Passive aggression: how it destroys our working life and how to fight it

Life, as well as personal, and corporate, is full of conflicts. Unfortunately, most of them are not due to healthy differences of opinion, but on the basis of mutual misunderstanding and like snowballing grudges. I would like to talk about the phenomenon, which, in my opinion, is the root of (almost) all evils and one of the main problems of human communication is about “passive aggression”.

Every working day I observe many cases of its manifestation. I will give some examples. Marketer Nicholas just got a job at the company, and his colleague Maria, too meticulously approached the assessment of his first work - deshbord, where you can evaluate various indicators. He took it on his own account and now carefully objected Mary to any of her comments.

To the head of the development department, Ruslan, his subordinate Ivan seems to be inert and inert, despite the fact that he does his job well and on time, and instead of talking openly with Ivan about his prof. development, Ruslan now prefers to tease his subordinate whenever possible, which, as a rule, looks ridiculous.

It seems to business analyst Anna that her colleague, equal in rank, is trying to take a leading role in a project in which both of them are equally involved, but instead of openly discussing her anxiety and sharing her duties with her colleague or actually pushing the project further , Anna, when speaking with clients and bosses, began to emphasize that she was the main person in charge of the project, although this was not the case.

Perhaps you recognized yourself in the role of certain individuals. What connects these situations is the fact that in each of them the hero has some complaints to his colleagues. And if in the case of the analyst Anna they are justified, then in the other two there are irrelevant reasons. Maria is a first-class specialist who wanted to point out to Nicholas the shortcomings of his schedules, and her problem is only in how she presented her opinion. Ivan is a good employee who has worked for the company for many years, and even if the initiative is not his strong point, then he will have other strengths. In all three cases, it would be possible to solve unresolved questions simply enough: either by reviewing our attitude towards them, or by learning how to respond to them, or by talking to a colleague in the open. But for our heroes, going to the conflict meant more stress than “swallowing” resentment and convincing yourself that's all right At least, it seemed to them that it was easier to keep silent, and they did not know that by doing so, they doom themselves to great torment.

It is this silence that results in the accumulation of negative emotions, which gives rise to hypertrophied experiences and leads to the so-called passive aggression - an indirect manifestation of hostility.

What is dangerous passive aggression?


The consequences of passive aggression harm both individual employees and the business as a whole. Decisions are made slowly, initiatives meet obstacles, there is resistance both hidden (for example, deliberate delay) and open (spreading gossip). For employees, the state of constant stress, fueled by all new unresolved conflicts, affects their mental balance and motivation to work. In general, the consequences are truly devastating!

What are the causes of passive aggression?


Let us simplify a typical situation that gives rise to passive aggression. There is a certain external irritant - a person, say, our colleague or partner. The motives of this person are unknown to us, his character, mood and habits are only partially known to us. There is a certain conditional “I” whose habits, character and mood are known to us in detail. An irritant produces an action, verbal or not, that causes us discomfort. We do not react to this action openly, but instead we experience and look for the possibility of “reckoning” with an irritant.

Let us analyze the emergence of passive aggression from beginning to end and describe the mechanisms accompanying it. For a start, let's focus on the moment when a person has produced some kind of irritating effect. At this point, you should think about how what was said or done really hurt you. Many of you are too serious about yourself and too painful about criticism and humor about yourself. Moreover, self-esteem does not necessarily have to be inflated to a gigantic size in order to take too much in his address. If you start to treat yourself easier, then it turns out that many things do not hurt you too much - and there are fewer reasons to hold a grudge. But if, nevertheless, the act of you seems to have touched, then you should pay attention to some aspects of the formation of opinion.

