by James Brooke
There will always be an in-crowd. The power of the in-crowd is contingent on people wanting to join it. If we are relaxed about whether we are in or out of a clique, it fails to exert any emotional power over us. Not only can we get on with our jobs and with doing what we came into the organisation to do, but we’ll feel a whole lot happier.
Just as we encourage people to view a toxic boss as a high-maintenance customer, view the Core Group as people with whom you are required to interact in order to deliver a service with the expertise that only you can offer. It would be nice to feel invited into the Core Group, but you don’t need to. Imagine you were doing your job as an expert consultant, working very closely with this organisation. It would be great to make some friends here, but you don’t need to. It would be really nice if everyone were always civil, but how other people act doesn’t say anything about your expertise or competence.
We only gain power when we stop wanting organisations to be fair and start expecting them to be human, and when we recognise politics for what it is: the unspoken (and often ‘undiscussable’) emotional needs of the people involved.
Summary
Organisations typically evolve into a small group of insiders and a larger group of outsiders
Bulletproof people treat the Core Group just like a boss, i.e. simply as another customer
You can be respected and valued by the Core Group without ever trying to enter it
Challenge your assumptions
Let’s return to Claire, the HR manager, who felt ostracised by her team. She was feeling isolated from a group in a very different context; her group was the very group she had been appointed to lead.
One of the most common requests that we receive is to work with a dysfunctional leadership team. We point out that teams are like families: being dysfunctional is their normal state. No two people in a team can ever be expected to have identical perspectives and priorities. Moreover, the individual, unspoken emotional needs are every bit as powerful as any shared team goal. As trust is eroded, team members feel a greater wariness about honesty and openness, and a greater desire to disguise their needs and wants. And, of course, trust is then further eroded. In a team where individuals feel ‘unsafe’, implicit alliances are formed. Far from making the individual feel safer, the cycle continues.
There is a further phenomenon that exacerbates the situation among teams. Evidence shows that, in a group, attitudes and feelings tend to be amplified. Individuals who feel isolated in teams will tend to find that their colleagues exacerbate the divisions. They look for evidence to support their judgement about isolated team members. Attitudes that have taken root among a team are much harder to shift than attitudes held by an individual. Most managers reach for the traditional cures of either team-building activities or social events, or both. At best, these are fruitless; at worst, they provide a magnifying glass for the dysfunctions.
When we met Claire, she was clearly feeling tired and emotional about the situation. She listed the unhelpful behaviours that she had witnessed from the team. She also listed all of the attempts that she had made to improve the situation – and the ungracious responses with which they had been met. Her message was clear: Look, I’ve been reasonable and this is how they repay me. Claire was clearly looking for evidence that would reassure her that she was right.
First Claire had to answer the question: ‘How might I have been contributing to the problem?’ And when it came to the team’s behaviour: ‘How am I feeling when I behave like this?’ By answering the second question, Claire came to gain insight into the first. Team members begrudged the feeling of being subordinated and, therefore, tried out ways implicitly to challenge Claire’s authority. Claire had responded by seeking to reassert her authority and, therefore, invited more surly non-compliance back from the team. They were caught in a cycle.
Claire recognised that she had been in a cycle of thought-feeling-behaviour. The behaviour that she observed from the team would trigger the unhelpful thoughts described above, from which she would feel under attack, insecure, threatened and frustrated. As she felt her status as team leader was under attack, she would respond by more overtly high-status behaviour and attempts to demonstrate her authority. She would micro-manage in order to keep control of the team. This just made them more resentful, and the cycle continued.
Claire needed to separate the behaviour that she witnessed from her team from what it caused her to feel about herself: her ‘if … then … assumptions’. She feared that her team didn’t respect her authority. ‘If … then I am not fit to be a leader. I always get found out, so I will never make a success of my career.’ By becoming aware of this unhelpful line of reasoning and challenging these assumptions, Claire was able to approach the situation that the behaviour of her team members came down to their feelings. It did not mean anything about Claire. And what’s more, Claire needed to remind herself not to feel the need to indulge in mind-reading exercises with the team.
Being able to let go of mind reading and to challenge and question her ‘if … then … assumptions’, being able to identify her ‘story’ and separate it from the facts, did not solve the entire situation for Claire, but it was the first stage in taking the intensity out of those feelings that were leading to behaviour that, in turn, was pushing the whole boat further and further off course.
If you are caught in a situation that is giving rise to some toxic feelings, it may well be that your ‘if … then … assumptions’ are at play. Did a team member really snub you in the corridor? Or were they simply distracted by something? Is that person who seems so unhelpful and stand-offish actually having problems at home?
Don’t assume, for instance, that you’re necessarily the focus of and cause of other people’s behaviour. Were Claire’s team getting at Claire personally? After all, they knew her so well because they’d worked with her for years. She began to realise that the team felt as if the company was ignoring them; Claire’s promotion was really just a catalyst for these negative feelings.
Abandoning her ‘if … then … assumptions’ and seeing potential distortions in her thinking helped Claire to see the situation more clearly and she started to feel more calm and centred. She felt her confidence start to recover.
Summary
Negative feelings get amplified in groups – and group feelings are harder to shift than individual attitudes
We become more wary about being honest and open in a team that’s lacking trust
Bulletproof people can separate team behaviour from what it causes them to feel about themselves
How to deal with being ostracised
Human beings are naturally social animals, and so being ostracised is unpleasant for us at a very basic level. We often feel devalued and inferior to those who are ostracising us. Sadly, some people will resort to using techniques such as ostracism or ignoring and cutting people out of social groups to meet their needs. This can be the obvious ‘silent treatment’ or it could be more subtle, such as not inviting people to meetings and social events or failing to reply to their emails. With today’s hi-tech, instant-response culture of emails and mobile phones, we expect replies to be faster than ever before; if they’re not immediate, we can easily feel ignored or snubbed.
Ostracism in the office environment has many of the detrimental effects of its more common social relation, says Professor Kip Williams, of Purdue University, who has studied ostracism. He adds that there is evidence that ostracism of office workers lowers their perceptions of their own work-related competency (even though this really isn’t a logical conclusion); they feel the pain that is signalled by and the distress that is associated with lower feelings of belonging, self-esteem, control and meaningful existence. In the office environment, unlike many other situations, it’s senior people, such as team leaders, who can be ostracised, or at least feel ostracised, as much as – if not sometimes more than – those of lower status. Professor Williams believes that ostracism – or the silent treatment – ca
n sometimes be the great equaliser. He argues that lower-status people, people less effective at arguing, or those who are unjustifiably angry, can use ostracism without getting into trouble (or, at least, making it more difficult to get into trouble). Unlike calling someone names or punching them, it is easier to ostracise without proof or accountability. Think of phrases such as ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about; you must be paranoid.’
So, how do you make yourself bulletproof against ostracism by colleagues, whatever their level of seniority in relation to you? As we’ve seen so often, trying to tough it out probably won’t work. It seems that challenging the behaviour and trying to make it stop can also be counterproductive in this instance. If the perpetrator’s aim is to cause hurt, you will only be providing more evidence that their approach is working, which is likely to further fuel the fire and inspire them to continue.
Professor Williams believes that we intuitively know that ostracism hurts for a couple of reasons: partly because we’ve also probably had experience of it ourselves; and partly because it may be an adaptive hard-wired behaviour.
He advises us to ignore the ignoring, as it may be adding fuel to the fire: the more those who are purposefully ostracising us know it is affecting us negatively, the more they may be attracted to continuing to use it as a weapon. He feels that ignoring the fact that you’re apparently being ignored by acting in a cheerful way usually, oddly enough, overcomes ostracism more effectively than a simple plea to stop.
Ostracism is tough and can even lead to depression, but Professor Williams believes there are solutions. He advises people to actively engage in maintaining old friendships or starting new ones, focusing on one or two close relationships rather than ‘friending’ a vast number of people on Facebook. What works in your social and family life also works in the office. It seems that, when it coincides with overcoming ostracism, developing and maintaining a few good friends is the answer.
The natural inclination is to blame and dislike those who are ostracising us, but stepping back, being mindful and self-aware can help here, most easily by putting yourself in their shoes. Claire realised, for instance, that her team were understandably jealous of her. ‘Thinking about it I realised that in HR we’d been ignored by management for ages,’ she says. ‘We’d had no new resources, no additional staff and very little training. Then suddenly I was offered something that the rest of my colleagues would have loved. I imagined how I’d have felt if Bev, who used to sit opposite me, had suddenly been given a promotion. I’m not surprised that they felt jealous and underappreciated.’ She also realised that her attempt to exert authority over her team had been unhelpful.
Working to remove some of the understandably negative emotion from your feelings, and looking at the situation in a more objective way with a long perspective, can help. Everyone is ostracised in varying degrees at some point in their lives. It won’t last for ever. Once you’ve come through it successfully, you’ll have learnt valuable new people-management skills and have improved your resilience.
Summary
Ignore the ignoring – act like the person you want to be treated as
Remember ostracism is temporary
Choose a few key relationships and go for quality rather than quantity
Have the confidence to be vulnerable
It is worth saying a word about team dynamics here. If you intend to change the attitudes of a team, it is very unwise to make serious attempts at this when the team are all together – at least at the early stages. Teams are prone to ‘group think’ and, because collective attitudes are amplified when like-minded people get together, they tend to be more entrenched in their attitude.
Claire tried behavioural experiments. We encouraged her to think about what would be possible for her if she had supreme confidence in her natural and effortless authority as leader. One of the things that she said was, intriguingly, that she would have the confidence to admit to not knowing everything and asking for help. We felt that this insight might be a real gem for Claire. Her behavioural experiment was to act as if she had the ‘confidence to admit to vulnerability’.
It may seem counter-intuitive, but vulnerability is an immensely powerful tactic in the repertoire of the bulletproof mind. Vulnerability is disarming.
Remember, if we are at loggerheads with a colleague or group of colleagues, it is unlikely that they simply chose us randomly as an adversary. Recall, also, that most people tend to be more motivated to fend off threats than to pursue gain, hence there is a fair chance that we have invoked feelings of threat, insecurity or envy. Vulnerability suggests openness and honesty. We do not demonstrate vulnerability to those we perceive as a threat; hence, if people see that we are prepared to show vulnerability to them, it gives them a clear sense that we do not view them as a threat and they are free to lower their shield – at least a little – but that is the all-important first step.
People are rarely motivated by the desire to plot our downfall. Others tend to be primarily concerned about their own world view, which, like all of ours, is highly self-centred. That is not to say that people do not act unreasonably, judge you unfairly or aim to enlist others to their point of view. We just don’t loom large enough on their radar that we have to take them on in a moral duel. If you find yourself in an adversarial situation with colleagues, the best place to operate from is underneath their defensive radar.
Now try this experiment: With whom are you feeling in an adversarial situation right now? Go to that person and ask for some advice, information or knowledge. It is something that is really important to you but you know that this guy knows more about it than you do – or, at least, you somehow got the impression that he did. It’s the way he talks knowledgeably about other things. Our expectation is that people would never show a weakness to a potential adversary.
As ever, test out how it feels to you. You have nothing to lose. And either way, there is a vital psychological principle that is borne out by a wealth of research: we like those people whom we help. So, even if it is only the tiniest step, you will have moved things forward on the popularity front. You might feel that you’re losing face or looking weak. Just remember: it actually takes confidence and strength to do this. Watch how high-status individuals who have nothing to prove can often admit that they don’t know something or can listen attentively to others who are lower down the pecking order.
A final thought from Matthieu Ricard, the scientist-turned-Buddhist teacher and writer: ‘The idea that a powerful ego is necessary to succeed in life undoubtedly stems from the confusion between attachment to our own image and the resolve to achieve our deepest aspirations. The fact is, the less influenced we are by the sense of our self’s importance, the easier it is to acquire lasting inner strength. The reason for this is simple: self-importance is a target open to all sorts of mental projectiles – jealousy, fear, greed, repulsion – that perpetually destabilise it.’
Put simply, the less attached you are to your ego or self-image, the less readily you can be destabilised by the actions of others.
Let it go.
Summary
Trying to change team attitudes? Avoid getting the whole team together to do it – collectively, attitudes get amplified and become more entrenched
Vulnerability is disarming – to express it requires strength and confidence
Bulletproof people always remember to ask an adversary for help and advice
Divide and influence – it’s better to focus on individuals than the group
When we find ourselves on the outside, when others seem to be massing against us, or cliques seem to be forming, we tend to see our adversaries as a single entity opposing us. When we’re under pressure, our language reinforces our belief.
When Claire sought to confront the attitudes she saw as undesirable, she would challenge the group with phrases like:
• ‘You lot are always …’
• ‘I’m trying to get you lot to see things from my point of vie
w …’
• ‘It seems to me that you all tend to …’
It might be tempting to challenge the group, particularly when you’re at a low ebb and feeling irritated by others’ attitudes, but this is the last thing you really want to do: reinforce the sense of common group identity among those you see as your adversaries. It is equally counterproductive to draw attention to the fact that you are isolated versus the group. We know that attitudes and opinions become more vehement and entrenched when people group together with others of a similar mind.
Political researchers have identified this in focus groups. If they put voters with a similarly socially conservative attitude to law and order together, they tend to come out of the focus group advocating today’s equivalent of hanging for the theft of a sheep.
Want to turbocharge the sense of righteousness and evidence gathering among those with whom you find yourself at loggerheads? Then treat them as one homogenous mass. The key to influencing a group is to break it down to relationships with individuals.
It may seem counter-intuitive to focus on points of conflict and disagreement among the team, but we believe that constructive conflict and diversity of opinion are helpful.
After we talked to Claire about how she should handle the group, she learnt to withhold her view and be seen to listen. She began to ask questions such as: ‘Thanks for that. Now I’d like to hear from somebody with a different point of view’; or, simply, ‘Thanks for that … now who feels differently?’ She encouraged team members to debate respectfully but passionately with each other. She learnt to encourage diversity of opinion by praising it when she saw it happen. ‘It’s great that we have so many different opinions around the table.’
Claire also learnt that it is far more effective to focus on individual group members for one-to-one conversations. In these conversations she was far better able to use rapport skills and could make a point of asking for advice or views on business matters.