Do you use your power of positive persuasion or negative persuasion when selling your ideas and influencing your co-workers?

Check out our side-by-side comparison and evaluate yourself, or better yet, ask one or more co-workers, who will be candid and open with you, to objectively assess you!

Check out this article plus more in A-CHIEVE! (July 2011).

With most everything in life, it’s all about ‘striking the right balance’ vs. allowing the pendulum to swing too far to the left or right. The same holds true in the leadership world as it applies to our strengths. If we turn up the dial too much on any one strength, oddly enough, that strength can quickly morph into a debilitating liability. Case in point – have you ever had the opportunity to work with colleagues who would generally be described as having “it’s my way or the highway” or “I’m right – you’re wrong” attitudes and when they don’t get their own way, they act out? And act out they do either overtly or covertly – from sabotaging your goals to misrepresenting your ideas to spreading malicious rumors about you to fighting you every step of the way. And even more confusing, while you’re observing all of their crazy behaviors, they’re adamant about having the best interests of your organization at heart and even take you to a place of martyrdom as they claim that they’re only fault is either caring too much or being too passionate about their work. Our advice – don’t be fooled! These colleagues are not passionate – they’re obsessed – and they need a healthy dose of ‘tough love’ coaching.

How a person arrives at a place of obsession is not always readily apparent and even though it would be interesting to figure out what makes him/her tick, it’s really irrelevant. As a co-worker, your job is not to diagnose them. What is important is to understand how to work with them (if they don’t report to you) and to establish crystal clear expectations (if they do report to you.) Obsessed colleagues either never truly understood or at some point lost sight of their professional boundaries. They have incorrectly assumed that their belief system unilaterally outweighs the belief systems of their colleagues. They are operating from a place of high emotion, close-minded thinking, one-sided facts and an insatiable appetite which compels them to do whatever it takes to force others to see, accept and abide by their beliefs ‘or else.’ They are driven to win at all costs.

So how do you handle an Obsessed Colleague (OC)? The answer is different depending on whether or not the OC reports to you. If the OC doesn’t report to you, we recommend the following Do’s and Don’ts:

When working with OC’s, the goal is to help them move beyond their emotional (obsessive) state of mind to a rational state of mind otherwise you’ll be spinning your wheels which can become very frustrating. This isn’t always easy. The best way to stop their emotional swirl and break through their hard-headedness, is to ask open-ended questions. Keep probing because this will not only sidetrack OC’s from “winning at all costs,” but it will also force them into thinking about other possibilities. Asking them questions about their position can be a very effective strategy, especially if you believe that their position is half-baked, somewhat flawed or materially the same as the position you’re proposing – with regard to expected results. Pointing out incomplete theories and/or flaws or insisting that your position is better than or just as good as the OC’s position, will only cause OC’s to further dig in because they have a need to be right. But, if you ask questions such as:

• “How would that work?” (have the OC walk you through each step)
• “How did you arrive at that conclusion?”
• “What are all of the facts or circumstances that you considered?”
• “How would you compare/contrast all options – what are the pluses and minuses of each?”

– and continue pursuing that line of thinking to where the OC discovers that his/her position is incomplete, flawed or multiple positions will work, then you might be able to get some movement. 

Now let’s say that the OC reports to you. You will need to leverage the same Do’s and Don’ts in your day in/day out discussions, but additionally, you will need to engage in ‘tough love’ coaching sessions – yes, sessions with an ‘s’ because it will take several sessions before you start seeing positive OC behavioral changes (if the OC chooses to change, which is an entirely different story.) OC’s don’t become obsessive over night, so it will take time for OC’s to first hear what you’re saying, then truly understand what you’re saying, then actually do something about it. As part of your coaching sessions, you must clearly and succinctly define the OC’s boundaries, e.g.:

• Your role is to recommend – not decide
• Your role is to facilitate – not be the center of attention
• Your role is to consult – not dictate
• Your role is to collaborate with your colleagues – not force them into submission
• Your role is to encourage fresh, critical and diverse thinking – not squealch everyone else’s ideas
• Your role is to positively enlist your team – not order or bully them around
• Your role is to acknowledge your colleague’s strengths – not continuously point out their faults
• Your role is to help your team grow and develop – not create “mini me” clones

For each role, you will also need to provide specific behaviors that the OC must ‘start’ and ‘stop’ modeling and be as clear as possible to mitigate potential misunderstandings. As an example, if the OC is assigned a facilitative role but isn’t modeling facilitative behaviors, you would introduce expectations similar to the following:

The above is your ‘getting started’ plan. It is certainly not your ‘do-this-one-time-and-the-person-will-miraculously-change’ plan. With an OC, you must stick with it. Many OC’s seem to muster up all sorts of energy as they eagerly look for opportunities to outmaneuver you. The goal is to keep OC’s on a short leash and apply immediate correction when they stray, but also reward them through verbal or written acknowledgement when you see (or hear about) them modeling positive behaviors. If the OC is highly skilled and you can help him/her get on the right track, the person might become a highly contributing member of your team. If, however, you’ve invested a reasonable amount of time trying to coach the person, and he/she keeps resisting your coaching and/or rationalizing his/her behaviors, you’ll need to coach them out of your organization. You can’t afford to invest significant coaching time on high maintenance employees to the detriment of your high performers who both appreciate and can benefit from your coaching efforts.

Check out this article plus more in A-CHIEVE! (May 2011).

We define collaboration as “the mutual engagement of participants in a coordinated effort to achieve a common end goal.” When building and nurturing relationships, we look for the following integrity-driven behaviors: 

• Honorable and genuine intentions
• Collaborative spirit
• Company agenda advancement
• Add value and give first
• Transparency
• Long term, mutually beneficial

The definition of manipulation is “to change by artful or unfair means so as to serve one’s purpose.” (Merriam-Webster) The clues that we look for that point to less than integrity-driven behaviors would be:

• Dishonorable and disingenuous intentions
• Exploitative bent
• Personal/hidden agenda advancement
• Take first
• Opacity/opaqueness
• Short term, personally beneficial

One of the best ways to determine if a person is characteristically collaborative or manipulative is to objectively observe his/her behavior during some type of conflict. Among other behaviors, a collaborative person will listen intently to the other party, seek to understand the other person’s point of view and invite feedback when advocating a point. Under no circumstances will an authentic collaborator initiate or engage in behavior that causes harm to the other party.

A manipulative person may initially appear to be genuinely interested in the other person’s point of view, but before too long, the manipulator applies one or more of the following tactics¹: 

¹In Sheep’s Clothing: Understanding and Dealing with Manipulative People, George K. Simon, PhD.  

Please share your comments and coaching questions with us!