Have you ever run into one of your least favorite co-workers or boss out of the office and they’re almost an entirely different human?
Once upon a time I worked at a international healthcare company and the head of my department was generally terse and hard. There were jokes that she ate her young and was maybe a dominatrix in her spare time. Bottom line, she was incredibly competent but not a warm person and generally disliked around the office. One weekend I was out to lunch and saw her with her family, she was actually smiling and laughing. I was shocked, she always seemed like an unhappy, miserable human.
Reframing and removing the emotion
Back in the office Monday she was unchanged from the usual. Did she hate her job? Did she dislike being a manager? Was she waiting on a trust fund so she could go live her best life? I realized none of those scenarios mattered, true or not. What I also realized was that she was very dedicated her work and all of her interactions were hyper focused on getting the information she needed and moving on. She took the emotion out of it. She set the communication tone for all interactions in such a way that when she asked for information you really had no interest in deviating or oversharing. One of my personal communication struggles is poor ability to summarize information, this never happened with her as she asked very specific questions so I didn’t have to do the mental gymnastics. Was she intimidating? Absolutely. But, once I removed my emotion out of it I realized she was one of the easiest people to communicate with.
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