September 13, 2022 • 49 mins
On today’s episode, Daniel Goleman and Amy Gallo discuss Gallo’s new book, Getting Along: How to Work with Anyone (Even Difficult People). This is a must listen for anyone who has ever had a job. Gallo identifies eight types of difficult people and shares how you might deal with insecure managers, passive aggressive people and other folks who keep us up at night.
Daniel Goleman talks about his Emotional Intelligence Courses, available at danielgolemanemotionalintelligence.com
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Episode Transcript
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Daniel Goleman (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to first person plural
is a Daniel Goleman. And I'mdelighted to be talking to
someone I admired for years. AmyGallo. Amy's expertise is in
managing conflict effectivecommunications, the dynamics of
the workplace, which is whatwe're going to focus on today.
And what I love about Amy amongmany things, not just her
(00:31):
wonderful writing, but shereally combines rigorous
research with practical advice.
Unknown (00:37):
She's written the Harvard Business Review Guide to
dealing with conflict. She's acontributing editor to the
Harvard Business Review. co hostof HBr is Women at Work podcast.
And before joining HBr, she wasa management consultant. She's
worked in many places, she knowswhat she's writing about her new
(00:58):
book, which we're going to focuson today is getting along how to
work with anyone, even difficultpeople. And Amy, I have to say,
this is a question I'm so oftenasked, What can I do about this
difficult coworker, or thisdifficult boss? So let's get
into it systematically. I'd liketo really just march through
(01:22):
points you make in your book?
And because I think it coversthe topic, so Well,
Amy Gallo (01:29):
first of all, why does it matter? To get along
with people at work? Whatdifference does it make? That's
a great place to start. And Dan,I just want to say thank you for
having me. And, and thank youfor for inviting me to have this
conversation, you seem to be theperfect person to talk about
this book with just your yourinsight. And research,
obviously, is underlying so muchof what I've covered in the
(01:51):
book. So
Unknown (01:53):
you know, one of the things we know is that people
work better, they do better,they're more satisfied, more
engaged, more productive, whenthey have friends at work. And
even, you know, Gallup has shownfor years, having a best friend
at work has all of thesepositive influences. And yet,
(02:14):
what I find is that it's not theclose friendships, I have that
keep me up at night, right? It'sthese difficult colleagues and
difficult interactions. And whatwe know, you know, from lots of
research is that those negativeinteractions really wear us
down, they cause stress, theyhinder our productivity, they
(02:38):
cause us to disengage, they makeus want to leave our jobs.
You know, they make us want tojust not do as much work and as
high quality work as we would ifwe weren't getting along with
everyone we work with what goeson in your brain when you're not
getting along with. So yeah, sothe this is very much based on a
(03:00):
lot of a lot of your work aroundamygdala hijack, what we see
happens when when we encounterstress, there is no doubt that
when we have a negativeinteraction with someone, we go
into that stress response thatthat fight or flight amygdala
hijack. And because we perceiveit as a threat, we see it as a
(03:20):
threat to harmony with ourcoworkers, we've maybe see it as
a threat to our resources atwork to our identity, often to
our ego. But you know, I pridemyself on than seeing myself as
someone who gets along with lotsof people who sees the best in
everyone. So when I have anegative interaction, it
challenges that sense of who Iam. And it's not just difficult
(03:43):
because I want to get theproject done or have a strong
relationship with this person.
But because I have to reflect onweak, am I someone who gets
along, you know, and I share, Ishare a story in a book up in
the book about an author whosent me this email that was just
I had sort of tried to set someboundaries with him around my
time. And he did not like that,and sent me an email that said,
(04:04):
you know, the most importantthing in the world is human
connection. And I'm gonna takemy writing elsewhere. And I
spent several nights in a row upat 3am You know, wearing myself
down thinking boy, am I someonewho values human connection,
that is he right Am I you know,and, you know, cycling through
all of these emotions of angerand regret and despondency and,
(04:33):
and, you know, self doubt, andthat took its toll physically
because I wasn't sleeping, butalso emotionally. It was it was
a source of stress. And that'sreally what I see. When I know
people I interviewed for thebook about their interactions
with difficult co workers isthat it just, it really causes a
lot of noise, both emotionallybut also physically in our in
(04:56):
our brains and our minds. Youknow, the big
dylla hijack is from my originalbook Emotional intelligence. And
since then they've done new workon the amygdala, they find that
it's very interwoven with what'scalled the salience network
salience means what's importantto us right now? What do we need
to pay attention to? So when youwake up at three in the morning,
(05:18):
thinking about that guy, andthat email, it's your salience
network. It's saying, okay, payattention, work this out. So can
you talk a little about thedifference between rumination
and problem solving? Yeah, yeah.
And there's a term that Aliceboys, another author has
introduced me to called problemsolving, pondering right problem
solving. Ponderosa, you'reactually, when I'm up at 3am,
(05:40):
there is the sort of negativeversion of that rumination where
I'm really stuck. And it's, andI, the first few nights, it I
was really going down a spiralwhere the thought process was,
he's right. Oh, my gosh, I'm nota good person. I handled that
all poorly, right? It becomesthat self flagellation, as
(06:00):
opposed to where I eventuallygot in, on like, the third or
fourth night, which is like,Okay, well, what do I want to do
differently? Now that I'vegotten this email now that I've
gotten this feedback? What do Iwant to do differently? Instead
of focusing on him, focusing onwhat, what I could learn? And it
might have been, you know, Iwrote all of these snarky emails
(06:21):
back to him in my mind, I neversend think thankfully. But you
know, that, that that's sort ofthe rumination I had to go
through to get to the placewhere I could actually be in a
learning mindset, a curiousmindset about okay, well, what
does this actually mean, for meas a person? And maybe even for
my interaction, not with him?
(06:44):
Because we truthfully haven'tinteracted? Since I don't think
we will. But with my interactionwith other people who are in a
similar role that he's he's inor it with my colleagues, who,
who we exchanged emails all daylong, what does it say about how
I want to behave differentlygoing forward? That reminds me,
you know, in the emotionalintelligence model, there are
four parts self awareness, selfmanagement, empathy, social
(07:07):
skill, and it seems that thefirst two parts, being aware of
what's going on inside you, andthen figuring out how to handle
it is really crucial. So what doyou think is the role of self
awareness or self compassion inthis process? Yeah, and it's
actually I can't I think aboutyour model a lot. And it's hard
to imagine any part of the modelthat's not connected to these
(07:29):
interactions, right to the needto get along and interact,
interact with others, but inparticular, around self
awareness. You know, I, my firstinstinct, when I'm I get a
negative email, or I have anegative interaction with
someone is, either I'm bad,they're bad, or This is
hopeless, right. And that thosethat's not a very self aware,
(07:52):
you know, it's a reactive way tothink about these these negative
interactions. And I think theself awareness is really
thinking, Okay, well, what'swhat actually, does this mean to
me? Why am I feeling thisinstinct to point out who's
right and who's wrong? Why am Igoing down that that path? What
(08:12):
is this bringing up for me? And,you know, for that email from
that, that man, it might havebeen that I didn't feel like I
was responsive enough to otherfolks who actually did matter.
And so, okay, let me let methink about that for a moment
of, is he pointing out somethingthat I already feel insecure
(08:33):
about? You know, is he remindingme of a family member who's
equally abrupt, that's that hascaused me emotional harm over
the years, right? Like there'sall of these moments of, because
it's never really just aboutthat interaction. But it's about
all of the moments in your lifethat have made that interaction.
(08:54):
Difficult, right, or triggeringin that way. So that, to me is
how I see self awareness comein. How do you? I mean, do you
see it play a different role?
Well, it strikes me that you'rereally reflecting on your own
role in the troublingrelationship. are you
contributing to it somehow? Orwhy is this a trigger for you at
(09:17):
all? Yeah. Maybe in your past?
Is this bringing up? And is itsymbolically about some other
relationship? I think that'svery profound. That's definitely
self awareness. Yeah. Well, andI, and it's, you know, it's,
you're pointing out somethingabout the book that I, that I'm
very proud of, but also slightlyconflicted about which is that
(09:40):
it requires people who who aregoing to take the advice in the
book, to be the, you know,quote, unquote, adult in the
room, right to do this hard workof emotional intelligence,
taking, you know, selfawareness, emotional self
control.
And you're actually I'm askingpeople to do that when
They are being harmed. And Ithink that's, that can be really
(10:03):
complicated. Because it's thereis someone else who's, you know,
behaving badly, causing youstress, challenging you. And
it's very easy to become laserfocused on how inappropriate
their behavior is how wrong theyare. And oftentimes those things
are true. But that won't changethe situation. You know, it
(10:27):
really, and I rememberinterviewing you for an article
I wrote years ago about how towork with someone you don't
like. And I think you I, I'm notgonna remember the exact quote,
but you said, you know, you, theonly thing you can control are
your reactions to the situation.
And so I really, that's reallyone of the basic tenants of the
book is that you're not gonna beable to force this person to
(10:47):
change. But you can change theway you think about them the way
you interact, you can reflect onyour reactions to their
behavior, which will change youremotional state, and therefore,
how you want to react to theperson. Almost all of the
tactics in the book don'trequire sort of a confrontation
they do. They're really abouttrying to draw that person into
(11:11):
a collaborative, cooperativediscussion or modeling behavior
you wish you would see. So itshouldn't worsen some of those
dynamics. The one thing I willsay, is that I do think most
people when they are dealingwith someone who is more senior
than them, focus on thedownsides of calling out the
(11:33):
behavior or have, you know, therisks of speaking up. And I
think what we often don't thinkabout are the risks of not
speaking up. And are thosegreater than the risks of
challenging this person inauthority? Now, you need to be
realistic, there are risksusually of challenging someone
(11:53):
who has authority. But are thoseare? Are they realistic? And are
they greater than the risks ofnot doing anything? Well, I
think also you're advised to usean indirect challenge, which is
more like an invitation.
