240 you interrupt and say you know thanks so much tom i i would love to hear you know from karina next

00:27:17.540 time um something like that and and they feel included and you're just kind of re-channeling their

00:27:23.000 energy to something that's just much more effective in the room and they like it and they're good at it

00:27:27.360 so why not just kind of give them that kind of power all right so you talk about another jerk is the

00:27:31.880 free rider and this is kind of they're similar to the credit stealer in some ways what does a free

00:27:35.820 rider look like in action so free rider is a very charismatic fun loving person on your team

00:27:42.640 that you would hate to kick off because you just really enjoy being around these folks and so what

00:27:48.460 they do is they use their charisma they use their social charm to get away with doing very little work

00:27:54.280 most of them are smart they allocate their work evenly among the entire team

00:27:58.780 so that no one person kind of feels the pain of their free riding and they're also really great

00:28:04.460 at targeting teams that are very effective so it's kind of this ironic finding in social psychology

00:28:09.360 which is you know if you take a group of really conscientious people people who are trying really

00:28:14.180 hard you put a free rider on their team they'll actually overcompensate for that person they'll not

00:28:20.120 only do that person's work but they'll do even extra work and so teams that are conscientious with

00:28:25.680 free riders tend to outperform teams that are conscientious that don't have free riders and

00:28:30.840 free riders kind of figure this out these teams get rewarded by the boss that you know often are

00:28:35.600 rewarded with even more work and so eventually they'll burn out but they're great at targeting

00:28:41.120 these super effective teams that will just kind of make up for their their you know slacking off

00:28:46.660 so how do you suss out if you got a free rider in your group i really think the only way to suss

00:28:52.120 this out is by you know doing this two-step process of when you have to do teamwork everyone

00:28:57.960 needs to allocate what they plan on doing at the beginning of a project or week or whatever write

00:29:03.280 down the work that they did at the end of the project that they agreed to do and write down any

00:29:07.720 extra work that they didn't agree to do and only by kind of adding up all of these pieces of work

00:29:13.560 that people did that they didn't agree to do ahead of time are we able to really detect free

00:29:17.600 writing most people don't want to tell on a free rider they don't want to confront a free rider if

00:29:22.620 they feel like this person is asking them to do work so you almost need a third party to look at

00:29:28.120 you know this information and say okay looks like five people did work that they didn't agree

00:29:32.220 to do ahead of time and it all belonged to one person you know therefore we have this issue

00:29:37.100 so i i'm a huge fan of kind of following this two-step process to really detect the issue

00:29:41.920 another related person to a free rider are it's a time thief what is a time thief and

00:29:46.740 how do you know what you're dealing with one time thieves are people who they tend to have a lot of

00:29:53.820 you know anxious or nervous energy they'll come to you when they're feeling upset they will suck up

00:29:59.600 your time they are very bad at kind of perspective taking that right now might not be the best time to

00:30:04.700 come talk to you not all of them are actually doing it with ill intent a lot of them are doing it

00:30:09.120 because they like you and they want your advice but the minute they experience a negative emotion

00:30:13.360 they'll come to your office they'll sit down and they'll say i need to talk through this problem

00:30:17.060 with you with kind of very little perspective over you know whether this is a good time for you or not

00:30:22.680 sometimes thieves are just folks who are low status who are trying to climb up the ladder and

00:30:27.720 they want to press the flesh so we're all probably familiar with these linkedin folks who send you

00:30:32.740 random messages that are like i would love to get to know you more can you please fill out my calendar

00:30:37.240 you know that's a time thief someone who wants your time they want to get to know you but they're not

00:30:43.600 actually offering much in return and i think you know in this workplace where we're all trying to

00:30:49.240 network and impress each other we're really seeing a ton of that going on right now so those are kind

00:30:54.300 of like two shades of time thief that i think are going on yeah i've i've been the time thief where

00:30:59.160 i've got like something's broken like on my site for example and then i'll i'll email you know the

00:31:05.240 developer and be like oh my gosh this is broken this urgent gotta fix it and then of course he's

00:31:08.800 probably doing something else he doesn't get back to me for several hours but by then like the problem

00:31:13.460 solved itself and i'm like that was really dumb why did i get all and so i've i've kind of learned

00:31:17.800 that i think maybe benign neglect might be a useful way to approach time thieves like that who are like

