25 Top Tips for dealing constructively with troublemakers and challenging colleagues or external clients from hell A practical management / self-development piece by Matthew Hill #resilience #conflict #reversal #coping #empowerment #success #resourcefulness #strength #stress #management #diversity #culture #selfdevelopment #training #coaching … Continue reading
Health Warning: this report contains humour. If you have had your irony, balance or humour surgically removed, please do NOT read on.
What were we to expect?
With COVID, an extra year’s delay, a new board, and an island location, was it all going to work? What would it be like to meet up again in person? And would there be the usual disaster areas, now famous in the collective SIETAR Congress memory – the congress coffee, lunch and the gala! All will be revealed.
I flew out with SIETAR UK President, Adrian Pilbeam, and the initial omens were not good. A wheel on the bus carrying Adrian and Analiss from the plane to the terminus, CAME OFF. Was this going to be a fateful metaphor? Not the best of starts.
Acknowledgement
The newly elected board put in an ENORMOUS number of hours to get this show on the road. And, overall, it was a GREAT success. Our thanks must go to Bastian Kuentzel, Carla Cabrera Cuadrado, Martina Pulver, Papa Balla Ndong, Bernd Gibson, Steve Miller, Bee Beaumont, et al, for their tireless devotion to putting the programme together, organising the venue with all its logistical challenges, selling the tickets, and ensuring a smooth Congress event.
And.
Our full appreciation goes to the fabulous young volunteers, being in position to tirelessly help old timers navigate the conference and advising them to take their coffee cups out and not mess up the University carpet.
Chapeau. Well done all.
Hugs
The excitement felt at the welcome drinks was tangible, immediately upon arrival. Many people were talking about the two or three year gap between meeting interculturalists. The hugging, smiling and eye contact, were genuine, bringing us all back together again, firing up our memories and affections, and all this having a healing, healthy and happy quality to it.
Hybrid
The idea of a hybrid event, mixing remote and physically present participation at a Congress was first mooted in Tallinn in 2013. It has taken nine years, COVID, and advances in Zoom, to successfully bring it off. Each room on the 1st floor was equipped with some quite sophisticated gadgetry, and, if you didn’t try to play a film, it all just about worked perfectly. It was fun to have voices from across Europe and beyond, beamed into the room, and to have people, who were busy, far away, or ill, participate in the learning programme.
Score
Each Congress is marked on the MHCSS – the Matthew Hill Congress Success Scale, normally marked out of nine. That is the number of events I attend, and the number which are either good or great. Malta beat Leuven by a whisker to take top slot, with one extra quality performance, giving us a final score (for MY visited sessions) of 9/9!! The best result ever.
The Setting of Valletta
I will admit to having reservations about going back to Malta, having trained pilots and stewardesses in the rather vulgar and loud, St Julian’s Bay some time ago, and having visited Valletta decades ago, when it was absolutely not the pristine, sophisticated, and user-friendly village that we have just experienced.
Modern Valletta has benefited from EU restoration grants, massive investment before the launch of its year as 2018 City of Culture, and the continued opening of renovated apartments and boutique hotels. These contrast with dusty little shops, somehow surviving amongst a middle tier, and high-end tourist offering.
My apartment was a delight. With a 40 square metre sitting room, a wooden boxed gallarija balcony to observe the sea, and the street, and a mixed message: a “no parties allowed” notice contrasting with seating for 14 people being provided! I did not know which of these subtle signs to take as my guide.
Shame
Not everybody was so lucky with their accommodation. We heard of semi uninhabitable basements being converted into holiday apartments, with little or no light, and enough moisture and damp to make the toilet paper bubble up. A lack of light, no windows, or views in hotel rooms, was another familiar story.
Opening and closing
The bread at the top and bottom of the Congress sandwich, was a mixed offering. The Nigerian nurse, Bosede Bolanle Olugbemi, telling her sad story of bureaucratic aggression, and local resistance, appeared as a Milton Bennett case study, indicating a community stuck, somewhere in the middle of the D.M.I.S.