The most appropriate mode moreoften, when you're dealing with
(12:14):
the superior. Yeah, yep. And,and, you know, people, people
really hesitate to to directlyconfront people of authority,
and for good reason, you know, Ithink we often see the those the
people take retaliate, and ornot even retaliate, I mean, it's
(12:35):
not even, you're gonna get firedfor telling your boss that you
disagree with them, it's moreoften that you're going to
experience reputational damagethat's going to harm your career
over the long term. But as yousaid, Dan, I think if you invite
them into a conversation abouthow do I handle this specific
(12:55):
thing, or how do we work bettertogether? How can what can I do
differently to make sure we workbetter together? That that's a
different use? I wonder, Amy, ifyou can sometimes position it?
As you know, your boss's successdepends on you. And your team?
How can I how can I help you dobetter? In this situation? Yeah.
(13:18):
Yep. And I and people do really,that's like classic managing up
skills, right of like, I, I needto be helping my boss succeed, I
need to be thinking about whattheir goals are. And a lot of
times when your boss isinsecure, or passive aggressive,
or, you know, demeaning in someway or that, that we just think,
(13:42):
Oh, why would I help thisperson? Right? Why, why? Why
would I care about whether theysucceed if they're so awful to
me? And the truth is, wasinsecure, folks, if you can
actually show them, you're ontheir side, oftentimes, a lot of
that behavior will, I won't saygo away, but will improve,
right? Because then then you'reseen as an ally, instead of a
(14:04):
threat.
That's really important. Well,before we get into what to do,
which I think is a wonderfulpart of your book, let's hear
about the types. You talkedabout eight common types,
difficult people. Yeah. And I'dlove to get your take on it. You
know, what are the three or fourmost common types? Can you
(14:26):
destroy about each? Yeah, ofcourse. So the the eight types,
just to be clear, not a mutuallyexclusive. You know, this is not
a categorization like in MBTIserve, you know, assessment, or
I think this is justdescriptions of the common
archetypes that I heard about inmy work that people were
encountering most often. And,you know, the ones up there's
(14:48):
eight of them, and there's I'llpoint out a few that I think are
most relevant for folks. One isthe insecure manager. I can't
tell you how many times I hearabout bad bosses and it might
I see that they're incompetent,it might be that they're toxic.
And I think a lot of it at theend of the day comes down to the
fact that some managers feelinsecure. And so I really
(15:09):
focused on that that archetype.
It reminds me of the so calledthe imposter syndrome, which is
extremely surprisinglywidespread among the managerial
class and professional class.
People feel that they're fakingit, or that they'll be found
out. They don't really have whatit takes, which of course, would
make you feel very insecure.
Yeah, yeah. And it's, it'sabsolutely human to feel
(15:32):
insecure. In fact, a good youknow, good dose of insecurity
makes us huge, you humble, itmakes us self reflective. If you
weren't, if you're if you havezero insecurity, you're sort of
veering into the psychopathsterritory, right? Like, you have
to have a little bit of selfdoubt. The problem is, I think a
lot of people, especially whenthey get into positions of
(15:54):
power, as you point out, go intothat imposter syndrome, where
they're really self doubtingwhat they're, you know, what
they're capable of. And theytake, they often take that out
on the people they manage, Ithink that one reason that I've
observed that this happens isthat people tend to be promoted
to the level of incompetence,which is to say, You were such a
(16:15):
good individual contributor,we're gonna make you head of the
team ahead of the division. Andall of a sudden, your leadership
skills matter. And you've neverhad to use them before. In fact,
you don't even know what theyare, you know, about people
being promoted to the level ofincompetence. One of the things
I really admire, actually aboutmy husband, he is an individual
contributor in his role. He'sbeen at the organization longer
(16:38):
than anyone else on the team,there have been opportunities
for him to step into amanagerial role. And he is every
time said, it's not what I wantto do. And, and I think that
it's, you know, it's just such asmart move for him, because for
a variety of reasons I won't getinto, but I think it really, he
was so clear on the challenge ofwhat that would present for him
(17:03):
as an individual, that eventhough it would mean more money,
maybe more risk, moreresponsibility, maybe more
prestige. He's just been veryclear eyed about the fact that
that's not what he wants to doevery day is interesting to me,
You know what, I'm doing a bookwith Carrie Chernus, who has
(17:23):
been co director of theConsortium on for research on
emotional intelligenceorganizations, and we're looking
at 20 years of research, thatmakes it very clear that
emotional intelligence for theleaders can be developed. And
it's really important for anemotionally intelligent
organization to put time andeffort into that, and to give
(17:44):
people the chance to do it,because so many people need to
do it. And so when you talkedabout the insecure boss, that
that could be a common factor.
That's right. So what what aresome more other types? Yeah. Do
you want to hear about, I canalways tell whenever I give a
talk about conflict, I canalmost time it say I always say
(18:07):
the the first second or thirdquestion in the q&a will be how
to deal with someone who'spassive aggressive. It's it is
the, you know, really thequestion I get most often. And
that that's one again, you know,I tried to normalize in the
book, I also exhibited a lot ofthese behaviors myself,
sometimes I have been passiveaggressive, I have acted
(18:30):
insecurely, maybe what doespassive aggressiveness look
like? How can you tell someonehat is following that pattern?
Yeah, it's so I actually in theresearch for the book found out
that the term was first coined,in the 1920s, to describe
soldiers in the military whowould not comply with direct
(18:51):
orders. So they would they wouldagree, yeah, sure, I'll do that.
And then they would just resistand not do it. The term has a
long history and has been partof the DSM then taken out.
And, you know, it's not anofficial diagnosis, which makes
sense. But it's typically inwhat we see in the workplace. Is
it someone who says yes, in ameeting, but then doesn't follow
(19:14):
through. It's someone whoinsists that they're fine, even
though they're displaying bodylanguage that shows they're
upset or they're angry. Youknow, in our mutual friend Annie
McKee calls it, you know, it canfeel like shadowboxing that
you're actually you're trying tosort of land on facts and data,
but they're just constantlyavoiding. And that's really
(19:36):
what's at the base of a lot ofthe passive aggressive behavior
is the fear of conflict. Sothey're actually trying to avoid
conflict for one reason oranother. They don't feel like
they can be direct andstraightforward about their
thoughts and feelings. So mightbe fear of failure. You know, it
might be a desire to be perfect.
And a lot of that is underlyingthat behavior. And it's one of
the archetypes that I honestThey find the most challenging
(20:00):
to deal with review what dealtwith someone like that. Can you
tell us about someone?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah. So I actually,in early in my career, I was in
a, on a team, or someone who hadbeen with the organization at
the beginning of it had left,and then was coming back. And
(20:21):
everyone said, spoke about herso highly, and I thought, Oh,
this is going to be great, I'mgonna get to work with this
person. And immediately, I justgot the sense that we didn't hit
it off. And I'm sure I felt alittle intimidated by her given
her reputation, I think shereally felt a strong need to
prove reprove herself since shewas rejoining the organization.
(20:43):
And what I would find is thatshe would have this big smile on
her face and meetings, she wouldgive these compliments that
sounded a little empty, but thenI'd find out that she was
talking about me, to my boss, tomy colleagues, right? And it
felt very few times I said, Canwe sit down and, and talk? And
(21:03):
she'd be like, why everything'sfine. You know? And it was just
this, everything's fine. What doyou mean, feeling that,
you know, I knew something wasnot right. And, and I never
actually, this, I didn't haveany of the skills that I
advocate for in the book at thetime, because it was really
(21:24):
early in my career. And I neverfound a way to get along with
her. I never found a way toconnect with her. And I regret
it. I wish I could go back intime, and really sort of
understand a little bit moreabout why she was behaving that
way and what I was doing to makeit because she wasn't behaving
this way with others. And thatwas really a sign for me. Was
(21:44):
she the type you call apolitical operator? She was so
she and this is a good point. Sothe archetypes in the book.
They're not we don't all none ofour colleagues fall neatly into
one category. They're usually ahot mess of several the
archetypes. Right. And so shewas very much a political
operator cared a lot about hercareer, cared a lot about being
(22:05):
seen as someone who's veryvaluable to the organization and
was willing to play officepolitics in a way that harmed
others. As long as shebenefited, right, she didn't she
didn't care so much that wewould sort of be the shrapnel in
that those efforts. I wouldassume a political operator
would do things like to creditfor other people's work, or
(22:26):
backbite. Negatively viciouslyactually about other people.
Yeah, gossip is a big piece ofthat that the political
operators tool kit, you know,gossip, like even lying, right?
I think and you see this withpassive aggressive nests, too,
is that when you try to pinpointsomeone needs as a political
operator the passive aggressiveon I noticed you're doing this
(22:48):
right, they'll often be like,No, I'm not. No, no, you know,
you took credit for that, thatwork that we worked on together
that project No, it didn't Igive you credit, and then you're
you're thinking, Wait, did I youknow, the self doubt starts to
come in of like, Wait, did I notsee that correctly? Sounds like
gaslighting yes, there's there'sa big part of gaslighting in
(23:10):
both the passive aggressive andI think the passive aggressive
peer, it's often inadvertentgaslighting. I think with the
political operators, sometimesit's very intentional for them
in order to help them get ahead.
One of the worst types, I thinkon on your list is The Tormentor
who has no empathy for thevictim. Yeah, the tormentor is,
you know, I really had in mindactually a boss that I once had,
(23:31):
which is someone who I reallylooked up to, I was excited to
work for her. And I found thatshe, every time we, I was
looking to her for guidance, or,you know, sort of was, was
hoping that there would be someconnection between us, she was
just re emphasizing all of thesacrifices she made, and really
(23:54):
just was sort of saying over andover, you haven't earned it yet.