00:31:23.300 they think think everything is urgent usually not if you just maybe you just ignore them for a little

00:31:28.180 bit this problem typically resolves itself i love that they they definitely have this like

00:31:33.380 chronic sense of urgency it's a little like a micromanager they're they're sort of the masters

00:31:37.420 of time thievery everything is urgent i have to deal with it right now and they're bad at

00:31:42.220 troubleshooting i think that kind of the main thing that happens with time thieves is they have a hard

00:31:46.480 time regulating their own emotional responses and so they kind of bleed it onto other people

00:31:50.520 especially anxiety and you know these kinds of things happen all the time i i also just think that

00:31:56.440 like most of us are really bad at telling time thieves to go away we have to put ourselves on a time

00:32:01.080 thief diet you know or we we find that slowly our day has been eaten up by these folks or i'm sure

00:32:07.260 you i think you mentioned this in the book if someone asked you like just a question like hey

00:32:10.520 quick question blah blah you can respond with uh let me google that for you or you can yeah i've sent

00:32:15.880 people the link to what is google before yeah no but yeah the let me google that for you it's like

00:32:21.700 you can type in the search and then send them the link to that search and then like it types out the

00:32:25.400 their question in google it's kind of it's kind of a passive aggressive way to do it but i think it's

00:32:31.180 funny okay so talk about free riders talk about time thieves let's talk about we just you mentioned

00:32:36.200 one micromanagers what are the characteristics of a micromanager so micromanagers think that

00:32:41.800 everything is equally important and everything is equally urgent so you know a lot of us have people

00:32:47.320 who kind of hang over our shoulder a little bit they they tend to have too much control over our work

00:32:54.200 lives but micromanagers what their sort of distinct you know traits are is that they can't tell what's

00:33:01.900 important and what's not they can't tell sort of what should be on the back burner versus what you

00:33:06.300 should be doing right now and kind of the irony of a micromanager is they work the hardest but they

00:33:10.840 get the least done because when you're operating like this everything is an emergency you're always

00:33:15.500 trying to put out fires you know because they don't actually they can't tell what is an emergency and

00:33:19.460 what's not they they tend to kind of lose the forest through the trees and i think for people

00:33:24.480 who work for micromanagers they often actually don't realize that they're spinning their wheels

00:33:28.120 most of the time that half of what they do will never actually see the light of day you know so this

00:33:33.080 urgency plus you know importance combination is really a signature micromanager yeah and you talk

00:33:39.740 about that they probably micromanage because they've never really been trained to be a manager and

00:33:44.820 that's one of the problems with workplace like it's the peter principle right the reason people get

00:33:48.080 promoted to being a manager is well they were good at their job as a salesman well they might be a

00:33:52.400 great salesman but they're probably a terrible manager and so if they don't get trained on how

00:33:56.860 to be a manager they start micromanaging yeah and i think most micromanagers probably either have

00:34:02.620 micromanager bosses or neglectful bosses so you know i don't even like that we call it promotion

00:34:07.900 because it's assuming that you're doing your same job at another level it's actually a completely

00:34:11.520 different job and a lot of people really fail when they go from excellence at their own job

00:34:16.300 to managing other people who now hold their own job you know one of the things they do to make

00:34:21.420 themselves feel better to make themselves feel secure in the absence of that training is they

00:34:26.080 exert top-down control over whoever now holds the thing that they were really good at and you know

00:34:31.500 there's a temptation to do that to feel effective at work when you don't know how to do this new job

00:34:36.880 called overseeing you know five to 15 direct reports and almost no micromanagers have good managers

00:34:44.940 above them they're either being micromanaged or they have bosses who completely ignore them

00:34:50.100 and so they're micromanaging to kind of make up for that gap and another issue too a lot of times

00:34:54.360 people micromanage is because they just don't have anything for your their employees to do and so

00:35:00.460 they just come up with just really menial dumb stuff like polishing brass at the bar or whatever

00:35:07.100 you know one funny thing about micromanagers that people don't realize is a lot of them are not

00:35:12.060 super popular at work with their own you know level of management so they're they tend to be

00:35:17.940 annoying to the people who manage them and those people tend to give them medial jobs so i i dealt

00:35:24.120 with a micromanager at work she was super ambitious but super annoying to work with and her manager

00:35:30.220 ended up putting her on all these kind of made-up committees just to keep her busy to keep her out of

