Give The Jerk In Your Office A Taste Of Obama's Collective Responsibility Psychology

In this new era of personal and collective responsibility, as made clear by president Obama on January 20 in his inaugural address, I hope 2009 will be a transitional time to end conflict on both a global scale and a personal level. We all have an opportunity to do our part by treating others as we would like to be treated, regardless of agreements or disagreements, conflict or concurrence, commonalities or differences.

Years ago I worked with someone who was, in a word, difficult. It seemed no matter what I said or what I did, I was wrong and he was right. He always seemed to have a better way, a better idea, a better suggestion, a better ... well, you get the point. He also had a way of belittling me in front of my sales team and often made condescending remarks in the guise of a "joke" during our weekly staff meetings.

I finally decided I had had enough one day and asked him to come into my office. I closed the door and looked him straight in the eye and said, "I'm confused, help me understand, based on your comments today in the staff meeting, it appears I've done something to offend or upset you. Will you please tell me what it is?" You should have seen the look on his face! He didn't know what to say or do and for the first time since I'd known him, he was speechless. He must have been expecting a fight when I asked him to come into my office then closed the door; but instead I took full responsibility for whatever was causing him to treat me the way he was treating me, and it completely caught him off guard.

The phrase, "I'm confused, help me understand" put it all on me. I was the one who was confused, I was the one who didn't understand, why he said what he said and did what he did. Because I approached it this way, he could not be defensive or deny his behavior. After all, I wasn't accusing him of anything, so there was no need to deny anything.

He apologized to me for the comments he had made that morning in the staff meeting and promised it wouldn't happen again.

There's an old saying, "you teach people how to treat you", and that's exactly what I did that day in my office with my difficult coworker. The phrase "I'm confused, help me understand" has been a Godsend to me ever since and I've used it on numerous occasions when I felt the need to approach someone and resolve an issue.