You haven't. And you have, youhave to earn it by doing these,
you know, by not spending timewith your family by accepting a
lower paid job by you know, justthese all of these sacrifices
that she had made by choice. Iwill point out that she wanted
(24:15):
me to also make not by choice,because she felt it was how you
earned your way and in thatorganization, or in that, that
industry. And, you know, theterm tormentor, actually was
suggested to me by a colleagueon LinkedIn who said, you know,
it's someone who expect to be amentor, but they actually just
keep on kicking and kicking. Andso you're, you're suffering
(24:38):
their abuse. When you'rethinking Lee, I thought you were
going to be a friend. I thoughtyou were going to be a sponsor
and ally, and it can feel thatmuch worse because of it. Then
there's a type that seems onanother dimension that no at
all. Yeah, who you you can'ttell anything to, I suppose.
Yeah. And just how it seems tohave all the facts and data and
(25:00):
you know, really, this is thefirst person who speaks up in
every meeting, right? They mighttalk over you, they might not
take any, you know, they raisetheir voice if you try to speak
up, you know, I'll admit this isthe archetype identify most with
I have been accused of being anode
(25:21):
at times, and this is the traitof the No at all that that I
most identify with is the sayingsomething with such certainty
that there's no room fordisagreement, right. And I'd
have done that, I do probablystill do that, where sometimes
you just say it, like, as ifthere's, there's no other
interpretation of thissituation. And it's, can be so
(25:43):
detrimental to the people aroundyou, especially people who do
have some humility, do want tosee things from multiple
perspectives. They just feelcompletely bulldozed by these by
these know it alls, who, youknow, who, who feel like they
have just an abundance ofconfidence. And they're,
(26:03):
they're just willing to displaythat, is that
does that have to do also withanother type, the, the person
who is biased and doesn't seetheir bias or some relation
because I think that the nodaljust is so focused on their
perspective and their own ownexperience, they can't imagine
that they would bring in bias orthey can imagine that it would
(26:24):
matter, right? They're like,Well, I'm doing so well. I know,
I'm such an expert on this, itdoesn't matter if I have a few
flaws. Like these, these biases,I mean, the bias coworker is
another one that's incrediblydifficult to deal with. And
truthfully, we all hold biases,right? But the bias coworker is
someone who does not care, anddoes not self reflect they have
(26:46):
none of the self awareness thatthat's required an EI, to
recognize that we all holdbiases and prejudices, but
they're just willing to sort oflet all that seep out, make, you
know, microaggressions, biascomments, and get really
defensive, and then sometimestruly, really awful. In response
(27:09):
to any challenging of thatbehavior, you have an example
from your own working life. Thebias type, well, I have a real
inadvertent example, whichactually didn't make it into the
book. But but it's somethingthat, you know, something that
actually made a big impressionon me and my work life, which
(27:29):
was that I was working, it was acolleague who were working on a
team. And we were trying tochoose images to go with with a
piece of writing, the image wechose, included some depictions
of people of color. And she madea comment on the attributes of
the those depictions, and said,I just don't think this is
(27:52):
realistic.
But it was incredibly dismissiveof the the reality of how people
actually look. And I, to befair, did not think of her, I
thought of her comments asdismissive but not biased. And
there was another colleague ofmine, a woman of color, who
reached out to me and said, Ifeel like those comments were
(28:15):
really inappropriate. And I, youknow, sort of opened my eyes to
Oh, wow, yeah, that was actuallyquite late and laden with bias.
Now, the colleague who madethese comments, I think, had did
not have the self awareness. Andto know that that's how those
comments were coming off, andthat she was sort of exhibiting
some, some racial bias. So Ithink it's not just self
(28:38):
awareness, I noticed most ofthese types of lack empathy.
They don't understand how theirbehaviors landing on the person,
like bias type, is you don'tperceive the pain you're
creating, or how the cringe orwhatever it is, the other person
is back. Well, and how manytimes have you heard in
(28:59):
response, and this is actuallywhen I asked when I did talk to
this colleague, this was theresponse I got, which was, Well,
that wasn't my intention. Andright, that's just the clear
lack of empathy of like, well,it in a way, your attention
doesn't really matter. Becausewhat landed was this, and you
did cause harm, you did causestress and anxiety with that
comment. And you did, you know,violate a sense of inclusion for
(29:24):
that, that people feel welcomeand comfortable. In, in this
team or in this workplace. Oneof the hallmarks of a high
performing team,my colleague, Vanessa dress cat
has found is a sense ofbelonging. And a lot of these
types are telling you indifferent ways you don't belong.
That's right. And I thinkthat's, they erode psychological
(29:46):
safety, they erode a sense ofbelonging. Right? They, so it's
not and that's really if you'rea manager, you have a
responsibility to act on some ofthese be
Hey viewers some of thesearchetypes because you even just
one person on the team whodisplays some of these actions
(30:07):
or these characteristics canreally quickly make that sense
of belonging evaporate. Well,having said that, let's pivot to
what you can do. We're nothelping. Yeah, we're out of a
system. And if one part of thesystem changes very often, that
will reverberate through thewhole system, you talk about
principles to get along withanyone. Tell us about some of
(30:30):
those. Yeah, we've been talkingabout some of them, just to sort
of tangentially already. I mean,one of I'll point out a couple
that I really, that I find quiteuseful is one is that your
perspective is just oneperspective, right? That there's
there, you do have to rememberthe way you're seeing the
situation is influenced by whoyou are, and by you or where you
(30:53):
sit, and your upbringing andbackground and identity factors.
And so you may see someonebehaving passive aggressively,
and just say, that is absolutelyinappropriate, right? That's not
acceptable behavior. And someonemight say, actually, no, this
has worked really well for me.
And, you know, I'm, I'm from aculture where we don't address
conflict directly. And so thisis one way to actually get my
(31:15):
needs met. And so you have toremember that there's this
concept in social psychologycalled naive realism, which is
that we believe when we wantthat the way we say things is,
right. And if someone disagreeswith us, they're clearly wrong.
Right? There's no otherexplanation. So one of the key
things when getting along withpeople or dealing with someone
(31:36):
who's causing you stress or, youknow, having you're having a
negative dynamic with is toremind yourself, there are other
ways to see this other than yourviewpoint, right, try to try to
develop some of that empathy,certain, certainly social
awareness of what's the contextin which you're, you're
interacting in. You know, one ofthe other principles I want to
(31:58):
point out, is experimentation.
And I think this is really, thispulls on a lot of the emotional
intelligence competencies oftrying out solutions. So I share
a lot of tactics based on theeach of the archetypes is to try
one of the tactics and try tocommit to trying it for two
(32:19):
weeks or a month. See how, forexample, give an example. Yeah,
yeah. So let's, let's say withthe passive aggressive peer, for
example, you've had no luck ingetting them to actually follow
through on the things theycommit to in meetings. Right. So
you might agree that you'regoing to apply a little positive
peer pressure. And as a team setup norms, right, and you don't
(32:42):
have to be the leader of theteam, you can be anyone on the
team who says, you know, I wasthinking we should we should
agree on how we want to followthrough on commitments we make
in the meeting, and, you know,let's agree that we'll write it
down, we'll share the emailafterwards. And when someone's
not able to do that they'rerequired to, to speak up and
(33:03):
say, I can't do it. Right. Soyou might try that for a month
and see, does that actuallychange your passive aggressive
behavior, your peers behavior?
Or does that just sort of fallthrough, they continue to not
show up to the meeting, or theycontinue not to follow through
on what they committed to? Andwhich case? Okay, so now, the
question is, Okay, that didn'twork. What's another tactic? I
(33:26):
can try? And again, anotherexample for for someone who
says, oh, yeah, I'll do that.
And then and then never followsthrough is you can actually
address that directly, you know,and say, you know, you've said
three times that you'll do this,each time you don't, what do you
need in order to follow throughon your commitments, right? And
(33:48):
again, with the passiveaggressive person who say that
you might say, Oh, if I can findout, no, I don't need you know,
but you're trying out differenttactics, learning what you can
find them seeing what works, andthen pivoting what I see too
often. And I've done this myselfis the someone tries something,
right? They say, Oh, well, Ihave this, let's, let's say the
political operator, right? I'vetried to agree on sharing crab,
(34:11):
we're going to share credit atthe beginning of the project so
that they don't steal credit atthe end. Right? And they say and
it didn't work. So then theyjust throw up their hands and
they're like, I'm like, Okay,well, you tried one thing. You
tried it one thing once. Andlet's let's think about what
else you can try. Because theseare, these are iterative
interactions that you need to,you need to learn from try out,
(34:33):
you know, experiment with in thebook, you quote, Viktor Frankl,
talking about widening the gapbetween stimulus and response
and other psychologists havedefined maturity as lengthening
the gap between your impulse toact and what you actually do.
And in school programs wherethey're teaching these skills.
(34:54):
There's a poster was developedby Roger Weisberg at Yale years
ago. The poster twoIt picks a stoplight. And it
says, when you're upset,remember the stoplight red
light, stop calm down and thinkbefore you act, yellow light,
think of a range of things youcould do and what the
consequences would be greenlight, pick the best one and try
it out. And I think the adviceyou're giving is a variation on
(35:17):
this. And not only that, you'regiving people the gift of here's
six things you can try. Yes,yes. Well, and here's six and
then keep track, right? What didI try? What didn't work, right?