00:35:35.260 his hair and the people who then worked for her were doing all this kind of fake labor you know these

00:35:40.720 this stupid work that like no one was ever going to see because she was given these tasks just to

00:35:46.660 get rid of her because her management style actually also trickled up and a lot of that included these

00:35:51.800 medial tasks like you know polishing brass or i worked in sales where i had to sort clothes by color

00:35:57.560 which like makes no sense micromanagers like control and so it actually kind of scratches their

00:36:02.500 itch but you're obviously kind of wasting your time when you work for one of these folks doing these

00:36:06.520 things right and like what an effective manager would do in a situation where there's your their

00:36:10.720 employees have nothing to do is they would think big pictures like well can we do a training or is

00:36:15.120 there something we can sort of big picture that we can develop so when we have stuff to do again we do

00:36:19.820 it better but a lot of times micromanagers don't think about that yeah micromanagers are funny they

00:36:24.820 don't see how the work integrates right so they don't actually try to you know take some big or high

00:36:30.060 level goal break it up into pieces and then try to put it back together like a jigsaw they think

00:36:35.020 more in terms of silos so you have this project and that project and all this independent stuff

00:36:39.260 that doesn't ever really get integrated and that's part of why they're really inefficient and don't get

00:36:44.340 anything done is because they're really siloing off this work and they're not thinking big picture

00:36:48.960 and then the people who work for them are ever next are never actually integrated either so you never

00:36:54.460 actually see how the small thing you're working on is part of a bigger whole because it often never

00:36:59.400 actually comes together this is kind of a like a petty thing to deal with micromanagers but i've

00:37:04.880 heard this with authors who have editors that are really nitpicky and micromanaging with their books

00:37:10.060 is they'll purposely put just obvious typos and mistakes in their writing so that the micromanager

00:37:16.560 focuses on that instead of chopping off their the stuff that they want to keep in there

00:37:21.540 i'm pretty sure some of my students have done that and they're writing with me to get me to just like

00:37:27.220 leave them alone yeah they they put these little like i've heard of this too luckily i i had an

00:37:33.200 amazing editor i i had enough of my own mistakes that they found in there but yeah no i mean people

00:37:39.300 will do things like that they will put these little intentional red flags just to keep their

00:37:44.140 micromanager off their back you know which is sad but you know we do what we need to do to survive right

00:37:49.960 so what do you do about a micromanager if you if you've got a micromanager boss i think the

00:37:55.620 temptation is to hide from these folks but you're actually going to have to lean in to having more

00:38:01.080 frequent meetings with these folks that are short and that are super structured so the micromanagers

00:38:08.000 i've seen dealt with the most effectively are the ones who have kind of a very clear layout and plan

00:38:14.660 with every employee that allows them to actually snoop a little bit so for instance you meet with

00:38:20.540 them three times a week for five minutes instead of one time a week for half an hour and during those

00:38:25.560 five minutes you just bring up some google spreadsheet where you say you know here are the

00:38:29.860 five tasks we agreed upon at the beginning of the week here's my progress on those get them to kind

00:38:35.100 of sign off ahead of time on what those tasks are give them some kind of shared documents so they

00:38:39.680 can spy on you and see how you're doing without actually directly contacting you and then really

00:38:43.900 tether your meetings to the progress of everything that you have agreed to do ahead of time with this

00:38:48.580 person you know you almost have to get them to kind of sign a contract each week that says these

00:38:53.680 are the 15 things on my plate these are the 15 things i need to do here's the order in which i'm

00:38:58.800 going to do them do we agree upon this ahead of time great okay every three days we can check in on

00:39:03.560 that progress i think you know instead of trying to make them happy or you know hide from them or

00:39:10.680 trick them into finding errors that don't exist which we've all tried it's really all about sort of

00:39:15.960 clarifying those goals i think also people like to lean in by telling a micromanager that they're

00:39:20.740 micromanaging and that tends to never work they tend to get you know defensive they say if you're

00:39:25.680 good at your job i wouldn't have to micromanage you but instead kind of talk about big picture

00:39:29.720 goals theirs and yours and then what it's going to do to take you know how are you going to become

00:39:33.760 aligned on those goals and what it's going to take to achieve them you can kind of leave the

00:39:38.100 micromanagement word out of the conversation at least initially and again as i've said before leave

