So the thing with workplace bullying is
there's a lot of bad advice out there and you've probably been subjected to this yourself
and you maybe have been struggling with this for a while and all you really want to do is
get away from feeling fearful, like you don't belong anymore and you just want to get some
solid advice that you can actually implement so you can feel like you belong again, you can
feel safe again, you can feel at peace again. Some of the most common problems that we see in
the workplace is that the people who don't have it figured out - but they look like they have it
all figured out - are the ones that we're going to for advice and when they start to share
with us their best, well-intentioned advice, it actually doesn't help. So I'm going to share
with you today the three worst pieces of advice that I have seen and heard in the workplace and
how they are actually working against the person to resolve conflict. And now while I share this
advice, you might be thinking to yourself 'oh wait I've done that and it actually worked' ...
I'm going to challenge you to go a little step farther and if it truly did work for you and you
were able to leave this relationship in a good place for both you and the other person or you
were able to let go of the problem because you were able to go you know that this isn't such a
big deal then fantastic! That can work for you, but I will share with you probably nine times
out of ten, this is just an off the cuff stat from the people I've worked with,
this advice leaves people feeling empty and hollow and frustrated. Hi I am Tammy and I am
your guide to mastering courageous communication so that you can confidently handle difficult
conversations, offensive and disruptive behaviors, and even workplace bullying with one conversation,
and I want you to do it with a confidence that you know that when you speak up and speak out, you're
not only retaining your hard-earned reputation, but you're building the career where you
are seen as someone who is appreciated, respected, and empowered. Now before we get
in too far, be sure to subscribe and hit that notification bell because you don't want
to miss the next video when it's released, and you can then stay up to date with the
information that is designed to help you retain your reputation, keep your career on track, and
get you back to living a peaceful productive life. So in this video I'm going to be exposing the
worst advice you can receive or if you're on the giving end - I want to notice what you're sharing
with people because I want you to be able to resolve interpersonal problems with interpersonal
solutions. Now I've been teaching communication skills for years and I have helped thousands of
people step into these courageous moments and speak in a way that is non-defense arousing and
in a way that has actually resolved some of the biggest, scariest issues in a single conversation
- and that is what I want for you as well. So let's get into our worst advice shall we.
Worst advice number one 'Keep your Head Down and Just Ignore It'. Now let me tell you why
this is bad advice. First of all it puts you in a position where you're continually
at risk of being belittled, ignored, humiliated, having your career sabotaged, all
with the false pretense that by keeping your head down somehow it's magically going to go away
- and the problem is - it doesn't. So then what we tend to do is we come up with strategies to
cope and I'm going to share some of them and let me know in the comments below if you recognize
that you've done any of these. What we start to do when we heed the advice to just keep our head
down and avoid the problem and it will just all magically go away is we change how we show
up literally. We will start to consider which door we use in the workplace, which hallway,
whether we take the stairs or the elevator, we'll start to look at what time are we
coming in and what time are we leaving, we'll start to change where we take
lunch break and who we sit with, we start to adapt our meetings and the committees
that we decide to join because we don't want to be around them, and everything that we're doing
is all preventative in order to keep us safe but it's actually emotionally extremely draining. It
is exhausting to put on the brave face and go to work every day trying to avoid. It takes enormous
effort and it wastes very valuable time that we have where we could be contributing in a very
creative and passionate way in the workplace, and as a result, we start to isolate ourselves
more because all of those strategies are failing us. We're still left with all the time
to ruminate in our brain about how scary the other person is and how much we need to
protect and close in our world so we isolate. We feel alone we don't feel valued; we
don't feel protected in our own workplace and we've contributed to this by taking
on this advice of avoiding and ignoring. The second thing is - it does nothing to build
our competencies in having conversations that are difficult. If you have been given this advice
before let me know in the comments below this is probably the most common advice that people hear
when it comes to resolving tension among others, whether this is at home in the family
or at work, it doesn't really matter. This is the best somebody can muster up because
they don't step into these conversations themselves. So recognize that. But let me know
in the comments below if you have received this advice. Two so next let's look at the worst advice
that you can be given number two, and that is to don't speak up, don't fight back, stay quiet ,and
don't stand up for yourself. Now why is this bad? Well they're what they're communicating to you