And you're learning like, it'syou have growth mindset is
fundamental in implementing anyof this, because you have to
(35:37):
remember, you have to both havea growth mindset about yourself,
right? I can learn I can trydifferent tactics, I can
integrate the behaviors thatwork, get rid of the ones that
don't, but you also have to havegrowth mindset about the other
person, the the willingness andbelief that they're going to,
they can change. And when youbelieve that about someone, I
(35:57):
mean, I think we, we both haveseen this, I'm sure in our work,
when you believe that aboutsomeone, it does change the
dynamic, right? If you if I'm sosad, if you and I interact in
and I'm so sad, I'm full, he'sjust he that's how he is. That's
it's not gonna you know what,nothing I can do will change
that. Right? You feel that inthat interaction, you feel
(36:20):
pigeon holed, you feel stuck,you feel underestimated. If I
approach that conversation, evenjust in my mind, saying, I'm not
sure why Dan's behaving the wayhe is, but I bet I bet he could
change if the circumstanceschange, it's going to be a much
more open collaborativeinteraction. I think that's a
really important point about theconcept of a growth mindset,
(36:42):
it's both you can change whatthe other person can change to
be both have the potential.
And because if you don't havethat view, then nothing can
change. That's right, andactually need to return who I
interviewed. She's a professorat London Business School, she I
interviewed her for the book onthe biased coworker. And she has
(37:03):
some research that shows thatthe growth mindset really helps
when you're challenging folkswho are committing biased
comments. Because if you pointout someone who's made a bias
comment, if you point it out,and you don't have any
expectation that they'll change,then you're basically shaming
them punishing them. But ifyou've if you have the mindset
(37:25):
that they can actually grow andlearn from the experience,
you're much more likely toapproach that conversation in a
way of, well, how do we do thisdifferently next time, I'm
giving you room to learn andgrow. And it's so important,
particularly around if we wantpeople to change their bias
behavior, giving them the roomto learn from their mistakes.
(37:46):
You mentioned three kinds ofknee jerk reactions that make
things worse, not better inthese situations. One of which
is shaming people.
The other which are retaliating.
Which, of course, we oftenreflexively think well, maybe
that'll help. And then thetheory of suppressing what
you're feelingabout each and why it makes it
(38:07):
worse to me is the there's adifference between
pointing out someone's mistakes,and then make versus making
someone feel like their mistakeis inherent to who they are. So
if you if you tell a know itall, like you know, you act,
(38:28):
your blustery, you act socompetent, like if you're you're
pointing out like this is ahuman flaw with you, as opposed
to you're exhibiting behaviorthat's having this impact on me.
All right. Very big differencebetween
when you act confidently and layout all the facts without room
(38:48):
for disagreement, it shuts downthe conversation. Right. As
opposed to your No at all. Whomakes us all feel horrible?
Right? Yeah. Such a such adifference. So and people we
know, we know from research,Brene Brown has reached this.
This has been there's been a lotabout this. It's like we know
people don't aren't inspired tochange motivated to change. When
(39:10):
they feel shame. They'reactually inspired to double down
on the behavior or hide fromfrom the behavior.
Remind me what the second onewas? retaliated? Yes. So this
is, this is my instinct.
When we talk about the spacebetween stimulus and response,
when my student this space isvery short, my instinct is how
(39:33):
do I get back? Right? And how doI dish out exactly like I'm
going to show them how bad itfeels to have like a snarky
email show up in my inbox ateight 830 At night, right? I'm
just going to show but when Itake a deep breath, I realized,
right, that you're justencouraging the same behavior
over and over, right and it's anin your modeling. I mean, part
(39:55):
of encouraging people to changeis modeling a different way of
interAfter. And I think a lot of when
we talk about what's in yourcontrol, your ability to show,
this is how I hope we caninteract, this is how I want us
to interact in the way yourespond is so much more
motivating and encouraging forthe other person to change.
(40:19):
Then there's suppressing yourfeelings. Yeah. And the
suppression the I mean, theresearch on suppression is
fascinating to me. I mean,there's, there's one study that
shows that emotional suppressionisn't only bad for you
physically, but it actuallysuppresses leaders who suppress
the heart rates of the people inthe room while they're
(40:40):
suppressing are going up. Right.
So they were actually it'scontagious, the negative impact
of suppressing our emotions. Andthe truth is, anyone can relate
to the idea that not onlysuppression, we know,
suppression, instinctively, wecan understand why that's bad.
But also, it's just going tocome out another way, right,
(41:00):
you're gonna lash out at somepoint, you're gonna, you know,
let you're gonna boil over, it'sgonna you're gonna take it out
on your partner, or on someoneat work, who you actually like,
you know, you're laughing in away that makes me think you
relate to that.
I was thinking about check itout on your pet. That might Yes,
(41:22):
right? Like, I mean, and thetruth is, we most often take it
out on ourselves in terms ofsleepless nights, eating poorly,
you know, you know, just sort ofthe negative physical
ramifications of, of stress. Butyeah, we might take it out on
our backs, we might take it outon every, you know, people
around us. So the suppressingthe, the the like, I will just
(41:47):
endure this, this negativerelationship or all endure this
bad behavior from this person isjust not a good, it's not a good
approach. So the question is,how not to suppress your
negative feelings, but not acton them in a destructive way?
That's right. I mean, that isheartbreak. How do you do
because it does feel like achoice of? Well, I just will
(42:10):
ignore these are all we oftenhear people say I'll
compartmentalize them, butsometimes compartmentalizing
them actually is just stuffingthem away? Or can I just act on
them? And that's where youreally need that, that mental
space, and by yourself the timeyou need to do what we were
referring to earlier of theproblem solving. Right? So not
(42:33):
the rumination where you getbuilt up and, you know,
encourage the negative emotion,but actually take some time to
think through okay, what is thescene about me? What is the
scene about the way I interact?
How if I was going to be my bestself in the situation, what
would I choose to do? Well, onthat note, what would you
recommend to people formaintaining their own well
(42:56):
being, when they go to workevery day was someone who just
drives him crazy. Yeah. Numberone, make connections with
people you like, there's got tobe people, if you are, you know,
I have I work in a place where Ilove most of the people I work
with.
And yet, when I have a difficultinteraction, that's the thing I
(43:17):
think about I'm not thinkingabout the really kind, you know,
Slack message I got from someoneabout, you know, a meeting that
went well, I'm not thinkingabout the smiles people gave me
in the hallway or on the Zoomcalls, right? Like I'm focusing
on like, what, like, why didthat person, you know, challenge
my idea in front of everyone,right? Yeah, I get really
(43:38):
focused on the negative. Soreally, you want to lean into
the positive? What, whatpositive connections do you
have, and really try to remindyourself 90% of my interactions
at work are great, right? Likethat, or even sometimes with
with some of these archetypes,90% of your interactions with
that person are great. And it'sjust 10% of the time, where it's
(44:01):
really challenging. So trying tofocus, not sugarcoat, but focus
on what's actually going workingwell for you. You know, I also
it and I think you also have tobe very, very careful around you
know, if, especially if you'redealing with someone like a
political operator or tormentor,that you're documenting some of
(44:23):
the behavior because if it's notgoing to change, you don't want
to let it damage your yourcareer. And I think that's also
a positive steps you can takeis, okay, I've tried to improve
this dynamic. I've tried to getto make things better with this
person, and it hasn't worked. Sohow do I protect myself in my
career?
(44:44):
And then also, I would say, youknow, one of my favorite tactics
is, at the end of the day, thatperson has to wake up as
themselves, which seems prettymiserable, and I get to wake up
as me and it's just, it soundsreally rude.
In mean, but it's a way of justsaying like, No, I'm excited I
get to, I'm making good choicesabout how I want to interact and
(45:07):
how I want to behave. And I feelI've feel some sympathy for that
person that they have to wakeup. You know, they're miserable
sounds.
I know, I know, it sounds awful.
But it just for me, it gives methe emotional distance I need
from that difficult person.
Do you have any tactic, Stanthat you use to sort of protect
yourself from some of thesefolks? You know, I'm an
(45:30):
industrial strength meditator, Ifind it helps me calm down and
be focused, despite what's goingon. I've had some, I had one guy
who was a terrible boss, one ofyour times. And that really
helped me because I still had tobe productive.
Or I could stay calm and focus.
But I want to say, Amy, it'ssuch a pleasure talking to you.
(45:51):
Thank you for coming on thepodcast, the name of the book,
everyone. And I reallyrecommended getting along how to
work with anyone, even difficultpeople. And Amy Gallo will show
you exactly how. Thank you somuch, Dan, this has been a
pleasure. Yeah, it'd be a greatpleasure. I hope we can continue
to do stuff. Yeah, I would lovethat. And thank you so much for
(46:14):
the kind words about the bookand the blurb and every all of
your support. I reallyappreciate it.
Thank youHow did things go at the RMV? By
the way, it's awful. Thank you.
(46:35):
They could use a lot of advicefrom you. I do feel like I feel
like I could probably do like alive taping from an r&b about
all the archetypes. I'm sure yousaw all eight of them today in
your Yeah, I mean, their passiveaggressive their tormentor.
It's all there. It'sthe pessimist like Yeah.
(46:57):
Anyway, it was excruciating.
Thank you.
That's it for this episode offirst person plural. Special
thanks to our guests, Amy Gallo.
Once again, her book is calledGetting along how to work with
(47:17):
anyone even difficult people.
You can get it wherever booksare sold. We also have the link
in our show notes on ourwebsite, first person
plural.com. While you're there,you can check out our guest BIOS
transcripts and resourcesmentioned in today's episode,
and you can also follow us onInstagram at Keystep media. If
(47:38):
you enjoyed our discussion withAmy Gallo, check out some of our
past interviews. A recentinterview with Claire Kane
Miller about the mental healthof students is great for this
back to school season. DanielGoleman hosted today's episode
Bryant Johnson is our artistsand residents Zarina Kardon does
marketing. Our music is by Gusbeats. And I'm Carrie see this
podcast is sponsored by Keystepmedia, your source for personal
(48:01):
and professional developmentmaterials focused on mindfulness
leadership and emotionalintelligence. Take care of
yourself and we'll talk soon
Hello, and welcome to first person plural
is a Daniel Goleman. And I'mdelighted to be talking to
someone I admired for years. AmyGallo. Amy's expertise is in
managing conflict effectivecommunications, the dynamics of
the workplace, which is whatwe're going to focus on today.
