My Crazy Office

My Crazy Office is a weekly workplace podcast dedicated to helping listeners navigate their careers. Executive coach Kathi Elster and career therapist Katherine Crowley combine their expertise to solve both serious and silly situations at work. Join Kathi and Katherine as they answer real workplace questions with solid advice and a side of humor. Do you have someone or something at work that’s driving your crazy? Send your questions to info@mycrazyoffice.co. (All submissions kept confidential.)

The 6 Rules Of Managing Up

  1. Train Your Boss to meet with you regularly
  2. Come to every meeting with a Detailed Agenda
  3. Keep a pulse on your bosses Changing Priorities
  4. Take the time to See Your Boss’s Side of things
  5. Anticipate Problems and offer solutions
  6. Always be prepared to give a Status Report on your projects
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Principles For Managing Conflict At Work

Maintain Mutual Respect: Ask yourself or get parties to ask: “How can I discuss our differences in ways that allow the other person to retain his/her dignity? How can I avoid having the other person feel denigrated or put down?

Seek Common Ground: Explore overarching goals, values and shared purpose. Try to see things through the other person’s eyes.

Focus on The Problem, NOT The Attack: Focus on what people are saying about the problem.

Objectify The Situation: Help people focus on what happened, the behavior causing the problem, what the impact is and what ideas they have for solutions.

Emphasize and Acknowledge Both People’s Situation: Try putting yourself in both peoples shoes and try to understand the emotional impact which the situation is creating for them.

Acknowledge The Needs of Both People: Empathize verbally with them and allow them to vent their emotions so that you can establish yourself as being understanding of both sides.

Validate Feelings: Help make emotions explicit and acknowledge emotions as legitimate.

Listen Actively: Verify and provide feedback to both parties: let both parties know that you are genuinely trying to understand both parties’ position and interests, and that you are trying to help. Summarize what you are hearing as the more neutral source. Seek clarification on your feedback to make sure that what you heard is correct.
Separate fact from opinion

Keep Perspectives Open: Help both parties see the situation from their own perspective, from the other person’s perspective (getting into the other person’s shoes), and from the perspective of a neutral third party (or fly on the wall).

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Mental Abuse at Work?

Mental abuse in the workplace is more common than you might think. It could be an angry aggressive boss, a mean condescending co-worker, or a group of bullies that band together and target others in the office. An abusive work environment erodes productivity and hurts those involved emotionally, sometimes escalating into making people physically sick.

Here are 5 
signs that abuse is present at the office.
 See if any of these are true for you

  1. There is a 80 – 100% staff turnover every year.
  2. The office is extremely quiet. People have their heads down, and 
rarely make eye contact with supervisors.
  3. You can cut the tension in the air with a knife.
  4. Employees meet and organize outside of work to support one another.
  5. Staff look drained and they call in sick more frequently than in a 
healthy workplace.

If you relate to any of these signs, then abuse is present in your office. You may be suffering in silence or you may be looking for some help. Here are a few suggestions to get you out of your dilemma.

Always actively network for another job so that you are working on a way out.

  1. Try not to take the behavior of the abuser personally: it’s not 
about you. Abusers treat everyone that way.
  2. Understand that the abuser is most likely good at managing up and only abuses those below. That’s why he/she doesn’t get caught.
  3. Exercise after work to rid yourself of the toxic energy as often as necessary.
  4. Participate in an activity that builds your self-confidence.
 Join a task force, volunteer for a good cause, write down your successes every night.
  5. Circulate, do not isolate and suffer in silence. Go out and have 
fun after work.
  6. Get another job a.s.a.p.
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