Grease Your Organization’s Gears with Goodwill

Welcome to part 5 of my Learn to Dance on Jell-O series. (Read Part 1, 2, 3 and 4.) Kindness in organizations is a very important topic to me. Like many of you, I've had to work in very harsh work environments. To say it's difficult is an understatement.

What's Wrong?

Pamela was the CEO of a manufacturing tech start up. She came from a culture that tolerated and expected verbal abuse, public criticism, or yelling caustic comments in the hallway. I worked in HR. Of course I found this behavior unacceptable.

One day it was my turn for a public scolding. I was the target of her anger for a minor reason.

My response disarmed her. I did not react with silence or yelling back as everyone else did. I simply asked her what the problem was. She stopped. She didn’t have an answer. She left saying she had to think about it.

Before she left, I added that I really wanted to make sure Human Resources was responsive and helpful to her and the company.

I can tell you that it did not transform her overnight but she never yelled at me again.

Generate Goodwill

Goodwill is the grease that makes a project move on time and on budget. I think of goodwill as transactional in that it can be acquired. Not like Bitcoin but by real, authentic interactions motivated by collaboration. One leader sharing her power to help another can generate goodwill. Teams receiving goodwill for their efforts to assist others when they deliver on time and within budget is another good example.

We generate goodwill by three behaviors:

• Look for ways to assist our colleagues for no other reason than to be helpful and collaborative.
• Incline our minds toward warmth towards our colleagues and reserve judgment and evaluation about others. Replace it with understanding.
• Deliver on what we say we will do with integrity or renegotiate the time frame or budget to reflect reality.

Sometimes it seems unlikely that being kind, warm and cooperative could be useful in a competitive and combative environment. But consider this: How does it feel when someone is calm, warm and kind despite the hostile, passive aggressive status quo?

How to cope with troublemakers

The best writing on this subject is by Robert Bramson. Read about his work here. Below are some useful tips from the book:

• There are different types of difficult people. Some are hostile aggressive, meaning they tend to roll over you. Others are passive aggressive, making snarky digs toward you or acting moody around you.
• Our job as leaders is not to understand or analyze them. It is to “cope” with them. Coping is to equalize the power balance by meeting them with a specific strategy that is tailored to their style. (Of course, you can also talk with the person about how their “style” is negatively impacting the workplace.)
• Prepare yourself to deal directly and skillfully with any type of difficult person. You cannot generate goodwill when you feel intimidated.

How Focused Attention Helps Generate Goodwill

Here are a few ways to apply focused attention when dealing with a difficult person.

1. Get into the right frame of mind before you have a conversation – or confrontation – with the person. Relax your body while reminding yourself that you can do this with skill if you stick to the right strategy.
2. Write a script. Bramson’s book “Coping with Difficult People” offers some good examples.
3. Rehearse the desired outcome. Frame it as an end result not as a conversation.

Practice in real time with someone who is less threatening. Get comfortable with the tools and tips with “lighter weight” difficult people.

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