Latest / It’s All Your Fault: High Conflict People / Bringing It to Life #2: Dealing with High Conflict Personalities in the Workplace
Transcript
- Speaker 1 (00:05): Welcome to, it's All Your Fault On True Story fm, the one and only podcast dedicated to helping you identify and influence the most challenging human interactions, those involving high conflict patterns. I'm Megan Hunter and I'm here with my co-host, bill Eddie. Hi everybody. We are the co-founders of the High Conflict Institute in San Diego, California where we focus on training, consulting, coaching, and educational programs and methods, all to do with high conflict. Now in today's episode, we continue our Bring It to Life series, but this time the focus will be on the impact of a high conflict person on workplace culture. But first, a couple of notes send your high conflict related questions to podcast@highconflictinstitute.com or on our website@highconflictinstitute.com slash podcast where you'll also find all the show notes and links. Speaker 1 (01:06): All right, here we are again, bill and apologies. Today for my voice will be a little different because I have a pretty healthy cold or unhealthy cold, depends which way you're looking at it. So today we'll talk about bringing to life the realities of having a high conflict person in the workplace and the impact it can have. And I should start with saying that you and Georgi de Stefano wrote a book called It's All Your Fault At Work. You've written extensively on workplace culture and in relation to high conflict personalities. So you have quite a bit of depth and I do a lot of training in businesses and corporations and trying to tame the conflict, keep the conflict small a bit in these really challenging, challenging situations because as we all know, you spend a great deal of time at work and if there's one person disrupting even just one, it can have such tremendous impact on morale, on resources, on wellness and productivity bottom line. Speaker 1 (02:20): So it's in everyone's best interest to figure out what to do when we have this level of conflict and kind of conflict. So here's the scenario for this Bring it to life episode. We have an organization that has two directors, one director and two managers, and everything has to work together very seamlessly in order to create, come up with a great product, have a great output. It's a business that's regulated by the government. They have a lot of benchmarks they have to meet. Timelines are tight, there's always too work and all the regular stuff and things that happen in business and trying to do your best and just trying to get the technical aspects of the work done. Then you have a couple of managers who don't get along and they're the only two managers and they're the ones that have to guarantee that things are going to get done. Speaker 1 (03:19): So in this particular scenario, these managers can't agree on any given point in any meeting the people that work directly under them, assistant managers and then various others in their teams. It is interesting to see there's a wide variety of how people respond I guess. So we have some assistant managers who one is feeling like just completely victimized and bullied all the time. The other assistant manager is feeling like she's just in fight or flight, constantly wanting to fight, wants to leave because her manager's unbearable, lots of fighting between the managers and the assistant managers. And that all flows down into the teams. Some are avoiding the conflict altogether, others get a little involved, maybe not in such a healthy way while others yet are taking a more active role trying to intervene, help the situation. And failing just doesn't seem to work. And we have a director who's just perplexed about the whole thing and frankly worn out and worn down. Speaker 1 (04:35): It's a big job this director has to do in the first place and they're new in the position. So that's the scenario. Now let's say the director becomes aware of this thing called a high conflict personality. Maybe this is a little different. That awareness is beginning to seep in that maybe this isn't just ordinary conflict. Maybe this isn't something I can fix with a magic wand or wish it away or try my best skills. I'm understanding now that I don't know what to do and I need to get this under control so we can be efficient and we can do what we're supposed to do. And there was a great deal of attrition. People are fleeing like crazy. The director knows that people are out looking for jobs, she hears the scuttlebutt around and now we have just an organization that's basically in chaos and the whole place walking on eggshells. Speaker 1 (05:38): Now as you know Bill, this is no different from families, no different from anywhere where there's high conflict involved. So the dilemma and the bring it to life today is what is that director to do? First of all, I guess this is two parts. One is trying to identify whether one of the managers has a high conflict personality or if both do or does one have a high conflict personality and the other one is just reacting because they're worn out. And then part two, and this is truly the crux of the matter, do you keep someone who is exhibiting these patterns of high conflict behavior over and over disrupting? It's just known, right? Is it more beneficial to keep them or to let them go? So we're going to talk about these two things and then we'll talk about some actual outcomes that happen in this scenario. And it's again, an amalgamation of several different organizations that we've heard about come across that kind of thing. So there's this isn't just one organization. Okay, so Bill, let's talk about first the one or both people are both managers. How do I as the director, or even if I'm in human resources, how do I know which one is high conflict? They're both acting badly. Speaker 2 (07:10): Excellent question. And from all the polls that we've taken at our seminars, it seems like about half of high conflict cases have one high conflict person and about half have two high conflict people. What we're facing