I personally don’t really like abstruse psychological terms, but some of them are capable of aptly explaining some interesting things happening to us. For example, the “third person effect”, which I described in my columnon "The Secret of the Firm". According to this model, we evaluate ourselves compared to other people as being more sustainable with respect to certain external stimuli. Since this term came from the field of advertising and propaganda, I will explain as follows: when I watch television advertising, I think that it has no effect on my consumer preferences, but if they ask me if it is capable of influencing the opinion of other TV viewers, then, most likely, I will say that yes, and strongly - because others, in my opinion, are more inclined to blindly believe advertising. In my material I showed how the hypotheses of this model can be applied in the field of management. And the following assumption derived from the “third person effect” can also help in explaining the mechanisms of the appearance of passive aggression: we are used to thinking out the others for ourselves - and that’s because that we cannot put ourselves in the place of other people, because we do not know all the variables of the initial situation in which another person made this or that decision. Each of us has certain knowledge, experience, desires, and we know our own motivational attitudes, but do not know them from others, but we still try to explain the behavior of the people around us - hence the simplifications, labels, and as a result - mutual misunderstanding.

The third potential source of passive aggression - and another psychological term! Now let us pay attention to the moment when the action of the stimulus was made, and the time comes for our reaction - hidden or completely absent. It will be about the now popular notion of “unfinished gestalt”. In short, when we encounter a certain external irritant, and our reaction to it does not correspond to our own ideas about the correctness of this reaction, we subsequently begin to recall this episode, try to replay it mentally, and so it does not let us go, until in a similar situation we let's not do what we expect from ourselves - only then will this “gestalt” (from it “figure”, “form”) end. The problem is that the situation, which we assess as similar to the one that gave rise to a feeling of dissatisfaction, may actually differ from it - then our reaction will be disproportionate. In addition, waiting for the completion of the “gestalt” is painful in itself, because we are in an eternal state of waiting for a conflict, and since we often carry several such “gestalts” in ourselves, this does not pass, of course, for the psyche.

Fourth, for most of us, direct conflict is unpleasant and undesirable in itself. Therefore, the psychological discomfort of direct confrontation seems to be higher than the unpleasant emotions that we experience when we suppress the reaction in ourselves. Of course, this is a misconception! In fact, it is easier to solve the situation immediately and “tick off”. But more about that later.

Fifth, we do not want to look awkward, and this is one of the reasons why we are reluctant to go for open confrontation. The truth is that when we, after some time spent in a nervous state, like string tension, react to something openly, then our reaction, hypertrophied, painful, looks much more awkward and strange than it could. we deal with the situation immediately.

Many authors dealing with the issue of “passive aggression” often try to explain it by the peculiarities of upbringing in childhood and other Freudianism. I would not want to go that far, since it is more interesting for me to find solutions to specific practical problems than to delve into the affairs of bygone days. Thus, I consider the brief excursion into the possible causes of passive aggression to be completed. So, you can go to the main question: how to resist passive aggression? Below we look at how to identify and deal with passive aggression in yourself, colleagues and subordinates. I do not consider the case of passive aggression of the chief, because this is a separate and complex case that requires more detailed consideration, but some of the techniques described below can be applied in this case.

How to deal with your passive aggression?


To understand that you are trapped in passive aggression is, in fact, not difficult. A passive-aggressive person is often in an all-consuming state of waiting for a conflict, which prevents him from focusing on other, important or pleasant things — scenes of various fictional conflict situations that may, in his opinion, occur in the future all the time run in the background. In part, it is even useful - a person tries on different behaviors and trains to cope with stress at the time of its occurrence. On the other hand, such modeling gradually captures the attention of a person, and the permanent waiting for a conflict begins to poison his life.

There are also other, rather obvious indicators of your passive aggressiveness: for example, the manifestation of reactions disproportionate to stimuli ("Overreacting"). And it is possible that you often fall into some of the so-called "cognitive traps" - distortions of thinking and perception of events. For example, when we represent everything and everyone exclusively in black and white light (which means that we think in categories “all or nothing” and we risk assessing the people around us as total villains or exceptionally beautiful people). When we label at the very first meeting (“Labeling”), when we do not understand any phenomenon, too quickly drawing conclusions (“Jumping to conclusion“), or letting our emotions take hold of us (“Emotional reasoning”),

How to get rid of it?