00:39:43.260 your feelings at the door just talk about specific behaviors that they're doing and the progress that

00:39:48.220 you need to be making you know in these goals as you move forward and just keep that structure don't

00:39:54.060 let that structure break don't hide from them don't let them add additional meetings you know if you've

00:39:59.040 agreed upon a certain structure ahead of time just stick to that all right so set boundaries basically

00:40:04.620 yeah i think set boundaries but also don't allow them to kind of stretch those boundaries even if

00:40:12.380 they're doing well okay that makes sense okay another jerk is the opposite of a micromanager

00:40:17.740 or maybe maybe it's not the opposite it's the neglectful boss and some people might be thinking

00:40:23.440 well what's wrong with the neglectful boss like i don't have to worry about my boss he's checked out

00:40:27.320 i don't like people looking over my shoulder so what makes a neglectful boss a jerk at work

00:40:31.840 so most neglectful bosses don't actually disappear all the time if they did they probably would have

00:40:36.980 gotten fired by now i actually think most neglectful bosses are also micromanagers

00:40:40.940 so they disappear for long periods of time and then they kind of panic that they've been out of

00:40:45.640 the loop so they show up they micromanage you in the 11th hour you know they try to change everything

00:40:51.520 and then they disappear again sometimes they come back to see if they've actually you've done those

00:40:56.240 things that you know they've asked you to do sometimes they never do so it's really this kind

00:41:00.800 of like they're completely in or they're completely out there's a ton of uncertainty you have no idea

00:41:05.740 when they're going to do this when they're going to show up it really just has to do with like when

00:41:09.460 there's been enough anxiety from being out of the loop that they then show up and manage that by

00:41:13.740 micromanaging you so what do you do if you got a boss that's being neglectful you know i think for

00:41:19.640 some folks the neglect is so bad that they actually start to have that conversation of is it time to

00:41:24.640 leave i think neglectful bosses the reason why if you want to try to solve the problem so you know

00:41:30.940 they do bring enough to the table to want to stick out this relationship you need to think about

00:41:35.800 you know how you can kind of reel them back in so i think most neglectful bosses they do this because

00:41:41.500 they have 15 things on their plate and they're completely overwhelmed by all of them they're

00:41:46.360 probably off micromanaging someone else while they're neglecting you so you have to think about

00:41:50.640 what it's going to take to pull them back in and you know often it's the case that these people are

00:41:54.980 being eat alive by time thieves you know folks who are sucking them dry getting advice from them all the

00:42:00.940 time offer to offload some of that labor yourself and be very kind of pragmatic about what aspects of

00:42:07.500 their job you could actually do better than them it would actually be productive for you to climb up

00:42:12.120 at work most of us don't want to do the work of our managers in order to get them to show back up

00:42:17.340 but sometimes offering that is the best way to kind of hook them back in you know instead of your

00:42:23.140 manager doing that newsletter for the company you and two other people can handle it and that then

00:42:27.980 kind of buys them an extra five hours so i tend to think of like what it will take to reel them back

00:42:32.520 in what i could do to sort of offload that you know what other systems you could teach them to kind of

00:42:38.140 allocate some of the labor that they're struggling with allocating and that tends to be the best way

00:42:42.580 to at least to initially get them to engage i think the second piece of advice is don't act like

00:42:47.220 things are an emergency don't send them these emails that are like urgent need to meet now send them

00:42:52.160 an email that asks to meet in the next two weeks make it short you know kind of spread these things

00:42:57.360 out initially the more you act like you have a hair on fire problem the less likely that manager is to

00:43:02.820 engage with you because they feel like they have a million hair on fire problems they're just going

00:43:06.860 to see it and kind of shut down so you have to manage your manager it sounds like you do have to

00:43:11.640 manage your manager and i think most of us actually for a lot of these problems it's about managing your

00:43:15.700 manager yeah okay the final jerk is the gas lighter what does this jerk look like yeah this person is is

00:43:22.360 pretty scary so you know they tend to they're dishonest at work but a lot of people are you

00:43:28.580 know most of us actually lie fairly frequently from you know in everyday social interactions but gaslighters

00:43:34.060 their dishonesty is done with the intent of kind of creating an alternative reality you know they

00:43:39.900 deceive on a very grand scale and it tends to start very small and they do this to kind of create a

00:43:45.940 reality for you that that nobody else shares and their signature move is to cut you off socially