is really looking at each person's behavior pattern of behavior. So generally we've been defining high conflict behavior as preoccupation with blaming others and not taking responsibility. A lot of all or nothing thinking unmanaged emotions, which may or may not be obvious because the emotions may be what's driving the person even if they look reasonable on the surface. And the fourth characteristic is extreme behavior. They may do things 90% of other people wouldn't do in terms of spreading rumors, in terms of stealing workplace equipment, in terms of harassment of employees, or even harassment of supervisors because a high conflict person can be anywhere in an organization and throw things off. Speaker 2 (08:29): So with that, I'd like to add the bullying aspect, which is that they want to dominate or even destroy another person, their reputation, their career, whatever. So you look at one person's behavior, look at the others, but you can't rely on each other's reporting of the other person's behavior because they often may be projecting their own behavior onto the other person saying the other person's lying, the other person's disruptive. No one likes the other person when in fact the person that's speaking is the one that does fit. I think you have to look at each, and I think it's so important in the workplace to look at each, I'm aware of places that two people got into a conflict, so they just fired both of them when in fact only one person was really acting in a high conflict pattern of behavior. So it is worthwhile figuring that out. And then of course, figuring out what your choices are, what limits to set, what consequences to impose, Speaker 1 (09:38): Even if you have someone who is behaving badly and they seems to have some extreme behaviors, there are others who may not be exhibiting extreme behaviors, but they can be more subtle about it. But eventually, would you agree that you're going to see something extreme when you really put the screws to it, so to speak? Speaker 2 (10:07): Well, if you tolerate bad behavior, other people start to mirror that bad behavior and it starts to be contagious. So you run into where a high conflict person splits a work group by saying half the work group's wonderful and half the work group's terrible and emotions are contagious. In high conflict emotions are highly contagious. So the people they say you're wonderful, start thinking, yeah, we are pretty good and those other people are really undermining and harming our work. And you end up dividing a work group when there may just be one high conflict person, but their emotions are intense enough to feed a polarization in the workplace. And that can really be confusing because you start thinking, oh, well everybody's acting badly when in fact it really is one person without that one person. Or if that person gets coaching and changes their behavior, you can see that things go a lot more smoothly. And I want to put in a plug for coaching to find out, you may give someone coaching for three or four sessions and see if they can change. And when we've done that, about half of cases they have been able to improve their behavior and stay put. And about half of cases they just don't work out. Now that's anecdotal, but there's research and stuff that supports that a toxic employee can really harm a whole work group, and that has to be addressed sooner rather than later. Speaker 1 (11:53): That decision to, let's say you finally kind of sussed out where the issue is, which individual has this pattern of high conflict behavior, but this employee has so much institutional knowledge, technical expertise, and you would feel bereft to replace the person. I can think of some positions where it's a highly specialized field and it's hard to find people. So I think that puts a lot of pressure on a CEO on a director to keep the person and not enable the behavior because depending on who is the CEO or director, what their background is and what their management style is, if you are passive and kind of avoid it and just hope it'll kind of go away or it'll sort itself out, or you even try to work with HR and it just isn't working, which is often the case in high conflict, when a high conflict individual is involved, then it's just going to make the problem worse. Speaker 1 (13:00): The conflict will grow bigger and eventually something's going to break. So it's interesting then when let's say we finally get to that point where things are so bad and a director has to make a decision. So the decision is let's go for coaching. And we put this individual through some coaching, like you said, bill, and the coaching is kind of light. It doesn't really address the skills which we address in our new ways for work coaching. And the person says, okay, and they kind of go through the coaching and then when you say, okay, now we're going to go to a next level of coaching and it's going to be more intensive, what we often see is that perhaps it's half the people anecdotally would quit and half may stay and go through the coaching and experience some level of change. Would you agree? Speaker 2 (13:59): Yes, very much. And I think it's that change. What people don't realize is the lack of change for high conflict people and many high conflict people have personality disorders and a definition of personality starts out with an enduring pattern of behavior. And so change is something they're really resistant to emotionally. They'll fight you if you want them to change or they'll fight or flee. Most people want to improve themselves. One thing I learned, I was a therapist before I became a lawyer is that the people in high conflict legal situations have no interest in counseling. They don't want to change. They're not looking to change. It's everybody else that has to change. And I remember as a lawyer saying, I really suggest you get some counseling and they'll say, bill, if you think I need counseling, you need counseling. It's not my problem. It's not my fault. And I'm going more than ever. It's their problem and it's their fault. That's the kind of defensive thinking. So I