Dr. Ingrid Piller gave us W.I.E.R.D. – White, Industrialised, Educated, Rich and, Democratic. She expanded on the geographical significance of Europe and the English language in global culture, and how it continues to dominate our view, thinking and messaging.
At the closing, Cindy Egolf, first embarrassed the audience by making them stand up and clap along to Freddie Mercury (maybe this was a hip reference to Ricky Gervais’s team building attempts in The Office. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_au0UUHI2aI ) A collective cringe followed. The audience reacted badly, a little while later, mistaking her attempts to deploy more positive language, but not providing a context for her intervention – the neuro linguistic limitations of using negation in the naming of the Anti Racism framework. She is obviously a supporter of anti racist activists but the reaction suggested the crowd had parted from their allyship with her.
In the closing panel chat, Carla’s comments about those SIETARians who felt newly excluded, spending some time reflecting upon what the future requires, seemed ambiguous, and non-inclusive to many, until Bastian Kuentzel came to the rescue, and talked about a SIETAR preference for active change, over endless passive criticism. 
Theme
The Congress had a clear aim – to Re-Tool, build Re-Silience, and so Re-Think interculturalism. These are ranked in order of success:
Re-Silience
For me, the best experiences of the Congress, came during the many 90-minute workshops which always included a 20-minute group breakout, to therapeutically discuss a question or to move through a framework-based activity.
Each time we did this, we formed a new partnership of one, two or three, wonderful interculturalists. It was a pure pleasure to be part of these authentic, vulnerable, and intimate exchanges, with trusted and trusting beings – referred to as “angels” by a new contact, made on the streets of a Valletta on the last evening.
Re-Tool
In my partial experience of the Congress, there were a few wonderful and subtly fresh approaches, drawing out people, with much less emphasis on country characteristics, sophisticated stereotypes, and the tired use of dimensions. Not a Re-Volution but progress seems to be being made at long last.
Re-Think
This goal was maybe going to be a little bit beyond our grasp. When you are retiring the old, and, are dismantling the familiar in such a deliberate way, it is unlikely that robust replacements are going to be readily available, popping up instantly, just when you need them. Here many people detected a gap. When they attended workshops and presentations, the expected Re-Thinking part, mostly failed to materialise. Not totally surprising..
Congress work/Congress social life balance
SIETARians are famous for liking their pre Congress, and post Congress jollies. Many took the time for a boat tour to Gozo, and the blue lagoon, or took the speedy and cheap ferries across to Sleima and the 3 cities. I experienced Sleima, as a rather ordinary dormitory town, with some vulgar new high-rise concrete being thrown up rapidly by outside speculators. The 3 Cities, in contrast, seemed to have kept more of its soul, and provided an out-of-capital scale that was welcome and cosy. Lunch, sitting by the bobbing boats, listening to the lapping water, was a true delight.
The event formerly known as the Gala
The famously hit and miss part of the Congress is the gala. We all collectively braced ourselves for what might go wrong this time.
*We’ve had captive audiences imprisoned many kilometres away, with awful food and semi undrinkable wine, and no way back to safety.
*We’ve had last minute changes in venue, and super stressed helpers turning away disappointed gala attendees.
*We’ve had gala guests paying 50 Euros for a side plate of vegetables, and a small glass of red wine.
*We’ve had young volunteers spending the whole evening standing at cocktail tables all evening, with no chairs being available.
*We’ve had Richard Lewis making interculturally sensitive people literally cringe and gasp.
In contrast to some of the horrors of the past, this was a roaring success!
The roaring, of course, refers to the out-of-control kitchen fire that blazed beneath us, and the delayed and smoky food, that for many was served at 11.30.
And the venue seemed to become suddenly available after the grim assassination of the venue owner some 6 months earlier. (At least, that is what the taxi driver said.)
Service with a smile
Our overall impression of Maltese service personal is that they are Saints, displaying kindness, reasonable reactions in trying circumstances, humour, and even cheeky push back and banter. A fun addition to the entertainment package that we could all get behind.
Village
The normal model of a Congress hotel for most, with some apartments for the few, was changed into a village of spread-out people, the majority being within a 10 minute walk from the University and the main restaurants. This made for multiple spontaneous sightings and impromptu meetings, on any given road, or at any given time.