first of all is that they don't have any faith in you to do this. They don't believe you have the
skill set to resolve the issue and by collateral damage they don't want to be associated with
your attempts to try and resolve the issue. There is self-preservation - they're hoping
to preserve you as well but they're not actually helping you solve the problem,
which is what you're looking for hope, what you're looking for support with and hope. Now
there are times when shutting up and not speaking is the right next step. We don't have to
engage in every battle we are invited to and so there is strategic decision making
around if you use this strategy to not speak up, should you choose to not speak up, and you go
away and it's still festering inside of you, you're not sleeping, you're not eating, you're
getting anxious, maybe even hyper vigilant, then you know this was not the right advice for
this problem; and this typically is what happens. It's happened to me. I remember when I was being
bullied. I wanted to put in a grievance, so I'm following the policies of the workplace, which
is what I recommend people to do, but as I was preparing to submit it somebody in my leadership
team, in their best intention to protect me said, 'if you file this paperwork you will
look like you're the one who can't get along'. That infuriated me because I'm like 'this is a
problem in the culture of this organization and I happen to be the target, but this is a big
problem'. I submitted my paperwork anyways but the fact that they shared that, there's a few things
that they may have been trying to communicate. They may have actually been saying to me you
are the problem wake up and not been direct the other thing is they may have been trying
to protect me by saying hey if you go down this route I have experience in this area
it's just going to get bad so don't do it. Again there's a lack of faith that the policy or
the processes can actually result in the positive change that you're looking for. Now if you're
at the stage where you have to file a grievance that's really kind of disappointing hopefully we
can get to this beforehand but if you got to use the process that's what it's designed for you
to do so have no guilt over using that process. So the other piece that happens when you don't
speak up when you heed the advice to keep your mouth shut is it further intensifies the feeling
of rejection and abandonment and feeling devalued, like you don't have a place where it's safe for
you to even say 'hey i got a problem here I don't know how to handle it, I'm going to do what you
tell me to do and I hope we can get to resolution' and it's not even safe for you to do that. It just
further disconnects you from the organization and we know that when people are disconnected from
an organization the quality of work goes down, there's more errors and things just aren't
to the standard in which they need to be. So if you're giving this advice I want you
to recognize the potential impact of telling somebody to shut up and not speak up or not stand
out. Before we get to mistake number three or the worst advice number three, I want to give you
some encouraging advice here or some encouraging stats. Back in 2005 I think it was
Vitalsmarts surveyed 1700 healthcare workers and they were looking at these very difficult
moments where people chose not to speak up, or they chose to speak up and the impact it would
have on relationships trust patient care and outcomes. Now there's a lot in there I can share
with you but what I want to share with you here, and I hope you sit with this, is that in every
unit what they found was there was like a small percentage of people maybe five ten percent of
people who would take the opportunity when it came to them to have a courageous conversation, to
speak into a problem, to bring something to light, and of those moments 85% of the time
they resolved the issue with a single conversation. Now when you have the odds of 85% of
the time on your side for speaking into a problem, it's very counter-intuitive to tell somebody to
not speak up. Now it's not just in that report. I have experienced this myself and I have seen this
in others who in the most difficult circumstances, what feels like an impossibility to do, have
stepped into it and have resolved their problems single-handedly with one conversation. They just
needed to know how to start and that's often what people are missing. When you get this bad advice
it's because no one has taught them either how to resolve conflict. Now I also wanted to share with
you the problem of telling somebody to not speak up or to just avoid it - it's the same problem -
there's no development of communication skills, there is no growth, there's no
opportunities to try something, fail, learn, and try again. It's simply 'just
don't do' and if we don't do we'll never learn what we can do - there's an unlimited potential
out there for you and I want you to tap into that. Now let's talk about the worst advice number
three and this one will seem very benign. You may not even recognize it as bad advice because
it doesn't seem to have the same kind of bite but i'm going to expose it here for you right now.
If you say, or if you have been told to simply Just Get Along- try to just get
along - that is horrible advice! When it comes to just getting along there are
some fundamental problems I have with this advice and one is that there is a disinterest
in them helping you. You know when someone says just get along like I don't have any time for
this. This is an issue i'm not interested in and you can just figure this out on your own.