think you're absolutely right. Even just recommending coaching or requiring coaching, often a lot of high conflict people leave at that point. Speaker 1 (15:22): Right? Speaker 2 (15:23): There was something else I wanted to add, and that's about productivity, that there was a study done, a Harvard study done that Georgi to Stefano and I wrote a paper about a short paper, it's titled Fire or Keep High Conflict Employees. And we addressed the Harvard research. The Harvard research said that high conflict employees may be equally productive or even slightly more productive in terms of numbers that they may be hard workers in terms of numbers, but that their interpersonal skills are so lacking that it's better not to have them. And that's the seduction of a lot of directors, CEOs, et cetera, is well, this person's so productive, we can't afford to let them go. Well, the Harvard research said it's more than twice as costly to keep what they called a toxic employee than it is to get a star employee, someone who's a good employee. And so it really is something to, it's an eyeopener that productivity and high conflict can actually go together sometimes and don't be fooled, Speaker 1 (16:45): Right? Right. It can't last forever. It's just not sustainable. It's going to be eventually so toxic for the entire workplace that the workplace productivity will probably go down. This is so high. Conflict personalities that impact on others is so drastic that it does wear other people down and impacts productivity. So yes, we do have to have every person needs to be in alignment with their technical skills and their interpersonal skills. And when they aren't, you're going to have workplace disruption. And when it's a high conflict person, you're probably going to have a lot of attrition and loss of productivity. And now we're going to take a short break and we'll be right back. Speaker 1 (17:40): All right, now we're back Bill and let's continue on. So we've talked to a few business owners and people in corporations and different organizations who have been in this situation. And in some of them, the person when coaching was offered, the person decided they were leaving. For those leaders who are driven by the fear of that person leaving, I'm sure this is a very trepidatious moment. And then some other cases the person was actually terminated, but the aftermath after the person is gone when coaching didn't happen, or in some cases they'll get the right coaching and even then it's not going to satisfy things in looking at what happens after that person is gone. We heard people say that the amount of time that had gone into meetings about this individual and all the conflicts revolving around this person was substantial. So now my time has cleared up. Speaker 1 (18:54): Now I have more time on my schedule to manage the business. Both people and the technical aspects, the highs and lows are gone. I'm not constantly putting out fires anymore. I can focus on my job more. And once this person was gone, it calmed everyone else down and actually shifted the culture. That's huge. And this shows that the dramatic impact that high conflict can have in a workplace. And we're never saying that these are bad people. We're just saying they're lacking interpersonal skills and until they get them, if we keep enabling them by keeping them in the workplace and allowing bullying and allowing just all the chaos that they cause without setting limits, imposing consequences, being slick, using Biff responses, using your statements, all of those things, there's going to be issues. So I think it's really important to hear these words. It's shifted the culture. Speaker 2 (19:57): That's great. Speaker 1 (19:58): You can shift the culture by getting this under control basically whether it means the person leaves or the person gets coaching and you put a lot of limits on them. So what do you think about that bill? Shifting the culture? Speaker 2 (20:13): I think that's very accurate and I've seen that as well. And I think the thing is that people wait too long to address these problems because they wish and hope that the person will change or that there's an issue to resolve. Here's where our high conflict institute saying the issue's, not the issue driving the conflict, the personality's the issue driving the conflict. And once you realize that, if you realize a high conflict personality has a more narrow range of, and they can't stop themselves, and that's one of the hardest things to accept, this person can't stop themselves. So you have to intervene, you have to do something, it's not going to just stop on its own. And that's often how when it isn't a high conflict person, when someone does stop themselves, sends out a note saying, sorry, I did such and such, I don't usually do that. Speaker 2 (21:13): That was a mistake. And you realize that, but the ones the high conflict or bullies, the bullies being the highest of the high conflict and showing up in the workplace, you can't avoid that. You have to intervene. Three quarters of people aren't trained to be managers. There's research that shows that. And so most managers get into that position because they're good at doing the job of production or whatever it is, but they're not necessarily good at being managers. So when they become managers, they're kind of intimidated by high conflict employees and tend to avoid conflicts or try to tamp down, say Everybody, oh, they made a mistake, they won't do that again. I'm sure. Then they do that again. So it's something a lot of managers are really nice people and you can be a nice person and still set limits and impose consequences on high conflict people and bullies. And that's a message that I hope we can get across. Speaker 1 (22:23): Yeah, I didn't go to school to manage people. People go to university to get a PhD or in whatever, and they're now faced with managing people. And I think it's important. I manage a few people and I realized along the way that even with an MBA, until you get in there and actually start managing people and focus on it, be very intentional about it. You can do