How to outsmart a passive aggressive co-worker by Neil Warner

How to Out Smart a Passive Aggressive Co-Worker

We all have some shared experiences in our work life. If you are a veteran of “office wars,” then you have experienced or seen a lot of backstabbing, sabotage and nasty behaviors, right? Perhaps you think that there is very little to be done to control this competitive behavior, thus you have become resigned to a variable degree of daily aggression in the office. The behaviors that bother most are not the ones from openly competitive people because you know what they want, and there are no surprises in them getting ahead to snag the best projects and commissions. What you don’t prepare for is the slow sabotaging of certain people who feign cooperation and dedication, while they produce consistent failures. If you were expecting someone to do his part of a shared project, and your own evaluation is supposed to be attached to the whole project, but his part is not forthcoming, then what do you do? There were lots of promises, guarantees and sincere words of explanation, but not the expected results. And you don’t know whether to believe this person, or to accept that the project is doomed and you are responsible of reporting a failure very soon. Here is when the rubber meets the road: now you are realizing that his delay is intentional and focused on making project delivery fail! Difficult to believe, but no other plausible explanations are around, so you need to accept you’ve been blindsided by this person. What do you do: take over and rescue the project by yourself? And, more important:

Do you Confront This Person or Say Nothing? If you have a confrontation with a co-worker saddled with personal conflicts who can't deliver just now, but acknowledges his share of responsibility is a bit different than confronting a co-worker with PA behaviors....In the first case you will get a good explanation and an apology; in the second case they can clam up, give you the cold

“Manage Passive Aggression in the Workplace” © Creative Conflict Resolutions, Inc. http://www.creativeconflicts.com

shoulder, tell you what you want to hear, or burst into tears and run away. A note about controlling your own anger feelings: Passive aggressive behavior will frustrate you to such extent to make you be utterly angry. Once you are in this emotional uncontrolled state, then the PA person can make you feel guilty for his own shortcomings, and then accuse you of being aggressive with him, so forcing him to withdraw and be not responsive! If you show your real feeling of frustration or anger, the PA person could be even less cooperative; stop communicating with you; confirm that you are his enemy, (so becoming more hostile and resentful) even to the point of planning his revenge. You need first to be in control of your anger, and later think about how do you manage this potentially explosive situation? First, let's remember that we have been socialized to use good manners in the workplace; to avoid any kind of open confrontation, even the healthy ones, and to try to keep up and go along with a forced situation that doesn’t deserve to be called “peace,” but an angry truce. Let’s go back to the basic situation, where you are a team leader or member, or a manager, and you have someone in your team behaving in this way. Of course, you know that this person is immature, that his PA behavior is a defense mechanism, and all that. Anyhow, this person is not responding to you! Now, it becomes really personal…and you shift from an outsider’s view to a very interested insider, because the action is against your role and your work objectives… You suddenly realize that the passive aggressive person’s goal is an attempt to control his environment, meaning by that you and your responses. By procrastinating the delivery of his part of the project, he is controlling at least the time of delivery of the shared project! What can you do? If you have identified already the presence of this kind of passive aggressive behavior, you know that you have always to prepare an alternative plan “B” which can provide you with the extra help needed to deliver the project in time and quality. If this Plan B is not available, then the choice is to continue expecting from him the delivery of his task, or replacing him. In both ways, the “solution” will leave a bad taste in the relationship.

“Manage Passive Aggression in the Workplace” © Creative Conflict Resolutions, Inc. http://www.creativeconflicts.com

The first lesson, “never leave your own evaluation in the hands of other person who could be passive aggressive,” is learned. The basic lesson looks like this: • Control your expectations, • Parcel out important tasks so there are several responsible people involved, • Re-check frequently to see how much delay the PA can generate before you stop him. A passive aggressive story: When the manager would ask a passive aggressive employee a question that required immediate attention, he wouldn’t respond or look at the boss; he would sit and continue to do whatever he was doing for a long time, from seconds to minutes, for as long as the manager would be willing to wait for his answer. If the manager interpreted this behavior as an attempt to control, he would get angry and his response after waiting too many times for an answer and spending time analyzing the motivation was “to get in his face.” HOW? If the employee wouldn’t answer after an acceptable time to any yes or no question, the manager would ask, “Is that a yes or no? If I don't get your answer, I will provide the one I need the most,” in an aggressive tone. He would quickly answer the question and the manager would move on to other tasks.

How to Confront this PA behavior: If your productivity at work and/or the quality of your personal relationships are being negatively affected by a passive-aggressive person, you must address it and confront. • Call the action by its name: “When you are late for this delivery, my evaluation also suffers. Either shape up and delivery in time, or I will stop working with you at all.” • Hold the person to your consistent expectations. If the person repeatedly gives excuses for why things are not done on time, don't reinforce them by saying, "Oh, I understand. Just get it done as soon as you can."

“Manage Passive Aggression in the Workplace” © Creative Conflict Resolutions, Inc. http://www.creativeconflicts.com

• If the person asserts that he lost an assignment say, "I am sorry that you had no time for it. I still need the assignment turned in by noon today." Actions are louder than words and you don’t see any of the expected tasks done. Every time he/she offers a different reason … • Discard his repetitive explanations and comment only on his actions: (“I notice that you are late again”) • Once you get a complete picture of his/her actions, then you can make your decisions. IN SHORT: The only way to get answers out of a passive aggressive that plays this game is not waiting, (this would be akin to letting him lead the game) but repeating your question as if you didn’t think they heard it. A leader’s purpose here is to avoid getting embroiled in the PA person’s attempt to make him wait “up in the air” for as long as he wants…with no real reason, but a subjective one only valid for him. This answer is not a cure for all passive aggressive behavior, but a way to put some institutional limits to a very disruptive behavior whichsomehow- could be interpreted as a hidden sabotage of the team leader’s project. PROMOTING MORE COOPERATIVE BEHAVIORS IN THE WORKPLACE

Nora Femenia is a well known coach, conflict solver and trainer, and CEO of Creative Conflict Resolutions, Inc. If you are interested in learning how to be free from hidden aggression, we can provide the tools!

Being in a passive aggressive workplace is a tough challenge. To help navigate this difficult path, you have lots of help and support in the book: “Manage Passive Aggression in the Workplace"

“Defend yourself from passive aggressive co-workers"!...