Missing Bits
The list of excluded elements was quite long this year. For various reasons, there were no pre Congress workshops, Congress bags, printed programmes, lunches, an official gala, or drinkable congress coffee (though the biscuits went down very well).
Many eco warriors, holding onto older phones, found themselves suddenly vulnerable and excluded from access to Congress information, as their phone software would not load the Oxford Abstract information. And, when they borrowed the processing firepower of younger people with newer phones, it was still a stretch, if you wanted to find out who was presenting where.
Suggestion
There was a top secret document, that combined the session title, the presenter’s name, and the room. This representing a full and user friendly programme guide on paper. If this could have been emailed out to everybody, to read on their tablets, then the paperless objective could have been met, and a lot of mental energy and anxiety could have been saved.
Bumps in the road – Joyous and Joyful Criticism
The removing of some of the old guard by including an honesty centred trick question, “How many times have you presented before?” was designed to exclude old timers but was “gamed” by some of our grey haired protagonists, who were then awarded presentation slots. The blind process at the beginning of paper selection, was obviously “adjusted” at a later stage to re-Introduce some committee favourites, sometimes on 3 or 5 occasions.
There were repeated rumours of an unfriendly atmosphere and discouragement around the participation of Russian interculturalists. Since these pressured people were probably not in the nationalist cult and were, if anything, themselves, in some peril, this ran contra to the values of SIETAR.
All rooms are created equal
Was there a policy to distribute the crowd evenly by not giving the most popular people larger rooms? This was hinted at with one of the answers from the stage.
It seemed a little like a forced redistribution of the latecomers, turning them away from attending the most popular and renowned speakers, to have them fill other rooms. It is debatable as to the merit of this tactic. And it did provide a few stress points and flare ups that could have been avoided.
Predictions for next time…
We will have hundreds of delightful, empathic, intelligent, and experienced interculturalists, rushing to attend the next get together. They will be keen to Re-Fresh, Re-Late and Re-Learn, Re-Ceiving their wisdom from kind and generous culture professionals paying a fee to share their experiences, models, and deeply thought-out conclusions.
Conclusions
This Congress was more about Re-Leasing the old than Re-Thinking and presenting the Re-Volutionary. We experienced a Re-Freshing absence of the use of bipolar dimensions, country centric stereotypes, and opinion questionnaires.
The therapeutic Re-Silience track alone, fully justified the in-person Congress, and for me was the richest part of the whole event.
We SIETARians all love the friendly people, the quality corridor conversations and exchanges, the awful coffee, and Re-Visiting or initiating new and meaningful peer Re-Lationships.
Thank you, Malta. Thank you, Board. Thank you, Volunteers. Thank you, Presenters. Thank you, Paying Attendees, – Physical, Virtual and Imagined.
See you next time. Au Re-Voir.
Compensating for the bias of others and working smart to get on What are we talking about? People will have different reactions to you, your communication, and the work you produce. We can divide the source of these reactions into two … Continue reading
Cost – In the short term, bullying and dishing out high-powered commands can generate movement, action, and, sometimes useful results. It represents a tactical, and sometimes necessary tool, to be deployed in urgentor crisis situations, when democracy and inclusive discussion are paused for the sake of expediency. This can be justified when we are talking about a survival situation.
When overused, on a too regular a basis, the consequences are Rs:
Resignation – either giving up or quitting. Revulsion – a disgust felt by the team for the bully. Recoil – reaction to the insult and excessive demonstration of raw power. Respect – loss of. Revenge – galvanising the recipients of this behaviour, to get their own back. Resistance – a go slow, work to rule, or team agenda, where the team’s needs are put before the bully’s. Residue – even if the bullying issue is resolved, there will remain a stink on that person.
The first rule – Protect yourself – as soon as you suspect you are within 100 metres of a bullying scenario, mobilise all your resilience tools, to be prepared for the onslaught of excessive power and aggression. Write down your gratitude, skills and achievements lists, record, and playback an affirmation tape of all your amazing qualities and accomplishments. Eat well, take exercise, and structure your bedroom to get a little extra sleep. Spend more time with psychologically positive people, and, chop out as many toxic and poisonous people, in your life, as you can.