And what I love about Amy amongmany things, not just her
(00:31):
wonderful writing, but shereally combines rigorous
research with practical advice.
Unknown (00:37):
She's written the Harvard Business Review Guide to
dealing with conflict. She's acontributing editor to the
Harvard Business Review. co hostof HBr is Women at Work podcast.
And before joining HBr, she wasa management consultant. She's
worked in many places, she knowswhat she's writing about her new
(00:58):
book, which we're going to focuson today is getting along how to
work with anyone, even difficultpeople. And Amy, I have to say,
this is a question I'm so oftenasked, What can I do about this
difficult coworker, or thisdifficult boss? So let's get
into it systematically. I'd liketo really just march through
(01:22):
points you make in your book?
And because I think it coversthe topic, so Well,
Amy Gallo (01:29):
first of all, why does it matter? To get along
with people at work? Whatdifference does it make? That's
a great place to start. And Dan,I just want to say thank you for
having me. And, and thank youfor for inviting me to have this
conversation, you seem to be theperfect person to talk about
this book with just your yourinsight. And research,
obviously, is underlying so muchof what I've covered in the
(01:51):
book. So
Unknown (01:53):
you know, one of the things we know is that people
work better, they do better,they're more satisfied, more
engaged, more productive, whenthey have friends at work. And
even, you know, Gallup has shownfor years, having a best friend
at work has all of thesepositive influences. And yet,
(02:14):
what I find is that it's not theclose friendships, I have that
keep me up at night, right? It'sthese difficult colleagues and
difficult interactions. And whatwe know, you know, from lots of
research is that those negativeinteractions really wear us
down, they cause stress, theyhinder our productivity, they
(02:38):
cause us to disengage, they makeus want to leave our jobs.
You know, they make us want tojust not do as much work and as
high quality work as we would ifwe weren't getting along with
everyone we work with what goeson in your brain when you're not
getting along with. So yeah, sothe this is very much based on a
(03:00):
lot of a lot of your work aroundamygdala hijack, what we see
happens when when we encounterstress, there is no doubt that
when we have a negativeinteraction with someone, we go
into that stress response thatthat fight or flight amygdala
hijack. And because we perceiveit as a threat, we see it as a
(03:20):
threat to harmony with ourcoworkers, we've maybe see it as
a threat to our resources atwork to our identity, often to
our ego. But you know, I pridemyself on than seeing myself as
someone who gets along with lotsof people who sees the best in
everyone. So when I have anegative interaction, it
challenges that sense of who Iam. And it's not just difficult
(03:43):
because I want to get theproject done or have a strong
relationship with this person.
But because I have to reflect onweak, am I someone who gets
along, you know, and I share, Ishare a story in a book up in
the book about an author whosent me this email that was just
I had sort of tried to set someboundaries with him around my
time. And he did not like that,and sent me an email that said,
(04:04):
you know, the most importantthing in the world is human
connection. And I'm gonna takemy writing elsewhere. And I
spent several nights in a row upat 3am You know, wearing myself
down thinking boy, am I someonewho values human connection,
that is he right Am I you know,and, you know, cycling through
all of these emotions of angerand regret and despondency and,
(04:33):
and, you know, self doubt, andthat took its toll physically
because I wasn't sleeping, butalso emotionally. It was it was
a source of stress. And that'sreally what I see. When I know
people I interviewed for thebook about their interactions
with difficult co workers isthat it just, it really causes a
lot of noise, both emotionallybut also physically in our in
(04:56):
our brains and our minds. Youknow, the big
dylla hijack is from my originalbook Emotional intelligence. And
since then they've done new workon the amygdala, they find that
it's very interwoven with what'scalled the salience network
salience means what's importantto us right now? What do we need
to pay attention to? So when youwake up at three in the morning,
(05:18):
thinking about that guy, andthat email, it's your salience
network. It's saying, okay, payattention, work this out. So can
you talk a little about thedifference between rumination
and problem solving? Yeah, yeah.
And there's a term that Aliceboys, another author has
introduced me to called problemsolving, pondering right problem
solving. Ponderosa, you'reactually, when I'm up at 3am,
(05:40):
there is the sort of negativeversion of that rumination where
I'm really stuck. And it's, andI, the first few nights, it I
was really going down a spiralwhere the thought process was,
he's right. Oh, my gosh, I'm nota good person. I handled that
all poorly, right? It becomesthat self flagellation, as
(06:00):
opposed to where I eventuallygot in, on like, the third or
fourth night, which is like,Okay, well, what do I want to do
differently? Now that I'vegotten this email now that I've
gotten this feedback? What do Iwant to do differently? Instead
of focusing on him, focusing onwhat, what I could learn? And it
might have been, you know, Iwrote all of these snarky emails
(06:21):
back to him in my mind, I neversend think thankfully. But you
know, that, that that's sort ofthe rumination I had to go
through to get to the placewhere I could actually be in a
learning mindset, a curiousmindset about okay, well, what
does this actually mean, for meas a person? And maybe even for
my interaction, not with him?
(06:44):
Because we truthfully haven'tinteracted? Since I don't think
we will. But with my interactionwith other people who are in a
similar role that he's he's inor it with my colleagues, who,
who we exchanged emails all daylong, what does it say about how
I want to behave differentlygoing forward? That reminds me,
you know, in the emotionalintelligence model, there are
four parts self awareness, selfmanagement, empathy, social
(07:07):
skill, and it seems that thefirst two parts, being aware of
what's going on inside you, andthen figuring out how to handle
it is really crucial. So what doyou think is the role of self
awareness or self compassion inthis process? Yeah, and it's
actually I can't I think aboutyour model a lot. And it's hard
to imagine any part of the modelthat's not connected to these
(07:29):
interactions, right to the needto get along and interact,
interact with others, but inparticular, around self
awareness. You know, I, my firstinstinct, when I'm I get a
negative email, or I have anegative interaction with
someone is, either I'm bad,they're bad, or This is
hopeless, right. And that thosethat's not a very self aware,
(07:52):
you know, it's a reactive way tothink about these these negative
interactions. And I think theself awareness is really
thinking, Okay, well, what'swhat actually, does this mean to
me? Why am I feeling thisinstinct to point out who's
right and who's wrong? Why am Igoing down that that path? What
(08:12):
is this bringing up for me? And,you know, for that email from
that, that man, it might havebeen that I didn't feel like I
was responsive enough to otherfolks who actually did matter.
And so, okay, let me let methink about that for a moment
of, is he pointing out somethingthat I already feel insecure
(08:33):
about? You know, is he remindingme of a family member who's
equally abrupt, that's that hascaused me emotional harm over
the years, right? Like there'sall of these moments of, because
it's never really just aboutthat interaction. But it's about
all of the moments in your lifethat have made that interaction.
(08:54):
Difficult, right, or triggeringin that way. So that, to me is
how I see self awareness comein. How do you? I mean, do you
see it play a different role?
Well, it strikes me that you'rereally reflecting on your own
role in the troublingrelationship. are you
contributing to it somehow? Orwhy is this a trigger for you at
(09:17):
all? Yeah. Maybe in your past?
Is this bringing up? And is itsymbolically about some other
relationship? I think that'svery profound. That's definitely
self awareness. Yeah. Well, andI, and it's, you know, it's,
you're pointing out somethingabout the book that I, that I'm
very proud of, but also slightlyconflicted about which is that
(09:40):
it requires people who who aregoing to take the advice in the
book, to be the, you know,quote, unquote, adult in the
room, right to do this hard workof emotional intelligence,
taking, you know, selfawareness, emotional self
control.
And you're actually I'm askingpeople to do that when
They are being harmed. And Ithink that's, that can be really
(10:03):
complicated. Because it's thereis someone else who's, you know,
behaving badly, causing youstress, challenging you. And
it's very easy to become laserfocused on how inappropriate
their behavior is how wrong theyare. And oftentimes those things
are true. But that won't changethe situation. You know, it
(10:27):
really, and I rememberinterviewing you for an article
I wrote years ago about how towork with someone you don't
like. And I think you I, I'm notgonna remember the exact quote,
but you said, you know, you, theonly thing you can control are
your reactions to the situation.
And so I really, that's reallyone of the basic tenants of the
book is that you're not gonna beable to force this person to
(10:47):
change. But you can change theway you think about them the way
you interact, you can reflect onyour reactions to their
behavior, which will change youremotional state, and therefore,
how you want to react to theperson. Almost all of the
tactics in the book don'trequire sort of a confrontation
they do. They're really abouttrying to draw that person into
(11:11):
a collaborative, cooperativediscussion or modeling behavior
you wish you would see. So itshouldn't worsen some of those
dynamics. The one thing I willsay, is that I do think most
people when they are dealingwith someone who is more senior
than them, focus on thedownsides of calling out the
(11:33):
behavior or have, you know, therisks of speaking up. And I
think what we often don't thinkabout are the risks of not
speaking up. And are thosegreater than the risks of
challenging this person inauthority? Now, you need to be
realistic, there are risksusually of challenging someone
(11:53):
who has authority. But are thoseare? Are they realistic? And are
they greater than the risks ofnot doing anything? Well, I
think also you're advised to usean indirect challenge, which is
more like an invitation.