First, do not speculate about others. Why - I have already briefly talked about the “third-person effect,” but I would like to cite a couple more examples so that the idea becomes completely clear. Svetlana Ivanova in the article " Do not speculate for others "for the Harvard Business Review, it suggests distinguishing between fact and hypothesis. The fact is an accomplished action, and the hypothesis is our guess as to why (from what motive) it was done. In other words, the fact can be compared with the patient's illness, and the hypothesis with the diagnosis that we make. At the same time, advises Mrs. Ivanova, do not forget that the symptoms for different diseases may be the same. This means that in relation to some situations (not everyone, of course), you can try to build different hypotheses about why a colleague behaved in one way or another. From my life I can remember one person who interrupted his colleagues all the time, but he only learned about his habit of interrupting after he was told directly about it. Yes, yes, a person may not be sincerely aware of some manners of his behavior, that infuriate others. And, for that matter, in some cultures (for example, among Hindus) to interrupt means to show interest, not disrespect.

So, we learn a lesson: we do not think that, and if we do it, we try to understand the system of human motivations, which he usually has several, and assess the plausibility of his assumptions. Of course, there are situations in which to respond to certain actions of colleagues you need to quickly, and you need to be able to recognize these situations. But more on that later.

Secondly, many of us need to reconsider our attitude towards confrontation. When I suggest people not to be afraid of reacting to the “wrong” behavior of their colleagues, they say to me: “And how do you imagine this: I’ll just start to cheer on him in the middle of a meeting, or what?” No, of course - just the word "conflict" has a negative connotation for most, which is understandable: the absence of it is the ideal state of a normal person. Professor of public policy practice Gerald Warburg (University of Virginia) in the course “Challenges for public policy of the 21st century” brought one thought that might have cost all my studies to a political scientist: the goal of the conflict is not a quarrel; his goal is to find common ground. Without this setup, many conflicts will remain unresolved. After all, it is possible that a person had no intention of offending you. And it often happens that the words of our friends "fall" on some of our internal fears, doubts and experiences, about which others did not even suspect, and then we interpret other people's words and actions in the shadow of these very experiences. Therefore, if there are doubts about what a colleague or partner had in mind, it is best to immediately ask him about it.

In addition, conflict is a way to convey yourself and your position. It often happens that the one who does not declare his interests or feelings loses. Therefore, conflicts are needed. And besides, they are inevitable - because we all have too different attitudes of interests, beliefs and motivations. Therefore, it is necessary to learn to lead conflicts and sometimes go for open confrontation - which, however, does not mean at all that you will have to swear, as many people imagine it to be. Declare yourself and respond to people can and should calmly, clearly expressing his thought, so that it accurately reaches the addressee. In this article, I can’t talk in detail about how to manage a conflict, so I’ll just say that you shouldn’t be afraid to talk with your colleagues and partners in the open about the problems that concern you. Try to understand the person when you listen to his arguments, but don't forget to protect yours. If you see that a person is not ready to meet you at all, then you will have to do one of two things: either start ignoring his attacks, or learn to answer him immediately, as the hostility develops - but again, calmly, without disruption, and without obsessive ideas annoy the irritant. Learn to describe situations without value judgments, only in the case: what is the problem and what, in your opinion, is its solution. It is better to react to the source of stress immediately and precisely to the source itself, and not to those who accidentally fall “arm in arm”. I twice used the word “calmly” and backed up my words with one kind of Chinese wisdom I heard: “ or learn to respond to it immediately, as far as hostility is displayed - but again, calmly, without disruption, and without an obsessive idea to annoy the irritant. Learn to describe situations without value judgments, only in the case: what is the problem and what, in your opinion, is its solution. It is better to react to the source of stress immediately and precisely to the source itself, and not to those who accidentally fall “arm in arm”. I twice used the word “calmly” and backed up my words with one kind of Chinese wisdom I heard: “ or learn to respond to it immediately, as far as hostility is displayed - but again, calmly, without disruption, and without an obsessive idea to annoy the irritant. Learn to describe situations without value judgments, only in the case: what is the problem and what, in your opinion, is its solution. It is better to react to the source of stress immediately and precisely to the source itself, and not to those who accidentally fall “arm in arm”. I twice used the word “calmly” and backed up my words with one kind of Chinese wisdom I heard: “ who accidentally fall "arm in arm". I twice used the word “calmly” and backed up my words with one kind of Chinese wisdom I heard: “ who accidentally fall "arm in arm". I twice used the word “calmly” and backed up my words with one kind of Chinese wisdom I heard: “A calm husband is a strong husband . ”

