Message to the Wrong Person

Who’s the message for anyway..?..!

Here’s a dynamic that I run into all the time in trying to help teams, groups, departments and/or organizations develop improved working relationships and partnerships… Please read this through carefully a couple of times, because it’s relevant to everyone of us—we’ve all seen it…done it…and had it ‘done’ to us as well! This goes on all the time, but if your team can get hold of this one…enormous strides can be made toward increased teamwork, trust, less conflict, more productivity and improved relationships all the way around.

Is it just part of human nature and inevitably going to be there?… probably, if that’s what you think and you’re teammates think!!! IT WON’T BE EASY, BUT IMPROVEMENT IS POSSIBLE…it simply takes realization of the negative impact and a commitment by the team to change it.

Let’s get a little more specific--as a facilitator, I see this within groups and get caught up in it myself—let me explain how we do this to each other and the damage that if inflicts. Situation: You have a problem with someone (what they said, what you thought they said, their opinion, something they did that impacted your world, etc…get the picture?) What do we typically do when this occurs? We go share it with someone else—a peer, a boss, everyone except the person who really needs to hear it! Starting to connect aren’t you… ? Teammates (employees within the same office-under the same leader) frequently will even take it straight to the leader to deal with. Think of the impact and fallout of doing things this way -- first of all the person you are taking it to can do nothing but listen to you bellyache….what are you expecting them to do with it? If they go do something with it, then they have broken your trust!?! If you allow them (or push them to do it for you) all you are going to do is lose respect and your relationship with that individual.

Teams that are ready to fix this dynamic have to honestly sit down, look each other in the eye and say we all have our gripes with each other for good reason, but why don’t we agree to start doing things in the right way in the right spirit…? After all, if you tell me what your issue is or what you don’t like that I did or whatever, haven’t you actually done something positive regarding our relationship and the team overall? But we tend to take confrontation and disagreement as world-shattering stuff instead of the good that is to be gained. If we can manage to do it in a respectful, tactful and non-confrontational way…it can drastically improve a team in ways we cannot even imagine.
As a facilitator and trainer, I frequently have this very same thing happen to me. Here is how if affects me personally in this role: After I have worked with a team for some period, I begin to see myself as one of the team. It never fails, that eventually someone will take issue with how I am performing or maybe an opinion that I express (as if I do not have a right to my opinion also, huh? ). Instead of taking issue with me and tossing it out there for the good of our relationship…the person shuts down, creating a barrier to any further learning or communicating on that person’s part…and then later, takes it to someone that wasn’t even there!!! What I just described here, that happens to me is the very thing that people do to each other all the time. It tears down relationships, discourages communication, kills trust and makes life miserable for all around the issue. Not to mention all the wasted time that these kind of things end up taking,……because we took it through a cycle and circle of ‘the wrong people.

AS LEADERS, MENTORS AND TEAM MEMBERS, WE CAN HELP OTHERS BY STEERING THEM IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION (AFTER A FEW MOMENTS OF EMPATHETIC LISTENING OF COURSE). AND HOPE THEY WILL HAVE THE INSIGHT AND COURAGE TO RETURN THE FAVOR WHEN YOU COME CALLING!?!

Take care, DOUG