The most appropriate mode moreoften, when you're dealing with
(12:14):
the superior. Yeah, yep. And,and, you know, people, people
really hesitate to to directlyconfront people of authority,
and for good reason, you know, Ithink we often see the those the
people take retaliate, and ornot even retaliate, I mean, it's
(12:35):
not even, you're gonna get firedfor telling your boss that you
disagree with them, it's moreoften that you're going to
experience reputational damagethat's going to harm your career
over the long term. But as yousaid, Dan, I think if you invite
them into a conversation abouthow do I handle this specific
(12:55):
thing, or how do we work bettertogether? How can what can I do
differently to make sure we workbetter together? That that's a
different use? I wonder, Amy, ifyou can sometimes position it?
As you know, your boss's successdepends on you. And your team?
How can I how can I help you dobetter? In this situation? Yeah.
(13:18):
Yep. And I and people do really,that's like classic managing up
skills, right of like, I, I needto be helping my boss succeed, I
need to be thinking about whattheir goals are. And a lot of
times when your boss isinsecure, or passive aggressive,
or, you know, demeaning in someway or that, that we just think,
(13:42):
Oh, why would I help thisperson? Right? Why, why? Why
would I care about whether theysucceed if they're so awful to
me? And the truth is, wasinsecure, folks, if you can
actually show them, you're ontheir side, oftentimes, a lot of
that behavior will, I won't saygo away, but will improve,
right? Because then then you'reseen as an ally, instead of a
(14:04):
threat.
That's really important. Well,before we get into what to do,
which I think is a wonderfulpart of your book, let's hear
about the types. You talkedabout eight common types,
difficult people. Yeah. And I'dlove to get your take on it. You
know, what are the three or fourmost common types? Can you
(14:26):
destroy about each? Yeah, ofcourse. So the the eight types,
just to be clear, not a mutuallyexclusive. You know, this is not
a categorization like in MBTIserve, you know, assessment, or
I think this is justdescriptions of the common
archetypes that I heard about inmy work that people were
encountering most often. And,you know, the ones up there's
(14:48):
eight of them, and there's I'llpoint out a few that I think are
most relevant for folks. One isthe insecure manager. I can't
tell you how many times I hearabout bad bosses and it might
I see that they're incompetent,it might be that they're toxic.
And I think a lot of it at theend of the day comes down to the
fact that some managers feelinsecure. And so I really
(15:09):
focused on that that archetype.
It reminds me of the so calledthe imposter syndrome, which is
extremely surprisinglywidespread among the managerial
class and professional class.
People feel that they're fakingit, or that they'll be found
out. They don't really have whatit takes, which of course, would
make you feel very insecure.
Yeah, yeah. And it's, it'sabsolutely human to feel
(15:32):
insecure. In fact, a good youknow, good dose of insecurity
makes us huge, you humble, itmakes us self reflective. If you
weren't, if you're if you havezero insecurity, you're sort of
veering into the psychopathsterritory, right? Like, you have
to have a little bit of selfdoubt. The problem is, I think a
lot of people, especially whenthey get into positions of
(15:54):
power, as you point out, go intothat imposter syndrome, where
they're really self doubtingwhat they're, you know, what
they're capable of. And theytake, they often take that out
on the people they manage, Ithink that one reason that I've
observed that this happens isthat people tend to be promoted
to the level of incompetence,which is to say, You were such a
(16:15):
good individual contributor,we're gonna make you head of the
team ahead of the division. Andall of a sudden, your leadership
skills matter. And you've neverhad to use them before. In fact,
you don't even know what theyare, you know, about people
being promoted to the level ofincompetence. One of the things
I really admire, actually aboutmy husband, he is an individual
contributor in his role. He'sbeen at the organization longer
(16:38):
than anyone else on the team,there have been opportunities
for him to step into amanagerial role. And he is every
time said, it's not what I wantto do. And, and I think that
it's, you know, it's just such asmart move for him, because for
a variety of reasons I won't getinto, but I think it really, he
was so clear on the challenge ofwhat that would present for him
(17:03):
as an individual, that eventhough it would mean more money,
maybe more risk, moreresponsibility, maybe more
prestige. He's just been veryclear eyed about the fact that
that's not what he wants to doevery day is interesting to me,
You know what, I'm doing a bookwith Carrie Chernus, who has
(17:23):
been co director of theConsortium on for research on
emotional intelligenceorganizations, and we're looking
at 20 years of research, thatmakes it very clear that
emotional intelligence for theleaders can be developed. And
it's really important for anemotionally intelligent
organization to put time andeffort into that, and to give
(17:44):
people the chance to do it,because so many people need to
do it. And so when you talkedabout the insecure boss, that
that could be a common factor.
That's right. So what what aresome more other types? Yeah. Do
you want to hear about, I canalways tell whenever I give a
talk about conflict, I canalmost time it say I always say
(18:07):
the the first second or thirdquestion in the q&a will be how
to deal with someone who'spassive aggressive. It's it is
the, you know, really thequestion I get most often. And
that that's one again, you know,I tried to normalize in the
book, I also exhibited a lot ofthese behaviors myself,
sometimes I have been passiveaggressive, I have acted
(18:30):
insecurely, maybe what doespassive aggressiveness look
like? How can you tell someonehat is following that pattern?
Yeah, it's so I actually in theresearch for the book found out
that the term was first coined,in the 1920s, to describe
soldiers in the military whowould not comply with direct
(18:51):
orders. So they would they wouldagree, yeah, sure, I'll do that.
And then they would just resistand not do it. The term has a
long history and has been partof the DSM then taken out.
And, you know, it's not anofficial diagnosis, which makes
sense. But it's typically inwhat we see in the workplace. Is
it someone who says yes, in ameeting, but then doesn't follow
(19:14):
through. It's someone whoinsists that they're fine, even
though they're displaying bodylanguage that shows they're
upset or they're angry. Youknow, in our mutual friend Annie
McKee calls it, you know, it canfeel like shadowboxing that
you're actually you're trying tosort of land on facts and data,
but they're just constantlyavoiding. And that's really
(19:36):
what's at the base of a lot ofthe passive aggressive behavior
is the fear of conflict. Sothey're actually trying to avoid
conflict for one reason oranother. They don't feel like
they can be direct andstraightforward about their
thoughts and feelings. So mightbe fear of failure. You know, it
might be a desire to be perfect.
And a lot of that is underlyingthat behavior. And it's one of
the archetypes that I honestThey find the most challenging
(20:00):
to deal with review what dealtwith someone like that. Can you
tell us about someone?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah. So I actually,in early in my career, I was in
a, on a team, or someone who hadbeen with the organization at
the beginning of it had left,and then was coming back. And
(20:21):
everyone said, spoke about herso highly, and I thought, Oh,
this is going to be great, I'mgonna get to work with this
person. And immediately, I justgot the sense that we didn't hit
it off. And I'm sure I felt alittle intimidated by her given
her reputation, I think shereally felt a strong need to
prove reprove herself since shewas rejoining the organization.
(20:43):
And what I would find is thatshe would have this big smile on
her face and meetings, she wouldgive these compliments that
sounded a little empty, but thenI'd find out that she was
talking about me, to my boss, tomy colleagues, right? And it
felt very few times I said, Canwe sit down and, and talk? And
(21:03):
she'd be like, why everything'sfine. You know? And it was just
this, everything's fine. What doyou mean, feeling that,
you know, I knew something wasnot right. And, and I never
actually, this, I didn't haveany of the skills that I
advocate for in the book at thetime, because it was really
(21:24):
early in my career. And I neverfound a way to get along with
her. I never found a way toconnect with her. And I regret
it. I wish I could go back intime, and really sort of
understand a little bit moreabout why she was behaving that
way and what I was doing to makeit because she wasn't behaving
this way with others. And thatwas really a sign for me. Was
(21:44):
she the type you call apolitical operator? She was so
she and this is a good point. Sothe archetypes in the book.
They're not we don't all none ofour colleagues fall neatly into
one category. They're usually ahot mess of several the
archetypes. Right. And so shewas very much a political
operator cared a lot about hercareer, cared a lot about being
(22:05):
seen as someone who's veryvaluable to the organization and
was willing to play officepolitics in a way that harmed
others. As long as shebenefited, right, she didn't she
didn't care so much that wewould sort of be the shrapnel in
that those efforts. I wouldassume a political operator
would do things like to creditfor other people's work, or
(22:26):
backbite. Negatively viciouslyactually about other people.
Yeah, gossip is a big piece ofthat that the political
operators tool kit, you know,gossip, like even lying, right?
I think and you see this withpassive aggressive nests, too,
is that when you try to pinpointsomeone needs as a political
operator the passive aggressiveon I noticed you're doing this
(22:48):
right, they'll often be like,No, I'm not. No, no, you know,
you took credit for that, thatwork that we worked on together
that project No, it didn't Igive you credit, and then you're
you're thinking, Wait, did I youknow, the self doubt starts to
come in of like, Wait, did I notsee that correctly? Sounds like
gaslighting yes, there's there'sa big part of gaslighting in
(23:10):
both the passive aggressive andI think the passive aggressive
peer, it's often inadvertentgaslighting. I think with the
political operators, sometimesit's very intentional for them
in order to help them get ahead.
One of the worst types, I thinkon on your list is The Tormentor
who has no empathy for thevictim. Yeah, the tormentor is,
you know, I really had in mindactually a boss that I once had,
(23:31):
which is someone who I reallylooked up to, I was excited to
work for her. And I found thatshe, every time we, I was
looking to her for guidance, or,you know, sort of was, was
hoping that there would be someconnection between us, she was
just re emphasizing all of thesacrifices she made, and really
(23:54):
just was sort of saying over andover, you haven't earned it yet.