00:43:51.780 so if you have a gas lighter at work you will have a manager who starts saying things to you like

00:43:56.820 i wouldn't speak up too much people don't really like you know what you have to say here or you

00:44:02.200 should keep your head down if you want to keep your job i wouldn't go to those happy hours i wouldn't

00:44:06.500 talk to those other leaders they want to cut you off so that you can't kind of fact check this

00:44:10.900 alternative reality that they're making how do you get out of that what's the tactic

00:44:15.120 it's really hard for people who've been isolated to kind of re-engage and so the first thing you're

00:44:22.080 going to have to do if you think you're being gaslit is start to build that network back up brick by

00:44:26.660 brick the temptation is often to go to someone with a lot of power to complain about a gaslighter

00:44:31.780 but actually don't recommend this this your gaslighter probably has power has a lot of friends

00:44:36.340 i would actually start small start with people who are at your level who you used to be connected

00:44:41.440 with you can meet with these folks kind of get yourself back into the fold

00:44:45.000 and one of the pieces of advice i've given a lot of victims is you know go to people who work at the

00:44:49.680 same level as your gaslighter so if they're a manager go to another manager who has the same job

00:44:54.520 don't go to them to complain about your gaslighter but go to them to get some feedback on how people

00:44:59.360 see you at work you know let them know i haven't got a lot of feedback from other leaders how i'm seen

00:45:03.920 here how i'm doing love to hear that perspective and that will start to build back that reality for you

00:45:09.600 you know you want to do all of these things first build up that wall build up that network

00:45:13.560 get some perspective on how you're seeing it work before you complain about that gaslighter because

00:45:18.660 they will have dirt on you and they'll be able to kind of counter whatever you say once you do

00:45:23.040 complain so you're going to kind of have to have your army prepared so to speak before you take that

00:45:28.120 step so here i've always i've been thinking about this a lot i'm kind of torn about this idea of gas

00:45:33.380 lighting because what i've seen you're a psychologist maybe you've seen this too is that

00:45:38.180 people who gaslight will often accuse other people of gaslighting to gaslight right so i've seen this

00:45:44.080 with some friends where they'll they'll have a disagreement about how something went down and

00:45:48.640 like person a will be like well you're you're gaslighting me this is that's you're questioning

00:45:52.880 my reality and the other person who's sort of like you know emotionally mature be like i don't know

00:45:57.160 i don't think so i'm just seeing things differently and then the other person's like well no no this is

00:46:01.540 you're gaslighting me then the other person's like well maybe i am maybe i'm a terrible person and

00:46:05.740 they start questioning their reality are there any studies about that yeah i think you know so what

00:46:11.260 you're talking about here is also just this general idea that we almost never agree on a recall of

00:46:16.940 events i mean gaslighters take advantage of that i think you know one thing is that this word is just

00:46:22.740 there's a lot of concept creep around it people use it to refer to anyone who's telling them something

00:46:27.860 either they don't want to hear or something they disagree with and i and i you know we've seen it

00:46:32.560 around politics a lot we see a lot of relationships if your partner says you know why didn't you take

00:46:37.700 out the trash and you say i did they're like you're gaslighting me i actually don't think that's

00:46:42.180 gaslighting i think that's a you know a misalignment on the recall of events gaslighting really involves

00:46:47.800 social isolation so if one person's being cut off and they're told this whole narrative then yeah

00:46:53.300 that's gaslighting but gaslighters do this all the time in fact i saw it at work where a known gaslighter

00:46:59.560 countered by saying that her the person she was gaslighting her first move was to say he's trying

00:47:05.800 to sabotage my reputation he's telling all these lies about me behind my back it was actually a really

00:47:11.540 interesting offensive strategy it wasn't defensive she didn't wait for him to complain she complained

00:47:17.580 about him first via this accusation that he was gaslighting that he was creating this alternative

00:47:22.900 reality building up a narrative about her that wasn't true because she knew once he complained

00:47:27.740 that was going to be his complaint and so you do see gaslighters using this as kind of like this

00:47:32.360 really interesting strategy um to out gaslight the gaslighting you know and only by having like

00:47:39.240 data was he able to actually say no she's the real gaslighter here but they're definitely pointing

00:47:43.720 fingers it was super interesting yeah i think it's important like you said you need to not socially

00:47:48.260 isolate yourself and build like you typically get that you have to triangulate reality with the third

