Taming the 800-pound Gorilla

Where does an 800-pound gorilla sleep? Anywhere it wants, because it’s too big a force for you to stop or fight; it’s too powerful, too aggressive and so it can do anything it wants. And when you have on it your team, you either tame it or you die trying!

In an attempt to attract business travelers, a hotel chain advertises that if you stay at its hotels you will be able to take on ‘the 800-pound gorilla in the room’. The ad shows the regional manager of a company, being able to tame the chest-pounding 800-pound gorilla, the day after spending a night in one of the hotels of the chain.

All of us have that 800-pound gorilla at work. He is a guy who says and does anything he wants at work. He is the one who believes he is better and more important than everyone else in the room. He is the one who throws his weight around, after all he is 800 pounds, so why not. But if you are brave enough to try, there are definitely ways to tackle him.

Like any bully, sometimes, the best way to tame the 800-pound gorilla would be to confront him. The gorilla likes to throw his weight around, but he is not used to being pushed back. When somebody does push him back, he is surprised and doesn’t always know how to respond. Taking things lying down only makes the gorilla more aggressive. Stand up, poke him back and the gorilla is on his heels.

There would be less risk involved if you aren’t directly reporting to the gorilla, because that way he doesn’t control your fate at work. Say you are in a meeting, and your hairy friend decides to beat his chest and exert his dominance at the expense of somebody else (may or may not be you!). This is your chance to stand up and point out that he’s acting like an over sized chimp. If you think that wouldn’t make you a hero, well there might actually be people who would jump out of their chairs and cheer you!

You don’t have to be nasty; you don’t have to stoop to his level. But standing up to him would send out a loud and clear message. The gorilla’s actions get reinforced if someone responds to his demonstration of dominance by cowering in the corner or by simply ignoring it, thereby making him all the more powerful and unchecked.

 You can try taming the gorilla in his habitat and spare all the drama. Try talking to him privately. However, if this results in denials and lack of self-awareness, hitting him in front of everyone remains your only option. This way he would feel the brunt of the force he has been yielding, which in part is embarrassment and humiliation. The gorilla essentially wants everybody else around to feel smaller than him but if you stand up to him, you reduce him to the size of a chimpanzee.

But what if the gorilla was your boss or a senior executive, and your journey at the company is in his hands? In that case, you can’t be a one man army and would have to enroll the help of others. The helper could be a peer of the gorilla himself, basically somebody who would not get affected by the gorilla’s wrath. However, if you feel, you can go to the gorilla with a warning, before you actually decide to strike, letting him know how people are perceiving him, how his actions are impacting people and how the next time he doesn’t control his behavior, you will speak out and it would bring in a lot of trouble.

If someone is being a gorilla, it’s hardly going to remain a secret. After all, how could and how long could a 800-pound gorilla hide? Unless and until the gorilla is not the CEO or the owner of the company, it would be indeed very hard for any company to not support an employee trying to combat and stand up to a gorilla like that. However, if you feel it can’t work out, then it would be time to start looking for a new job. No matter how you stand up to him, the element of surprise will always be on your side. He would be used to people running and hiding when he beats his chest, but he definitely won’t know what to do and when he has you stand up and talk to him.