Purpose – in the introduction, we said that sudden force is sometimes required, in urgent and dramatic circumstances. For you, the recipient of this incoming assault, the question that splits appropriate force from inappropriate bullying is: “Does this serve the purpose of the organisation?” If it does, then that powerful person is acting with core integrity, and you can choose to accept their behaviour on a short-term basis. If their shouting is going to save your job, then may be expedient to comply.
If their behaviour is in no way congruent with the purpose of the organisation, getting to project completion, generating value for a customer, or helping you reach your annual goals, then you now know you are in the presence of a bully, or worse.
Triggers – developing the purpose argument, we can analyse what is triggering their behaviour.
Real problem triggers – there are plenty of circumstances which require a rapid response, and the need for forced actions: you are approaching a project deadline and are not going to deliver on time. There has been a mistake in the information processing, or a procedure has not been followed, leading to potentially dangerous circumstances. Team members don’t know the answers when they should know the answers. Or, everyone has taken a series of lazy days, and the professional and proud manager has become irritated by all that chatter.
Inappropriate triggers – This is not purpose related. You look like the perpetrator’s nasty mother, nothing has happened in work, and they are still coming in angry every morning, and they display a psychopathic lack of empathy, or their power is simply out of control.
For the first set of triggers, you can explain the behaviour rationally, and it is congruent with the purpose of the organisation. In this circumstance you may choose to suck it up in the short term, and wait for the appropriate time to renegotiate your communications contract to achieve a new balance that is more conducive to cooperation and getting to better joint outcomes.
For the second set of triggers, we need to duck, cover, and put a helmet on. This is totally inappropriate in the workspace, and you can take action to eliminate the abuse you or your colleagues are witnessing.
Actions – immediately start taking contemporaneous notes of what is said, when it is said and include a realistic description of tone and context. These written documents will be valid in any case or escalation that follows. You can bet, if the bully has some deep psychological issues, that they will not retell the incident in the same dispassionate way as you, will not admit to any of their inappropriate behaviour, and will be shaping the narrative to make you the crazy one – gaslighting is another symptom of inappropriate behaviour, and is a favoured tool of the workplace bully.
Store emails and screen capture instant messages for reference later.
Contact a confident and start talking to them to share your concerns, as soon as the issue arises.
Find out who is the appropriate official contact to log a complaint with.
Get working on your affirmations, resilience techniques, and leading a healthy life.
Work hard and do your job to the best of your ability.
Dialogue – Vomiting volcano of vitriol – You may get a diatribe of words delivered in a non-stop deluge, and in a menacing tone.
RESPONSE – let all the lava out. Do not try to stop them or interrupt the droning. Detach from the drama, and use this as an opportunity to listen and identify their triggers, pick out the valid bits, identify the psychotic bits, pinpointing the outright untruths, so you can generally understand what is important to them.
Blame game – They make you wrong about one thing, or a list of faults follows.
RESPONSE – there may be some truth in what they’re saying. To reverse this drama in the early stages, and kill the monster whilst it is young, do acknowledge any of your mistakes immediately. Having said this, do not take the blame for anything that is not yours or accept their general sprayed machine gun attack. Break out of your possible propensity to take on the victim role, and inhabit the creater role of a reasonable responder.
Colourful consequences – the poetic bully may expound at length on the catastrophe that your behaviour is likely to bring about.
RESPONSE – you may dial down their escalated levels by starting with your own narrative of consequences, whilst pointing out that these will only happen, if no immediate action is taken. In this way you can take back some control of the actions required within the department or the project.
Their emotion: the attack may be an elongated expression of their anger, or a collected performance demonstrating the width of their negative emotions.
RESPONSE – remember what you are responsible for. If you are unsure, look at your job description, and bring the conversation back to facts, processes, and procedures. Isolate the problem or issue, and start to generate constructive solutions and next action steps.
By doing this, you are sidestepping their drama, and leaving them to take responsibility for their own emotional reactions to what is happening in real life.