Third, learn to notice the emergence and manifestations of passive aggression in yourself. Just pay attention to what happens when someone did or said something that you didn’t like. Did an open reaction follow from you? If not, what did you feel and what did you think afterwards? Have you often recalled this case, have you tried to replay it? Did those negative emotions that you experienced at that time show themselves later? Believe me, such cases will not keep you waiting - there are too many irritants around us! Having survived a certain number of such situations, you will learn to recognize passive aggression and cope with it. And having learned to do this by your example, start to observe how it happens in others - believe me, you will find plenty of examples again. You may assume that you have done an excellent job if you learn to recognize “triggers” (“trigger“) that are especially painful for you - events (whether active actions or replicas) that make you so angry that you are no longer able to respond in a balanced way. Try to minimize the number of these triggers.

Fourth, you must learn to distinguish between words and deeds that really hurt and upset you, and those that, although they do not correspond to your ideas about “correctness,” but you can still “close your eyes” with a calm heart. Understand what principles you have that are in your personal "DNA" that you simply cannot go against - the rest can be simply ignored.

Fifthly, many of us are afraid of the manifestation of normal human feelings: fatigue, irritation, resentment. There are those who, on the contrary, too often show negative emotions and gradually become bogged down in their own negative. And you need to take, as usual, the golden mean, although striving for eternal positive and "Zen."

In general, try to live easy, have fun, do more that gives you pleasure. Be active and proactive, and then for the negative you will have a minimum place in life.

How to deal with passive aggression of colleagues?


We sorted out how to learn to manage your own passive aggression. But what to do if you see a passive-aggressive colleague?

Unfortunately, the negative emotions of others have the strongest influence on ourselves - they accumulate and gradually have a poisonous effect. The problem is also that often passive aggression has its origins in a deep-rooted negative attitude towards a person - and then it begins to show itself constantly, having at the same time often non-obvious character. That is, you clearly feel how a colleague treats you, but since he does not cross the line, it would seem that there is nothing to make a claim.

In this case, think about how negative the attitude of this colleague or partner is harming you and your work. If you don’t have any points of contact with this person, or his attitude towards you doesn’t interfere with your duties and, consequently, the processes at the enterprise, then you can simply ignore him. If this negative attitude bothers you personally or professionally, then the best way is to go for an open conversation (for example, call a person in the lunch break for coffee). After all, it may well be that until now this person simply did not have the opportunity to speak - and it may turn out that he has real reasons to dislike you, and you didn’t suspect that your actions or words might have once offended him. Offer to talk directly, show your openness and willingness to listen. If the conversation goes on emotionally, so much the better! For yourself, try to find in this conversation the opportunity to learn something about yourself and learn something. If a person once misunderstood your behavior or words, then try to explain what you had in mind. It is possible that through this conversation you will learn something new about yourself, which you did not even suspect, and which you should think about. During the conversation, make sure that the other person believes in you; Try to get an honest answer if you convinced him. What you did not even know, and what you should think about. During the conversation, make sure that the other person believes in you; Try to get an honest answer if you convinced him. What you did not even know, and what you should think about. During the conversation, make sure that the other person believes in you; Try to get an honest answer if you convinced him.

Try to make a step towards this person - at least a kind word. If we are talking about a person about whom you can say that he does not know how to communicate with people (perhaps he says strange things, jokes out of place or quickly “breaks down” and becomes aggressive), then you need to keep in mind that the so-called “low emotional the intellect of this person is a problem for himself, and he himself knows about this problem, but he cannot do anything. Such people see the danger in others - so let him feel comfortable, safe. Believe me, they themselves are interested in quiet coexistence, they simply cannot provide this themselves. So, just try to take the first step forward. If your relationship does not improve, and the person does not want to reconsider his role in your relationship, then it is worth trying to convey to him that “flies are separate, cutlets are separate,” namely, that his personal attitude towards you should not interfere with work. If after all you still see that the hostility of this colleague to you prevents you from doing your work, you should talk about it with the boss, while avoiding open rooting.

We have considered a situation in which you know that a colleague or partner is passively aggressive towards you. And what if you are not sure about this - how then to calculate a passive-aggressive-minded colleague? I will name a few possible indicators:

  • Body language: when someone frankly turns away while you start speaking during a meeting, rolls eyes, crosses hands or moves away from the table, or avoids eye contact with you all the time, then you have the right to suspect passive aggression in a person. It is difficult to make an unequivocal list of all manifestations of this through body language, so I recommend reading the literature on this topic and watching it yourself;
  • Frequent sarcasm in response to your suggestions or replicas in general;
  • Regular delay, ignoring and non-fulfillment of your requests, often accompanied by all new excuses;
  • Frankly ignoring your presence during the discussion of issues, both business and personal.

Of course, this list is incomplete, but contains one of the most frequent manifestations of passive aggression in the workplace by colleagues.

To calculate passive aggression in others is important, but it is equally important to keep track of your words and actions through this prism, and if you feel that what you have said can be misunderstood, better explain right away what you meant, so as not to sow the grain of doubt in other people.

How to deal with passive aggression among subordinates?


This considered case has one peculiarity as compared to the previous ones, because carriers of passive aggression, if they are individuals, should be addressed differently than if your entire team was affected by this ailment. If this is a problem for the team as a whole, then the question of the efficiency of the processes and the motivation of employees is particularly acute.

How to determine that passive aggression reigns in your team? Most likely, your employees almost do not conflict - that is, they do not express their own opinion, do not object, do not enter into disputes. Such groups are mired in endless gossip - and about you, that is, the authorities, of course, too - that is, negative emotions are expressed only in a passive form. Some employees may take a lot of obligations, but none of them fulfill, and instead of reasons, they only find excuses: misunderstood, did not have time, someone else is to blame and everything like that.

To fight passive aggression in your team, you need to take two big steps:

  1. Create opportunities for direct contact with employees. At meetings, if you see on non-verbal signs that your subordinates disagree with you, pay attention to this out loud. If you know that you often complain behind your back, think about the reasons for this scenario. Before general meetings, try to collect opinions of employees about the state of affairs in the company and assess their management actions through open polls in order to openly discuss them. Radiate sincerity and openness, and watch for their gestures, and for the reaction of employees.
  2. Create the conditions for productive discussions. During the meetings, emphasize what you would like to hear from everyone your opinion on the subject under discussion. Use such formulations to push critics to "open up." Focus on the fact that after this discussion there will be no private discussion behind the scenes - and keep your word. If during the meetings someone ventured to express doubts about your proposals, then support them by offering to talk about it and discuss the problem from this new angle.

Be decisive in your struggle with passive aggression, because this way out of the comfort zone will bring you a decrease in the degree of resentment and gossip in the team, greater readiness for open discussion, and, as a result, an increase in the speed of decision making, release of time and growth of innovation in the company.

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