You haven't. And you have, youhave to earn it by doing these,
you know, by not spending timewith your family by accepting a
lower paid job by you know, justthese all of these sacrifices
that she had made by choice. Iwill point out that she wanted
(24:15):
me to also make not by choice,because she felt it was how you
earned your way and in thatorganization, or in that, that
industry. And, you know, theterm tormentor, actually was
suggested to me by a colleagueon LinkedIn who said, you know,
it's someone who expect to be amentor, but they actually just
keep on kicking and kicking. Andso you're, you're suffering
(24:38):
their abuse. When you'rethinking Lee, I thought you were
going to be a friend. I thoughtyou were going to be a sponsor
and ally, and it can feel thatmuch worse because of it. Then
there's a type that seems onanother dimension that no at
all. Yeah, who you you can'ttell anything to, I suppose.
Yeah. And just how it seems tohave all the facts and data and
(25:00):
you know, really, this is thefirst person who speaks up in
every meeting, right? They mighttalk over you, they might not
take any, you know, they raisetheir voice if you try to speak
up, you know, I'll admit this isthe archetype identify most with
I have been accused of being anode
(25:21):
at times, and this is the traitof the No at all that that I
most identify with is the sayingsomething with such certainty
that there's no room fordisagreement, right. And I'd
have done that, I do probablystill do that, where sometimes
you just say it, like, as ifthere's, there's no other
interpretation of thissituation. And it's, can be so
(25:43):
detrimental to the people aroundyou, especially people who do
have some humility, do want tosee things from multiple
perspectives. They just feelcompletely bulldozed by these by
these know it alls, who, youknow, who, who feel like they
have just an abundance ofconfidence. And they're,
(26:03):
they're just willing to displaythat, is that
does that have to do also withanother type, the, the person
who is biased and doesn't seetheir bias or some relation
because I think that the nodaljust is so focused on their
perspective and their own ownexperience, they can't imagine
that they would bring in bias orthey can imagine that it would
(26:24):
matter, right? They're like,Well, I'm doing so well. I know,
I'm such an expert on this, itdoesn't matter if I have a few
flaws. Like these, these biases,I mean, the bias coworker is
another one that's incrediblydifficult to deal with. And
truthfully, we all hold biases,right? But the bias coworker is
someone who does not care, anddoes not self reflect they have
(26:46):
none of the self awareness thatthat's required an EI, to
recognize that we all holdbiases and prejudices, but
they're just willing to sort oflet all that seep out, make, you
know, microaggressions, biascomments, and get really
defensive, and then sometimestruly, really awful. In response
(27:09):
to any challenging of thatbehavior, you have an example
from your own working life. Thebias type, well, I have a real
inadvertent example, whichactually didn't make it into the
book. But but it's somethingthat, you know, something that
actually made a big impressionon me and my work life, which
(27:29):
was that I was working, it was acolleague who were working on a
team. And we were trying tochoose images to go with with a
piece of writing, the image wechose, included some depictions
of people of color. And she madea comment on the attributes of
the those depictions, and said,I just don't think this is
(27:52):
realistic.
But it was incredibly dismissiveof the the reality of how people
actually look. And I, to befair, did not think of her, I
thought of her comments asdismissive but not biased. And
there was another colleague ofmine, a woman of color, who
reached out to me and said, Ifeel like those comments were
(28:15):
really inappropriate. And I, youknow, sort of opened my eyes to
Oh, wow, yeah, that was actuallyquite late and laden with bias.
Now, the colleague who madethese comments, I think, had did
not have the self awareness. Andto know that that's how those
comments were coming off, andthat she was sort of exhibiting
some, some racial bias. So Ithink it's not just self
(28:38):
awareness, I noticed most ofthese types of lack empathy.
They don't understand how theirbehaviors landing on the person,
like bias type, is you don'tperceive the pain you're
creating, or how the cringe orwhatever it is, the other person
is back. Well, and how manytimes have you heard in
(28:59):
response, and this is actuallywhen I asked when I did talk to
this colleague, this was theresponse I got, which was, Well,
that wasn't my intention. Andright, that's just the clear
lack of empathy of like, well,it in a way, your attention
doesn't really matter. Becausewhat landed was this, and you
did cause harm, you did causestress and anxiety with that
comment. And you did, you know,violate a sense of inclusion for
(29:24):
that, that people feel welcomeand comfortable. In, in this
team or in this workplace. Oneof the hallmarks of a high
performing team,my colleague, Vanessa dress cat
has found is a sense ofbelonging. And a lot of these
types are telling you indifferent ways you don't belong.
That's right. And I thinkthat's, they erode psychological
(29:46):
safety, they erode a sense ofbelonging. Right? They, so it's
not and that's really if you'rea manager, you have a
responsibility to act on some ofthese be
Hey viewers some of thesearchetypes because you even just
one person on the team whodisplays some of these actions
(30:07):
or these characteristics canreally quickly make that sense
of belonging evaporate. Well,having said that, let's pivot to
what you can do. We're nothelping. Yeah, we're out of a
system. And if one part of thesystem changes very often, that
will reverberate through thewhole system, you talk about
principles to get along withanyone. Tell us about some of
(30:30):
those. Yeah, we've been talkingabout some of them, just to sort
of tangentially already. I mean,one of I'll point out a couple
that I really, that I find quiteuseful is one is that your
perspective is just oneperspective, right? That there's
there, you do have to rememberthe way you're seeing the
situation is influenced by whoyou are, and by you or where you
(30:53):
sit, and your upbringing andbackground and identity factors.
And so you may see someonebehaving passive aggressively,
and just say, that is absolutelyinappropriate, right? That's not
acceptable behavior. And someonemight say, actually, no, this
has worked really well for me.
And, you know, I'm, I'm from aculture where we don't address
conflict directly. And so thisis one way to actually get my
(31:15):
needs met. And so you have toremember that there's this
concept in social psychologycalled naive realism, which is
that we believe when we wantthat the way we say things is,
right. And if someone disagreeswith us, they're clearly wrong.
Right? There's no otherexplanation. So one of the key
things when getting along withpeople or dealing with someone
(31:36):
who's causing you stress or, youknow, having you're having a
negative dynamic with is toremind yourself, there are other
ways to see this other than yourviewpoint, right, try to try to
develop some of that empathy,certain, certainly social
awareness of what's the contextin which you're, you're
interacting in. You know, one ofthe other principles I want to
(31:58):
point out, is experimentation.
And I think this is really, thispulls on a lot of the emotional
intelligence competencies oftrying out solutions. So I share
a lot of tactics based on theeach of the archetypes is to try
one of the tactics and try tocommit to trying it for two
(32:19):
weeks or a month. See how, forexample, give an example. Yeah,
yeah. So let's, let's say withthe passive aggressive peer, for
example, you've had no luck ingetting them to actually follow
through on the things theycommit to in meetings. Right. So
you might agree that you'regoing to apply a little positive
peer pressure. And as a team setup norms, right, and you don't
(32:42):
have to be the leader of theteam, you can be anyone on the
team who says, you know, I wasthinking we should we should
agree on how we want to followthrough on commitments we make
in the meeting, and, you know,let's agree that we'll write it
down, we'll share the emailafterwards. And when someone's
not able to do that they'rerequired to, to speak up and
(33:03):
say, I can't do it. Right. Soyou might try that for a month
and see, does that actuallychange your passive aggressive
behavior, your peers behavior?
Or does that just sort of fallthrough, they continue to not
show up to the meeting, or theycontinue not to follow through
on what they committed to? Andwhich case? Okay, so now, the
question is, Okay, that didn'twork. What's another tactic? I
(33:26):
can try? And again, anotherexample for for someone who
says, oh, yeah, I'll do that.
And then and then never followsthrough is you can actually
address that directly, you know,and say, you know, you've said
three times that you'll do this,each time you don't, what do you
need in order to follow throughon your commitments, right? And
(33:48):
again, with the passiveaggressive person who say that
you might say, Oh, if I can findout, no, I don't need you know,
but you're trying out differenttactics, learning what you can
find them seeing what works, andthen pivoting what I see too
often. And I've done this myselfis the someone tries something,
right? They say, Oh, well, Ihave this, let's, let's say the
political operator, right? I'vetried to agree on sharing crab,
(34:11):
we're going to share credit atthe beginning of the project so
that they don't steal credit atthe end. Right? And they say and
it didn't work. So then theyjust throw up their hands and
they're like, I'm like, Okay,well, you tried one thing. You
tried it one thing once. Andlet's let's think about what
else you can try. Because theseare, these are iterative
interactions that you need to,you need to learn from try out,
(34:33):
you know, experiment with in thebook, you quote, Viktor Frankl,
talking about widening the gapbetween stimulus and response
and other psychologists havedefined maturity as lengthening
the gap between your impulse toact and what you actually do.
And in school programs wherethey're teaching these skills.
(34:54):
There's a poster was developedby Roger Weisberg at Yale years
ago. The poster twoIt picks a stoplight. And it
says, when you're upset,remember the stoplight red
light, stop calm down and thinkbefore you act, yellow light,
think of a range of things youcould do and what the
consequences would be greenlight, pick the best one and try
it out. And I think the adviceyou're giving is a variation on
(35:17):
this. And not only that, you'regiving people the gift of here's
six things you can try. Yes,yes. Well, and here's six and
then keep track, right? What didI try? What didn't work, right?
