WorkWise: Button-pushing and responsibility at work

Pushing buttons can cause a great deal of conflict and ill-will in the workplace, whether you work in a positive or negative environment. It can also motivate.

YOUR FRAZZLED EMOTIONS

Work that brings stress, impossible demands, anxiety over job security and poor management creates a negative environment, even when co-workers are well-intentioned, according to Karol Ward, a licensed clinical social worker in private practice in New York City. If you work in such an atmosphere, your emotions might be unduly frazzled. Set out to minimize triggers you inadvertently cause among your peers.

Ward recommends discussing the friction calmly in a quiet spot, inviting the upset person to identify individual annoyances and when they occur. You might hear a legitimate complaint. “Ask the person to describe specifically how he or she would be able to recognize if you’d made changes,” Ward says. Then, take charge of your actions.

PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY

A positive work environment, where you’re not frazzled, requires you to take personal responsibility in another way vis a vis a co-worker. If you unintentionally push someone’s buttons, recognize that the onus is on the person who’s getting upset, who “really doesn’t know another way to express his or her emotions,” advises speaker Harvey Deutschendorf, owner of Harmony House in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. These habitual responses aren’t new and indicate that the individual isn’t managing emotions effectively.

You may adjust your behavior charitably as your understanding increases to facilitate working together. However, your adjustments don’t solve the problem, because it’s internal, residing within the person who becomes emotional. Look at it this way: When the co-worker leaves, that underlying problem goes, too, ready to surface in the next environment unless he or she takes responsibility for it.

If your co-worker’s reactions emanate from events in childhood, adolescence, employment or marriage, changing your behavior won’t stop them. Do monitor your own behavior, but don’t entrap yourself.

“People are responsible for their own issues, working out what pushes their buttons and dealing with them,” Deutschendorf observes. “We’re responsible for how we act, regardless of what the other person does. The only thing we’re responsible for is ourselves.”

He says that it’s not up to you to identify the source of the person’s triggers. They stem from very deep, unresolved issues. Identifying the triggers is a challenge for the co-worker. “If we treat others with basic respect and kindness,” Deutschendorf notes, “we’re not going to be setting buttons off deliberately.”

RESPONSIBLE LEADERSHIP

Button-pushing doesn’t occur only because of negative factors. It can be good, according to Larry Scinto, who holds an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He’s a managing consultant at PA Consulting Group in New York City. “True competitive advantage comes not from simply pushing buttons,” he observes, “but from pushing the ‘right’ buttons as a motivational tool. Some of the most successful CEOs have done this.” He cites Steve Jobs, whose vision, direction and drive became contagious and led to great success. Scinto adds that communications in environments like this must be top notch.

Where does your responsibility lie in this type of positive environment? Let people know what your buttons are and how to push them! Of course, doing so requires self-knowledge and self-promotion with clear communication. Don’t wait for others to figure out how you can make your very best contribution.

If unintended button-pushing triggers negativity in your workplace, assess your level of responsibility before deciding what to do. When motivational button-pushing creates benefits, don’t go overboard.

Dr. Mildred L. Culp welcomes your questions at culp@workwise.net. © 2011 Passage Media.