Who annoys you at work?
Dear EQ-uipped Leaders,
Is there a person at work who gets under your skin, pushes your buttons, rattles your chain?
Have you complained about this person to your spouse? Have you been tempted, and sometimes succumbed, to talking trash about this person in the faculty lounge?
Being human is hard. Working with other humans is especially hard.
Interestingly, people who annoy us at work, while annoying, are also potential teachers of self-awareness. I wish I had understood this earlier in my teaching career.
I used to believe that people were objectively good or bad. I knew intellectually that humans were much more complex than this simple binary, but I still used it as a weapon against colleagues who annoyed me:
I’m good and what’s right with the world. You're bad and what’s wrong with the world. If only you could be more like me.
Yikes.
I wasn’t aware of any of this consciously. I can just look back now and realize that’s what I was doing…and cringe a bit at my emotional immaturity. Live and learn! I make mistakes!
I’m trying to be more curious and less reactive in relationships. Now, I can be interacting with someone and feel myself get annoyed. Instead of passing a judgement on myself or the other person for this feeling, I can just notice and go, “Huh, that’s interesting. I’m feeling annoyed. I wonder what this interaction is bringing up for me right now.” And then I can reflect on it and decide if it’s my own stuff that I’m projecting onto this other person and need to sort out, or if there is something in the relationship that needs to be discussed and resolved. I’ve started asking myself, “What do I need?” and that usually guides me to what steps to take next: I need to set a boundary. I need to get reassurance. I need to advocate for myself.
It’s empowering to let myself feel my feelings without judgement and then make a decision about what to do with those feelings without hurting myself or the other person. It feels grown up and way more productive than trying not to feel annoyed in the first place or offloading my emotion by talking trash, which were pretty much my only two moves previously.
I’ve also learned another more concrete tool for interacting with people who annoy me: non-contingent communication. We teach it in our EQ-uipped Classroom trainings to help educators bridge differences in personality. I keep experimenting with it in my own life, and I’m shocked by how something so simple can transform my experience of other people. It requires a shift to non-contingent communication instead of the usual contingent communication that is more common at work.
Non-contingent communication can go a long way, especially with the people who you find more difficult to connect with. I find when I ask questions like this, it gives me perspective and allows me to see the other person as a whole human, instead of just the role they play in my life.
Where does this land for you today?
What can you learn about yourself from the person who annoys you at work?
What type of communication do you find yourself using most: contingent or non-contingent communication?
Homework Time!
Try asking a colleague a non-contingent communication question today.
Once you complete your EQ homework, please add a comment on the blog (we just fixed this on the website so apologies that it wasn’t working before) or email me at elizabeth@appliedeqgroup.com to share your experience with non-contingent communication.
Do you need support as an EQ-uipped leader, teacher, or parent? We would love to connect with you. :)
Applying EQ with you, Elizabeth Eason Martin