00:47:52.640 party it's like well i'm i'm seeing this this person says that's didn't happen and i'm gaslighting

00:47:58.000 what do you think and that third party be like well here's what i think like okay gaslighting did not

00:48:03.200 happen we just saw things differently yeah i also think it's important to keep in mind that at work

00:48:07.420 if you're being gaslit the the the dark reality is you're probably engaging in some unethical behaviors

00:48:14.140 on behalf of your gaslighter most gaslighters are doing this because they're trying to achieve some

00:48:19.300 goal they're not doing it because they're evil or they're narcissists or whatever they're trying to

00:48:23.580 hide something maybe they're stealing and they're trying to cover that up in science we've seen this

00:48:27.880 with people who fake data who've made up entire studies that never actually happened you know they're

00:48:32.720 trying to cover something up they're trying to do something that ethically they can't get away with

00:48:37.300 and they need help with and they will get you to engage in those behaviors on behalf of that goal

00:48:43.020 and their way of doing it is via gaslighting to convince you that what you're doing isn't unethical

00:48:47.620 it isn't wrong but the end of the day when you're ready to complain about them they will be the first

00:48:52.360 person to remind you we are in this together you also participated in these behaviors so the minute

00:48:57.780 you complain about me it's going to come out what you've done as well and i think you that's the part

00:49:02.840 where you have to be very careful about when you actually comply with a gaslighter and you do the

00:49:07.360 things they ask that the things you're doing are actually what they say they are and they're you're not

00:49:12.520 actually doing something super unethical that could get you fired so we talked about these

00:49:16.900 different uh jerks at work and different tactics you can use to to manage them or handle them but

00:49:21.880 is there like one thing that you think people can do to mitigate the effects of all these different

00:49:26.400 types of jerks yeah i think one thing that people should do that that we're not very good at is learn

00:49:32.220 how to have healthy confrontation very early people are just super non-confrontational at work

00:49:38.280 we hear the word confrontation we assume it's a bad thing but we actually know from you know close

00:49:43.880 relationships that learning how to argue learning how to have a disagreement and how to work that out

00:49:50.020 is actually one of the biggest predictors of not getting a divorce fighting isn't bad actually not

00:49:55.240 dealing with conflict is bad so learning how to learning some of these early strategies to detect these

00:50:00.780 issues to have these conversations you know to ask for feedback that's very specific that's immediate

00:50:07.580 that you know spans across lots of people these are the ways of detecting these things but i think

00:50:13.520 most of us wait until they get really really bad and then we say okay now how do i fix this problem

00:50:17.820 that's been brewing for a long time i think we're also not very good at giving people feedback that is

00:50:22.660 negative especially if they have power over us so we have to be better about learning how to ask for it

00:50:28.000 and how to showcase giving it especially if you're a manager and again like don't make it general

00:50:33.120 don't say you don't trust me or you know your presentation style sucked you have to be super

00:50:39.120 specific about the feedback you give and even if it's negative if it's specific and it's small

00:50:43.940 then it's it's going to go down much smoother and people are going to be less defensive so that's

00:50:48.320 kind of the one strategy i think that if we all just learned how to do that a little bit better

00:50:52.260 we would not be dealing with these folks to the to the degree that we are well tessa this has been a

00:50:57.940 great conversation where can people go to learn more about the book in your work so you can go to

00:51:02.260 my website it's tessawestauthor.com there's links to you know all my media interviews my quizzes for

00:51:09.220 my book i also have a newsletter which is on substack it is tessa west at work with the at symbol and

00:51:16.500 yeah that's that's pretty much it well tessa west thanks for your time it's been a pleasure

00:51:20.380 thank you so much my guest today was tessa west she's the author of the book jerks at work it's

00:51:25.420 available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you find more information about our work at our

00:51:28.820 website tessawestauthor.com also check out our show notes at aom.is jerks at work where you find

00:51:34.200 links to resources and we delve deeper into this topic well that wraps up another edition of the

00:51:45.360 podcast make sure to check out our website at artofmanliness.com where you find our podcast

00:51:49.020 archives as well as thousands of articles written over the years about pretty much anything you can

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00:52:16.580 remind you i'm listening with podcast but put what you've heard into action

The Art of Manliness - September 14, 2022

The 7 Types of Work Jerks (And How to Deal With Them)

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