3 Steps to Stop Venting Among Your Co-Workers

This week, I want to share a question I received from a fan on the Life’s Messy, Live Happy show about what they could do to stop the venting among their co-workers. So often, we don’t know how to have an impact or assume that standing by silent will automatically defuse the situation. In reality, taking action is required if you want real change to occur. Find out the 3 steps for how to defuse the drama almost immediately.

Q: As a peer, how can I encourage my co-workers to stop venting? - Anonymous, Rochester, NY

Here’s the bad news: You can't make them do anything. And the good news? The way to impact other people's behavior that is within your control is to stop enabling it. Most people don't realize that even if you're standing by silently or not agreeing or colluding, you're still enabling the situation. So you have to be prepared and practice this stuff before it happens so that you're ready.

Here are my easy three steps to defuse the drama and stop venting almost immediately:

Step 1: Neutralize their language

First, defuse the drama with your language. When people make a statement, think about how you could neutralize it, make it more positive and repeat it back to them.

For example, if they say: “They can't manage their way out of a paper bag and the project is tanked!”

You say: “Oh my gosh. Our colleagues are struggling with the conversion.”

Or they may say: “We just got three patients dumped on us!”

You can respond with: “Oh, I didn't realize we have three new admissions.”

That's it. Just repeat back what they are telling you, but without the drama. That starts a wonderful little micro-boundary and sets the tone to flip into something positive.

Step 2: Respond with profound positivity

The next step is to respond with profound positivity. You can say, “I love those guys in IT! They are working their tails off.”

Profound positivity.

Step 3: Move away from judging and into helping

Then do your best to move energy away from judging and into helping.

You can say, “Oh my gosh, the folks in IT are struggling with a conversion. I’m wondering what we could be doing to help?”

Or, “Three new patients? Let's get everybody together and talk about how we could help do this most efficiently so patients aren't impacted.”

Or, “Oh my gosh, our brother didn't get mom a birthday present. Let's figure what we can do to help him get that done so that mom, whom we love, gets a present from everybody since that's our goal.”

Now, some people aren't going to go there with you. They're going to say, “Well, I'm not going to help. I'm not getting involved in that hot mess.” Then it’s time to change the subject: “Well, if you don't want to do that, let me know if you need any help with your patient.” And move on. Remember to thank people for bringing it up, because it gave you the opportunity to self-reflect on how you could proactively do better so that processes go as smoothly as possible in the future.

When you follow this process, one of three things will happen:

1.    People will stop coming to you to vent because they know it just won’t fly.

2.    They'll jump in on helping you. You’ll have the opportunity to toggle switch their mindset from ego to collaboration.

3.    You will have one more thing in your world that reminds you to self-reflect.

Whatever you do, don't move into ego with them. Self-reflect and move on. Use your power to do good in the world. There is no bad outcome from a colleague coming to you to vent unless you enable it.

Do you have a question for me about workplace drama? Submit it here and I may answer it on an upcoming Life’s Messy, Live Happy show or on the No Ego podcast.