My Crazy Office | K Squared Enterprises

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.)

Are You Listening?

November 10, 2010

I just read an article that sites good listening as a key skill for effective managers. While the premise is valuable, the article lacked specific examples of how to listen. And that, in my experience, is the problem.

How does one learn to be a good listener? Where is that taught? When I got my masters in counseling, we had to take a course called Empathic Listening. There, we were shown how to mirror a person, how to reflect back what we thought they said, and how to ask open-ended questions. Do managers ever receive that kind of training? Would they want to practice those skills?

I’m going to seek examples of good listening today and jot them down so I can offer concrete scenarios to anyone who wants to listen. 🙂 Do you have examples of good listening in your life?

About interpersonal triangles at work

November 3, 2010

This week’s video talks about someone who is good at keeping the peace. She gets caught in a triangle between two squawking co-workers. We identify the situation as a case of triangulation because, instead of dealing with each other, the arguing coworkers deflect their responsibility by pulling a caring colleague into the mix.

That’s one kind of triangle. There are many more that we can easily be pulled into. For example, have you ever had someone confide about the way a certain colleague gets on their last nerve? Instead of approaching the culprit, your workplace friend complains to you. Or, has your boss ever asked you to “take care” of another employee who’s unable to carry his or her weight? Again, you become trapped in a triangle where you rescue your floundering colleague instead of the boss and that under-performing employee working out the problem themselves.

Triangles can be hard to spot immediately. And, if you’re a very capable person, it can be tempting to step into a triangle with the intent of helping out. But there’s very little to win.

My best advice is to become at triangle vigilante. If you notice someone trying to recruit you as third party, carefully step away. Encourage the two original parties to work their differences out. Sometimes silence is golden.

Change is in the air

October 27, 2010

When one door closes another opens. Change is good. Isn’t that the wisdom people give you when things are not going your way? I know this wisdom well, I say it all the time to everyone around me, but enough is enough. How much change are you dealing with?

For me, so many things have gone away or changed in some way and I find myself out of my comfort zone.

I left my gym after 8 years for a variety of reasons, my hairdresser upped his price to an unreasonable amount, I could go on and on but I don’t want to bore you.

I’m beginning to get the picture that change is the new norm for me, at least for the next year (because a friend told me that capricorns have a year of constant change this year). I want to get comfortable with change, but then I would have to let go of knowing, and that’s so hard for me.

I guess it also means that I have to give up CONTROL. I have been reading a lot about letting go of control and being in the moment. It helps for a little while.

So while I let go of control, and let go of things I am comfortable with all around me, I am excited to see what is in store on the other side of all this change. But, in the man time I feel like a small child waiting to be a grown up in control of my life, Oh wait I am the grown up.

Breaking up is so hard to do!!

October 4, 2010

First there’s anger, then the disappointment, then the anger again. Like our book Working with You Is Killing Me says, take the high road when communicating. I know I read our books, oh right I co-wrote them. But, why is it so hard to always take the high road? Maybe it’s because (if you are like me) it’s so much fun to get even. It takes me a good week to go from angry to cooled off enough in order to get to that high road approach.

It doesn’t seem to matter how hard I pressure myself to get over a relationship it takes me a week. I have to process my feelings, which change daily. I have to process my thoughts which never stop. Once I reach a place of completion everything subsides. I finally have the ability to take a high road approach and communicate in a way that does not burn a bridge with someone that I once cared for.

Relationships are a lot of work, and breaking up in a nice way is worth the week of torture for me. Now, if I can just remember to take the week and process before I open my mouth.

Rain Man

October 1, 2010

I was running late this morning (rain pouring, subways down, bus late) so when I arrived at Port Authority, I quickly grabbed a cab for the final leg of my commute.

Once in the cab, the driver noticed that I seemed thrown by the rain. “People are never happy with what the weather is doing,” he remarked.”When it rains they complain about being wet. When it snows they say ‘Oh God’. Even when it’s sunny they complain about the heat.”

He had my attention because he was right. “What we need to do is think about the rain and how it makes drinking water, and feeds the earth, and keeps things alive. We need to be grateful for rain and for things we can’t see… like breath.”

Now he really had my attention.

My Rain Man taxi driver then reminded me that life is a gift, and I should appreciate everything i have; consider the benefit of every kind of weather. He even told me to be grateful for my looks. “You’re pretty cute, you know. That makes people want to talk to you.”

Thank you Rain Man for brightening my day and putting my focus where it belongs — on gratitude.