It's really an abandonment of supporting you. Now my supervisor supervisor, so like two levels
up, I went to them for support and I did get a conversation with one at a time and at the
end of the day that's kind of what I was told, was you know what just get along try harder to
get along. The implication was that I wasn't trying enough because I'm the one bringing forward
the grievance, I'm the one with the complaints, I am the one that's highlighting and showcasing
and shining a light on problematic conversations, so it's extremely frustrating. It makes
people feel like they can't trust anybody, that there is no support in the organization and
then you're left with a couple of decisions - do I stay or do I go? And there's a few decisions
in between there that you can make as well but essentially on either end of the spectrum
is - if this organization doesn't have the resources to support me, am I going to stay in
this organization and create the boundaries and the protection I need or am I going to leave this
organization and move into something different? I will share with you many people choose to leave,
completely fine, many people choose to stay, completely fine. It's about what are your
next steps after you make that decision because there's work to do on either side.
So as you can imagine with all these three types of advice not a single one of
them actually addresses the problem. Interpersonal problems require interpersonal
solutions. Medications, stress leave, being sent on a course to write a better email,
will not resolve the root problem. We absolutely need to have conversations because conversations
matter and they're at the heart of the workplace. Now I want to just share with you you don't have
to agree with somebody's experience to be helpful, and I want to address that because some people
think that 'I don't agree with what they're saying at all, my experience with that person
is completely different they're really nice I don't have any issues and I can't even see
them in this light that they're painting them'. It doesn't matter whether you agree
with them or not. What you can do instead is 1. listen. Hear their struggle and not just
the words they're saying but what are they not saying. What's their tone of voice sharing?
What are they really needing in this moment Treat them as if you were the person who
was struggling. 2. Support them. Validate that the experience that they're bringing is
real for them and that you can honor that this has been their journey to date. You don't have
to agree with it. Remember that's not the goal; the goal is to hear them and simply say 'hey
I'm really glad you're sharing this with me, I may not know how to help you right
now but i just want to be with you'. As a leader you can say 'I don't know how to
support you right now. This is a little bit more in-depth or it's over my training or
I don't have the training in this area let me connect you with somebody who can really
help you and I want to stay connected like I can support you emotionally, I can support you you
know job-wise maybe we put you in a different team for a while while we get you to the place
where you can talk,' there's lots of resources you can use as a leader to support them with
as they journey through and towards resolution Now if you're looking for a resource so you can
step in a little bit more, I want to share with you the 10 safe conversational starters. There
is a link below that you can pick this up and it will give you 10 scripts, so it takes the
guesswork out of what to say when faced with 10 of the most offensive workplace behaviors that we
have. So someone's sighing and rolling their eyes, you're getting sarcastic comments, someone's
backstabbing, even setting you up for failure and sabotaging your career, there are statements
you can use to address these behaviors that are designed to not escalate defensive responses
but they are designed to either shut down the bad behavior or open up a conversation around
it. Now this is a great starting point. If you yourself are the target - get this resource. If
you are someone who is often finding that people come to you for advice, get this resource, it can
be used to help them build their competencies and having courageous communication. If you are a
leader - get this resource. It will position you in a place where you can actually help them
role play and work through some of the elements and put these words in their vocabulary so they
can solve their problems at the lowest level, while you support them in your role as a leader.
You can change your circumstances, you can courageously have conversations around difficult
things and be the difference in your life. Now if you're looking for more support
beyond this, I do offer coaching. I have a few one-to-one spots that I offer but
I also have a group coaching program and if you are looking to access more support, deeper
resources to help you get things done faster, there's a link below where you can book
a consultation call with me; it's free, we'll talk about your situation, what you need
and if you are a good fit for the program, 100% I'll invite you in. If you are not 100% you're
gonna walk away with some tools and strategies to move to the next step while you prepare
yourself to enter into a resource like this. For the rest of you, I hope you've enjoyed this
and you find this supportive. Make sure you're subscribing. Again, share this with five
people. Listen, we're all in the workplace and you know that the workplace is fraught
with tension and conflict so share this video with five people and let's elevate
the practice of those around us together. This way we can help work to decrease the negative
chronic conflict the negative chronic effects of conflict in the workplace and get the world
back to being more peaceful - that is my mission to change the way relationship is done
one conversation at a time. Please make your comments below. I love to hear from you and I
do answer back, and like this video it helps youtube know to share this out with others who
may be looking for this exact message thanks