Causes – inheritance. Their mother or father were damaged people who used the belt, wooden spoon, or slipper. Their parents drank too much and lost control of their voice volume, or opinions. They were abused themselves and bullied by a trusted member of the community, and no one listened or helped them. They may have succumbed to psychological damage through pressure of work, or a challenging home life (fraught relationship, sick child, money problems), or some other factor. They may have been schooled in Command and Control Management, and feel that this is the right way to behave within a professional setting. They may be riddled with insecurity and fear, and their powerful outburst are a survival mechanism.
When we analyse these many factors, and detach from our own hurt, shock and unhappiness, we can quickly see that there is a rational explanation for their irrational behaviour. From this point, it is a short step to see them as not being a bad person, just a normal person, behaving badly under a specific set of circumstances. And, then it is but a skip to, “I’m OK, You’re OK”.
We do need to make them as normal as possible in our minds, so that we can communicate in a way that leads them to take full responsibility for all of their behaviour.
Great Phrases – do feel free to load up with some of the following phrases that have been battle tested to be effective with various styles of bullying. And, do practice these difficult conversations with your best buddy before screaming them out in combat. Do your resilience exercises, and always remember, the number one priority is the protection of YOU.
“When you do W, I feel X and think Y. In future, please do Z.” – here W is an aspect of their bullying behaviour, X is a genuine expression of your negative emotion, Y is your analysis or conclusion about their behaviour, them and the consequences. And, Z represents the start of a new communication agreement and contract.
“Why would you say something like that to me?” – this short sentence is very clever. It can move someone who is still in control of their emotions to take responsibility for their actions. If they respond at all, they are admitting that something has happened. And, it moves them into the justification space which is halfway towards owning who they are, and what they repeatedly do at work.
“Other people have heard what you have said to me”. If they are triggered by you individually, and seem to act more reasonably with others, then this sentence changes the context of their bullying, and introduces witnesses. This can break the individual’s bullying bubble that they may think they are secretly and securely inhabiting.
“Your behaviour is not acceptable” – If this sentence is uttered, early in the bullying cycle, it can consciously remove the bully from their repeating repertoire, and shine a light on their unconscious communication, getting them to reflect on the consequences of what they are doing. Remember, you are doing them a big favour by helping them use better communication tools, and to no longer rely on the dirty habit of bullying.
“Yes, I have made a mistake with this work but there is a respectful and professional way to communicate with me in work, and this is not it.” This divides up the burden between the two of you. You get to own the mistake, and the bully gets to own their inappropriate communication style.
“I am wondering. What triggers all of your anger attacks? Do you know?” Best used when they are NOT in the middle of doing a shirt ripping Hulk impression. This can trigger a more honest exchange, and facilitate the renegotiation of boundaries, and your communication and power contract.
“I sense you are deeply frustrated” – This comes from the work of Marshall Rosenberg, and is naming their state and emotion. If their escalated anger or power is coming from frustration, then this simple short sentence can represent the start of reversing the escalation, and therefore allows you to engage in a constructive dialogue about key issues, solutions, and next actions.
Conclusion
Bullying will always be with us, it was the historic and cultural norm, it is an inherited trait, and it still does untold damage around the world. And, it is associated with horrendous commercial and social costs as well.
The first rule is that you must protect yourself, so that you are not rendered incapable by the drama, exposing yourself to a gaslight outcome, where you believe all the madness.
When you interrupt their pattern, no longer accept the anger and power they are projecting, then you help yourself, you help them, and you help the organisation.
The test is whether the behaviour is or is not associated with pursuing the organisation’s purpose.
So often it is the bullied person that leaves the department or the organisation. Our words today are intended to save the bullied person’s role, and to interrupt and reform the behaviour of the bully, so that both can continue working together, with effective dialogue that focusses on outcome and benefits, and moves away from abuse and the excessive use of inappropriate and damaging power.
About the author – Matthew Hill is a Management Development Facilitator working with High Potential Commercial Executives in the UK and in Continental Europe. E mail matthew.hill@hillnetworks.com
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