Welcome back to my podcast Scaling Out.
So lets be honest with each other, hasn’t everyone seen someone else’s kid act crazy and wonder why that parent wasn’t addressing it like you would if it was your kid? Like, really if I saw my kid doing something like that in a restaurant I would do x y or z to stop that behavior? Or you have friends who let their kids behaviour continue over and over and over again but you find it bothersome or annoying & just know that you wouldn’t stand for it. Well, it really boils down to what behavior you allow of others – another way to say this which is better quote from Tony Gaskins: “You teach people how to treat you by what you allow, what you stop and what you reinforce.”
This happens at work too. Like we’ve discussed before, people don’t leave bad jobs they leave bad bosses. If you find your boss bothersome or annoying you can simply leave. But it can also happen with customers, co-workers, employees – and its not practical to just use jumping ship as the way to address this issue. So you have to teach people how to treat you by not allowing bad behaviour. Of course, when I say it outloud it sounds so self-evident but we all know its hard to do.
One example was when a customer was very rude to a coworker in a very large meeting. The coworker handled it with such grace by stopping talking and just saying ‘yes maam. I will get that for you’. This stopped the customer in their tracks from the continued badgering. And then in a 1-1 setting, the customer was approached about how abrupt & rude that came across.
Another example is a coworker that overtalks everyone. Reframing & directing questions to others in the meeting and then calling the overtalker out for overtalking by using a quick reminder such as ‘I was asking Jim’ teaches the overtalker to pay attention. This also teaches others that you value everyone’s opinion and want everyone to participate.
When you have an employee that cannot take ownership of any decisions & treat you as if you are the dictator. Well, rather than acting the part by offering decisions each time, you can respond to emails simply stating that you will stand by the decision they will make on the issue. Teaching them it is theirs to own.
As you consider situations you have been in, remember that reflection and reframing the situation are important to make the right move next time. You cant go back in the past & change what already happen. But you can come up with strategies on how to teach people how to treat you.
Thanks for listening to my podcast! Until next time ‘Stay Safe Everyone!’
