Stop Interrupting Me! - How to Deal with Workplace Drama

This article is part of a four-part series entitled "Office Politics in a Digital Workplace." Follow Erica Dhawan to stay up-to-date with the series.

Last week, we discussed a few ways in which digital communication can level the playing field for anyone and everyone. It can allow us to find voices that are otherwise ignored or dismissed. However, the digital world isn’t Switzerland. Nothing is neutral. Everything has meaning, and everyone is looking for it.

What do you really mean when you type “per my last email” or “just a gentle reminder” in a text to a colleague? Are you really saying “You didn’t read what I wrote. Pay more attention!” or “Get this done! It’s late! I’m waiting!’?

A Washington, D.C. based writer and marketer named Danielle René tweeted about this exact thing. “Per my last email” was her favorite way to subtly correct the sender, maybe bring them some shame, and simultaneously release some of the irritation she felt. She asked her followers to share their favorite double-edged lines for digital communication. Her tweet went viral: 10,000 retweets, 40,000 likes and over 1,000 responses. Here are the highlights:

@chocolateelixir: I love re forwarding previous emails and saying “correct me if im wrong but here you started...”

@darkandluuney: "Just to reiterate..." and then highlight and bold what was clearly stated in said email chain.

@crumr018: “not sure if my email made it to you as I haven’t heard back”

@_verytrue: I LOVE an "Any updates on this?"

Because our digital communications don’t reveal our raw emotions, we can be guilty of toeing the line between polite communication and passive-aggressive behavior. After all, if your co-worker can’t see you rolling your eyes at them, why not make them at least feel a little bad about not reading your last email correctly? These phrases are really a way for us to establish some sort of dominance over others - whether it be true hierarchical dominance in reminding someone of a deadline or intellectual dominance in reminding someone that their question has actually already been answered if they would have just Paid. More. Attention. More likely than not, the sender is counting on the other person knowing what they really mean but choosing not to point out the double-edged hostility.

Psychologists have categorized this type of virtual passive-aggressive behavior as the “online disinhibition effect.” All of our normal rules of behavior are inhibited while the potential for misinterpretation is amplified. According to an article published in CyberPsychology & Behavior, this disinhibition comes from the “anonymity, invisibility, asynchronicity, introjection, dissociative imagination, and minimization of authority” that is fostered by virtual interactions. Psychologist and author Signe Whitson states, “Today’s technology affords anyone who wants to mask their anger and aggression a perfect front.” The person believes their life will only get worse if other people know they’re angry, so they express their feelings indirectly. Enter workplace drama.

Many of the factors that drive online disinhibition can be solved through digital empathy. For example, anonymity allows people to distance themselves from their online persona. In a digital workplace, teams should always know more about each other than what they can gain from an email signature. Humanize your team members. If you know Jon’s father is unwell this week, you are less likely to send a passive-aggressive reminder about his deadline, right? So, get to know Jon.

It’s not just about passive-aggression, either. Have you ever been in a meeting and realized that you were left out of an email conversation at some point and are now out of the loop? Or, do you feel snubbed by being the last name on the CC’d list or even not being on it at all and having the email forwarded to you later? Whether intentional or not, these experiences can begin to erode workplace relationships.

Some workers choose not to be passive aggressive, but, instead, make themselves LOUD. Do you follow up on a task by email, text, and phone? Do you tend to ask people if they got your previous message? Do you ‘bump’ your email to the top of someone’s inbox only a few hours after sending it? So many means of communication make it easy for us to come across as loud in ways that we don’t mean to. Some of this is gender based (men can come across as short or aggressive while women can be perceived as too verbose and are accused of following up too often), but not all of it is. So, how can we be more conscious of the signals we send in our digital communications?

Many business thinkers would simply say that we need more ‘emotional intelligence,’ which can generally be defined as our ability to identify and manage both our own emotions and those of others around us. While this is true, we need to be more specific. We need to learn how to convey empathy in the new world of work.

Here are three tips to get over the drama, increase empathy, and #GetBigThingsDone:

1) To reduce the potential for adversarial behavior, try to build human engagement.

Reduce the perception of distance by combating anonymity and invisibility. A good way to do this is to utilize several communication platforms to allow each person’s voice to be heard in different contexts and correct for differences in comfort levels with each platform. Consider taking five minutes at the beginning of a conference call to have each member share a ‘win’ - something good that’s happening in their lives, whether it be personal or work-related - and a ‘struggle’ - something that they may be dreading or perhaps a problem that they’ve been unable to solve. Or, instead of talking about the weather at the start of a meeting, ask each person to share what’s important to them about the work they are doing. This practice can quickly become a silo-breaking exercise in connectional intelligence. You will witness team members celebrate wins together and solve each other's problems like never before.

2) Embed empathy practices into your company culture.

Let me share my own truth: I have worked for some horrible people. I once worked for someone so rude and overbearing that she invaded my every waking moment. She would fire drill me by email at 9 pm when I was at the grocery store. Then she’d turn around and text my cell at 5 am under the guise of “following up.” But I was stuck in the work situation. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t quit my job and go on an “eat, pray, love” journey to reconnect to my higher self. In fact, most of us started there - low on the corporate ladder, feeling overworked, unhappy, and under-appreciated. Imagine a business world in which bosses respect and mentor their subordinates, leaving room for creativity and innovation. Redefine dominance in your organization by starting with those around you. How do you treat each other? Do you let a title change completely alter a previous relationship just because someone is now your superior? Take the time to show appreciation, say thank you, listen to what is happening in others’ lives. It could take just 10 minutes a week but add days of productivity in value.

3) Delegate power within teams.

A good team is made up of a diverse group of individuals that balance out each other’s strengths and weaknesses. A study of virtual teams in a Fortune 500 company found that teams with high levels of trust were characterized by shifts in power throughout different stages of their projects. We should be setting aside time for each member to contribute and shift power based on expertise. This doesn’t mean that we should abolish the concept of a team leader altogether. Most teams will still need a leader to serve as a final decision maker, arbiter, and monitor to ensure things are moving according to plan. As leaders, we should also make sure that that we are mentoring at least 3 other people in our organization to eventually perform our role without our guidance. The success of those you lead is your success.

What other ways can you leverage empathy practices to handle power dynamics at work? Share your progress in the comments below!

Erica Dhawan is the world's leading authority on 21st century collaboration, author of Get Big Things Done, host of the Masters of Leadership podcast and CEO of Cotential. Learn more about her keynote speaking at ericadhawan.com and follow her on Linkedin.