And you're learning like, it'syou have growth mindset is
fundamental in implementing anyof this, because you have to
(35:37):
remember, you have to both havea growth mindset about yourself,
right? I can learn I can trydifferent tactics, I can
integrate the behaviors thatwork, get rid of the ones that
don't, but you also have to havegrowth mindset about the other
person, the the willingness andbelief that they're going to,
they can change. And when youbelieve that about someone, I
(35:57):
mean, I think we, we both haveseen this, I'm sure in our work,
when you believe that aboutsomeone, it does change the
dynamic, right? If you if I'm sosad, if you and I interact in
and I'm so sad, I'm full, he'sjust he that's how he is. That's
it's not gonna you know what,nothing I can do will change
that. Right? You feel that inthat interaction, you feel
(36:20):
pigeon holed, you feel stuck,you feel underestimated. If I
approach that conversation, evenjust in my mind, saying, I'm not
sure why Dan's behaving the wayhe is, but I bet I bet he could
change if the circumstanceschange, it's going to be a much
more open collaborativeinteraction. I think that's a
really important point about theconcept of a growth mindset,
(36:42):
it's both you can change whatthe other person can change to
be both have the potential.
And because if you don't havethat view, then nothing can
change. That's right, andactually need to return who I
interviewed. She's a professorat London Business School, she I
interviewed her for the book onthe biased coworker. And she has
(37:03):
some research that shows thatthe growth mindset really helps
when you're challenging folkswho are committing biased
comments. Because if you pointout someone who's made a bias
comment, if you point it out,and you don't have any
expectation that they'll change,then you're basically shaming
them punishing them. But ifyou've if you have the mindset
(37:25):
that they can actually grow andlearn from the experience,
you're much more likely toapproach that conversation in a
way of, well, how do we do thisdifferently next time, I'm
giving you room to learn andgrow. And it's so important,
particularly around if we wantpeople to change their bias
behavior, giving them the roomto learn from their mistakes.
(37:46):
You mentioned three kinds ofknee jerk reactions that make
things worse, not better inthese situations. One of which
is shaming people.
The other which are retaliating.
Which, of course, we oftenreflexively think well, maybe
that'll help. And then thetheory of suppressing what
you're feelingabout each and why it makes it
(38:07):
worse to me is the there's adifference between
pointing out someone's mistakes,and then make versus making
someone feel like their mistakeis inherent to who they are. So
if you if you tell a know itall, like you know, you act,
(38:28):
your blustery, you act socompetent, like if you're you're
pointing out like this is ahuman flaw with you, as opposed
to you're exhibiting behaviorthat's having this impact on me.
All right. Very big differencebetween
when you act confidently and layout all the facts without room
(38:48):
for disagreement, it shuts downthe conversation. Right. As
opposed to your No at all. Whomakes us all feel horrible?
Right? Yeah. Such a such adifference. So and people we
know, we know from research,Brene Brown has reached this.
This has been there's been a lotabout this. It's like we know
people don't aren't inspired tochange motivated to change. When
(39:10):
they feel shame. They'reactually inspired to double down
on the behavior or hide fromfrom the behavior.
Remind me what the second onewas? retaliated? Yes. So this
is, this is my instinct.
When we talk about the spacebetween stimulus and response,
when my student this space isvery short, my instinct is how
(39:33):
do I get back? Right? And how doI dish out exactly like I'm
going to show them how bad itfeels to have like a snarky
email show up in my inbox ateight 830 At night, right? I'm
just going to show but when Itake a deep breath, I realized,
right, that you're justencouraging the same behavior
over and over, right and it's anin your modeling. I mean, part
(39:55):
of encouraging people to changeis modeling a different way of
interAfter. And I think a lot of when
we talk about what's in yourcontrol, your ability to show,
this is how I hope we caninteract, this is how I want us
to interact in the way yourespond is so much more
motivating and encouraging forthe other person to change.
(40:19):
Then there's suppressing yourfeelings. Yeah. And the
suppression the I mean, theresearch on suppression is
fascinating to me. I mean,there's, there's one study that
shows that emotional suppressionisn't only bad for you
physically, but it actuallysuppresses leaders who suppress
the heart rates of the people inthe room while they're
(40:40):
suppressing are going up. Right.
So they were actually it'scontagious, the negative impact
of suppressing our emotions. Andthe truth is, anyone can relate
to the idea that not onlysuppression, we know,
suppression, instinctively, wecan understand why that's bad.
But also, it's just going tocome out another way, right,
(41:00):
you're gonna lash out at somepoint, you're gonna, you know,
let you're gonna boil over, it'sgonna you're gonna take it out
on your partner, or on someoneat work, who you actually like,
you know, you're laughing in away that makes me think you
relate to that.
I was thinking about check itout on your pet. That might Yes,
(41:22):
right? Like, I mean, and thetruth is, we most often take it
out on ourselves in terms ofsleepless nights, eating poorly,
you know, you know, just sort ofthe negative physical
ramifications of, of stress. Butyeah, we might take it out on
our backs, we might take it outon every, you know, people
around us. So the suppressingthe, the the like, I will just
(41:47):
endure this, this negativerelationship or all endure this
bad behavior from this person isjust not a good, it's not a good
approach. So the question is,how not to suppress your
negative feelings, but not acton them in a destructive way?
That's right. I mean, that isheartbreak. How do you do
because it does feel like achoice of? Well, I just will
(42:10):
ignore these are all we oftenhear people say I'll
compartmentalize them, butsometimes compartmentalizing
them actually is just stuffingthem away? Or can I just act on
them? And that's where youreally need that, that mental
space, and by yourself the timeyou need to do what we were
referring to earlier of theproblem solving. Right? So not
(42:33):
the rumination where you getbuilt up and, you know,
encourage the negative emotion,but actually take some time to
think through okay, what is thescene about me? What is the
scene about the way I interact?
How if I was going to be my bestself in the situation, what
would I choose to do? Well, onthat note, what would you
recommend to people formaintaining their own well
(42:56):
being, when they go to workevery day was someone who just
drives him crazy. Yeah. Numberone, make connections with
people you like, there's got tobe people, if you are, you know,
I have I work in a place where Ilove most of the people I work
with.
And yet, when I have a difficultinteraction, that's the thing I
(43:17):
think about I'm not thinkingabout the really kind, you know,
Slack message I got from someoneabout, you know, a meeting that
went well, I'm not thinkingabout the smiles people gave me
in the hallway or on the Zoomcalls, right? Like I'm focusing
on like, what, like, why didthat person, you know, challenge
my idea in front of everyone,right? Yeah, I get really
(43:38):
focused on the negative. Soreally, you want to lean into
the positive? What, whatpositive connections do you
have, and really try to remindyourself 90% of my interactions
at work are great, right? Likethat, or even sometimes with
with some of these archetypes,90% of your interactions with
that person are great. And it'sjust 10% of the time, where it's
(44:01):
really challenging. So trying tofocus, not sugarcoat, but focus
on what's actually going workingwell for you. You know, I also
it and I think you also have tobe very, very careful around you
know, if, especially if you'redealing with someone like a
political operator or tormentor,that you're documenting some of
(44:23):
the behavior because if it's notgoing to change, you don't want
to let it damage your yourcareer. And I think that's also
a positive steps you can takeis, okay, I've tried to improve
this dynamic. I've tried to getto make things better with this
person, and it hasn't worked. Sohow do I protect myself in my
career?
(44:44):
And then also, I would say, youknow, one of my favorite tactics
is, at the end of the day, thatperson has to wake up as
themselves, which seems prettymiserable, and I get to wake up
as me and it's just, it soundsreally rude.
In mean, but it's a way of justsaying like, No, I'm excited I
get to, I'm making good choicesabout how I want to interact and
(45:07):
how I want to behave. And I feelI've feel some sympathy for that
person that they have to wakeup. You know, they're miserable
sounds.
I know, I know, it sounds awful.
But it just for me, it gives methe emotional distance I need
from that difficult person.
Do you have any tactic, Stanthat you use to sort of protect
yourself from some of thesefolks? You know, I'm an
(45:30):
industrial strength meditator, Ifind it helps me calm down and
be focused, despite what's goingon. I've had some, I had one guy
who was a terrible boss, one ofyour times. And that really
helped me because I still had tobe productive.
Or I could stay calm and focus.
But I want to say, Amy, it'ssuch a pleasure talking to you.
(45:51):
Thank you for coming on thepodcast, the name of the book,
everyone. And I reallyrecommended getting along how to
work with anyone, even difficultpeople. And Amy Gallo will show
you exactly how. Thank you somuch, Dan, this has been a
pleasure. Yeah, it'd be a greatpleasure. I hope we can continue
to do stuff. Yeah, I would lovethat. And thank you so much for
(46:14):
the kind words about the bookand the blurb and every all of
your support. I reallyappreciate it.
Thank youHow did things go at the RMV? By
the way, it's awful. Thank you.
(46:35):
They could use a lot of advicefrom you. I do feel like I feel
like I could probably do like alive taping from an r&b about
all the archetypes. I'm sure yousaw all eight of them today in
your Yeah, I mean, their passiveaggressive their tormentor.
It's all there. It'sthe pessimist like Yeah.
(46:57):
Anyway, it was excruciating.
Thank you.
That's it for this episode offirst person plural. Special
thanks to our guests, Amy Gallo.
Once again, her book is calledGetting along how to work with
(47:17):
anyone even difficult people.
You can get it wherever booksare sold. We also have the link
in our show notes on ourwebsite, first person
plural.com. While you're there,you can check out our guest BIOS
transcripts and resourcesmentioned in today's episode,
and you can also follow us onInstagram at Keystep media. If
(47:38):
you enjoyed our discussion withAmy Gallo, check out some of our
past interviews. A recentinterview with Claire Kane
Miller about the mental healthof students is great for this
back to school season. DanielGoleman hosted today's episode
Bryant Johnson is our artistsand residents Zarina Kardon does
marketing. Our music is by Gusbeats. And I'm Carrie see this
podcast is sponsored by Keystepmedia, your source for personal
(48:01):
and professional developmentmaterials focused on mindfulness
leadership and emotionalintelligence. Take care of
yourself and we'll talk soon
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