a pretty lousy job sometimes, but hopefully we learn over time. Now, there was one leader we talked to who said that the high conflict individual wanted the leader to be on his side, so really cozied up and buddied up and came to his office complaining a lot, but it was always someone else's fault. But oh, maybe I bear some responsibility here, but never took responsibility. What this leader said happened in his case, he put up with that for two or three years and didn't know what to do. And finally, when the leader made a change, started setting some limits and doing the things that you're supposed to do in high conflict situations, it drove the employee to make the decision to leave. So it was the single act of setting limits by the leader that initiated the change. Right? Speaker 2 (23:51): Yeah, that's very common because they put a lot of energy into trying to maintain the status quo and a position where they can kind of dominate what's going on, and people often back down, that's such a common characteristic of high conflict personalities and bullies, is to just intimidate people out of setting limits on you and it works. And you said several years. I want to mention in my new book, our New World of Adult Bullies, how to spot them, how to stop them. I came upon some cases that were lawsuits, legal cases against organizations for wrongful termination. And what happened is the organizations waited three or four years before they really set limits. And in two cases, they both made requirements, detailed requirements of what the person had to do to change to be able to keep their job. They didn't fire them, they just said, you have to do these things. Speaker 2 (24:58): And the person rather than doing those things turned around and sued in both of these cases and it's like they are not going to change and they're going to sue you before they're going to change in some cases. And then they spent two or three years in court because they then did fire them and then in court, and of course the organizations prevailed because they had done all the right things. They had just taken too long to do all the right things so that the person felt justified in attacking the organization. So I think a couple principles there. One is realize if they have a high conflict personality, this is a rigid pattern of behavior and it's just going to continue until it stopped either because you confront the person and have them learn skills like through coaching, which is a really good step or because they're going to leave or you're going to fire them, but just letting it go is wishful thinking that occurs too often in the long run. It doesn't help. It never resolves it, Speaker 1 (26:10): Right? It doesn't help the organization, which is the primary focus, and it doesn't help the person either. And what we've seen in many cases is that person then goes on to sometimes find a position that they're better suited in where they don't have a lot of interaction with other people and they're just working in the technical aspect of the job and they seem to do fine with that. So in the end, that can be a win for everyone. Sometimes there are others who go from job to job to job, but it's not your responsibility to fix people. It's your responsibility to manage a business and doing it in a kind and respectful and civil way using your best skills and using some new ways for work coaching. Let Speaker 2 (27:00): Me put in a plug here for the healthcare industry, because healthcare over the last 20 years or so has really gone to much more of an organizational approach. It used to be doctors, doctors plate, God, they were like above reproach. You couldn't touch them. They could do any behavior, and people walked on eggshells around them. Now doctors are part of the organization. They get regular feedback and doctors get coaching and doctors succeed and get better with the coaching. And it's now part of the culture to have constant feedback. I have membership with Kaiser Permanente Healthcare and almost every time I see a doctor or physician's assistant or nurse practitioner or nurse or pharmacist, you get a survey maybe about every fifth time I have that, and I've had that for like 20 years. They get a survey and doctors are not immune from that. You get to say, they did well at this, they did bad at that. And it's so constant feedback that it's not a big deal when there's something to correct and work on, it's like become part of the culture. And I think that this is an area of a lot of success, but coaching physicians has become now something that's common. It's okay, it doesn't mean the end of the world. And so the culture of a lot of healthcare organizations has really changed to be much more teamwork and frankly much healthier and more successful. So I think we should make sure to include success stories with this Speaker 1 (28:53): A hundred percent. And some of that success can come from the coaching program that you and Georgi Deano created called New Ways for Work Coaching, which we do provide training. We'll put those links in show notes along with the link to your new book coming out in June, 2024, our New World of Adult Bullies, and we do have a Bullies in the Workplace Free Webinar coming up May 10th, so we'll put that link in the show notes as well. Thank you for listening today. Next week, we're going to continue our Bring It to Life series, and it will be more in the divorce area and high conflict divorce. Send your questions to podcast@conflictinstitute.com or submit them to high conflict institute.com/podcast. Please tell all your friends about us and we'd be grateful if you'd leave a review wherever you listen to us. Until next time, keep learning and practicing these skills. Be kind to yourself and others while we all try to keep the conflict small. It's All Your Fault is a production of True Story FM Engineering by Andy Nelson. Music by Wolf Samuels, John Coggins and Ziv Moran. Find the show notes and transcripts at True story fm or high conflict institute.com/podcast. If your podcast app allows ratings and reviews, please consider doing that for our show.