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March 18, 2007

Conflict Resolution: Dealing with Difficult People

At this time, this post is less a how-to and more of a confession.

I am an impatient, know-it-all, Type A, control-freak who often has to deal with people who are also control-freaks. The problem that I have is that those people often know that they are asking me to do something that goes against policy, procedure, process, or best practices but because that's what they want, I have to deliver.

I often find this difficult to swallow. I am not so much a perfectionist as I am extremely protective of my values and work ethic, and of the best practices that are tried and true because they make sense, are cost-effective, and save time. I am not an office-politics player and frankly, I don't really play nice with other children that well either. I work best independently or in a position of authority where my experience is respected.

I think that accountability is important, professionally and personally, and anything that blurs the line between who is accountable is, to me, a bad idea. Not because I like to point fingers and lay blame, but because no one grows by not owning their mistakes or by owning someone else's mistakes.

Unfortunately, my personality often causes me to come off as aggressive, intimidating, or occasionally even hostile and uncooperative. Usually, by the time it gets to that point, it's been identified that I am dealing with a difficult person or situation. Unfortunately, fighting fire with fire is not always the best course of action.

The problem is that I don't really see a good way to put out the fire. It is not in my nature to simply roll over and give in to every flight of fancy someone else gets in their head. I don't like to say no, but usually requests are reasonable and when they are not, usually the requestor is reasonable and understands why the request shouldn't be accommodated. I am in a unique situation these days where the request is unreasonable and the requestor is unreasonable and I am stuck having to disagree and commit far more often than I like.

My strategy for this, at present, is actually to do one thing: I signed up for a class that is required for my major anyway. It's called Conflict Resolution and Team Dynamics and I think that it should be useful both personally and professionally. I have some high hopes for it and will be sharing what I learn as I learn it.

I can't say that I feel particularly motivated to learn how to deal with difficult people since my true feeling is that they should just ask for reasonable things, ha ha, but given that this is not going to be a theme that goes away, and will be relevant my whole life, personally and through the course of my career, I think it's as good a time as any to look into better ways to handle these kinds of situations.

Posted by lunasmom at 12:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 17, 2007

Procrastination Personalities: Taking Care of Business Today, not Tomorrow

"Procrastinators often know exactly what they should be doing, even if they cannot do it."

I am a procrastinator. As a bipolar parent and someone who struggles to be high-functioning without medication, it's really important to me that I learn better coping mechanisms for procrastination and related avoidance behaviors. The above quote was a statement that stood out for me in an online academic skills article I read recently about procrastination.

I grew up a child of chaos. There was little constancy in my life for certain kinds of things and I was in charge of myself very young. As a result, I never really developed the good habits that help people get through the day and keep on top of things in their life that must be done...even simple things, like brushing my teeth every night before bedtime.

As capable a person as I am, I have always suffered from feeling easily overwhelmed by situations, which was exacerbated by being put in situations over my head very often as a child. I learned to fend for myself early, but am only learning now as an adult how to be truly independent. I am easily mentally fatigued and my favorite way of dealing with a problem or chore is avoidance; often as a child I developed headaches or stomach aches from the stress of worrying about the problem or chore, so managed to avoid it by making myself sick.

It's true: I know, in theory, what I need to do but I find that I still cannot manage to do it. Often, it's an issue of mental organization--at first the problem seems insurmountable or so complex that I cannot even figure out where to begin. I often complicate basic tasks or build them up in my head to be much larger than they are and cause myself an inordinate amount of stress. Then I go out of my way to escape my problems or chores.

One remedy for this build-up has been to write down exactly what task I must accomplish, breaking it down into a task list instead of an ominous amorphous heading on a piece of paper. I cannot make a list full of phrases like "cook dinner" because the concept of dinner is sometimes too complex for me to process without more detail. We often eat out because of this problem. Instead, on my list I write:

go to grocery store and buy whole, cut up chicken, lemon, broccoli, and rice
Start dinner at 5pm--baked lemon chicken with rice and steamed broccoli
5:45 pm, Start rice
6pm, steam broccoli
Dinner by 6:15pm!

If I don't break down the task "cook dinner" in this way, I will stare at the paper and wonder what I should cook for dinner and by the time I decide, I will realize I have no ingredients I need, it's too late to go to the store, damn, I've waited too long and now it's too late to cook, what can we get for takeout?

Because I am not familiar with these very simple domestic routines, I find them overwhelming because of their alienness. I am frustrated by my lack of know-how, by the lack of reflex. So many women just walk into the kitchen and cook dinner on schedule without giving it a second thought. I become paralyzed by my lack of basic habit and skill.

I had similar issues with my son when he became a toddler but was not yet verbal. I became frustrated with my lack of knowledge of what to do with a child his age and I often avoided activities because I felt lost and out of control, completely ignorant. This frustration and ignorance ultimately is what culminated in enrolling him in daycare, partly so that he could get the stimulation he needed, but partly also so that I could learn from his providers what THEY do to challenge, stimulate, and entertain these children, not to mention discipline and set boundaries.

If I don't know how to do something, I won't try it and this leads to avoidance, often on a grand scale. Long-term avoidance, for me, can lead to bigger issues like agoraphobia, where I can avoid something enough that I don't leave the house for a week, or I become stressed out by the idea of speaking to someone on the phone. My biggest foil for this issue is to find someone who knows how to do it and get them to teach me how to do it. The great thing about the online world is that you can find a teacher just about anywhere with a few clicks. If I can manage to feel capable, then the problem seems much smaller and surmountable.

I also find it helps to break one task into many smaller tasks so I can pinpoint exactly what it is that I find I cannot do or what it is I find so onerous so that I can find a way to fix my attitude about it. Often, one task is really five tasks and I can do four of them easily or quickly. It's usually one small piece that causes the grief.

The article really got me thinking about my habits and motivations and if you tend to suffer from some of these issues, and this is quite common among bipolar or depressed folks, I have noticed, then look into this topic.

Posted by lunasmom at 11:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack