It’s Not Always Good to Talk!

The Office Chatterbox

On a recent course I was asked by a participant, ‘How can you politely get away from people at work who keep talking at you?’ There was much laughter as each one of us immediately brought to mind people we knew who button hole us and whom we can’t seem to get away from!

It is a serious point though. Most of the time at work we want to maintain an ongoing, amicable and professional relationship with work colleagues. We don’t want to hurt their feelings and create a bad atmosphere.

A Couple of Tips

One tip is to get in first. As you see them bearing down on you say, ‘Hi, I’ve got five minutes before I must get on with …whatever.’ Then pay them really good attention for those 5 minutes and in 4 minutes glance at your watch. If they don’t take the hint you may have to bring your assertiveness skills into play.

Appearance Is Key

Use their name to get their attention: tell them it’s been good to have a break from your work but now you must get back to it. Remember that in terms of how messages are received the actual words you use are not that important. In fact they account for about 7% of the total. Your tone of voice is important too but a whopping 55% is all about your appearance and body language. So don’t act as if you are doing something wrong or behave too apologetically. It’s perfectly reasonable to get on with your work. You don’t want to be rude but neither do you want to feel that your time is not your own.

If you are sitting, stand. You may break eye contact as you look towards your desk. Direct eye contact is often seen as an invitation to speak. Slightly turn your body in the direction in which you want to go. Put your hand on your watch, subtly drawing attention to the time. Try only to look at it when you are speaking so it appears as if it’s your time to speak you are curtailing, not theirs.

If you really find it difficult to get away without hurting their feelings you may have to have a conversation with yourself about the value of your time, and maybe how much you value yourself. If you are in an open plan office you maybe could initiate a general discussion about how people indicate to others they are happy to be interrupted. And, more importantly, when they don’t want to be!

And eventually, if all else fails, you may just have to be fairly blunt and say you find it distracting and could they please stop!

Have an Empathy Day!

How About a Day Honing your Empathy Skills?

Empathy is easily confused with sympathy and their meanings are very similar. Indeed, some dictionaries will even give you almost identical meanings.

This is my understanding of the differences. When we are being sympathetic we are expressing our feelings of sorrow and pity for someone else’s misfortune. We are sorry for them.

When we are being empathetic we are trying to put ourselves in their shoes and understand the position they hold, or find themselves in. We don’t necessarily sympathise or agree with their view, but we will try to understand it.

An Example

For example, when I worked with young offenders it was helpful for me to try and empathise without condoning. I tried for a while to put myself in their shoes and understand why they behaved as they did. But I didn’t sympathise! Being empathetic did not mean that I was agreeing with what they did.

Difficult Work Colleague?

If you have a colleague that sometimes irks you or that you find difficult to deal with, try being empathetic for a day. Try to develop your skills and ‘read’ them emotionally by creatively imagining yourself in their shoes. Try to suspend your usual judgements about them and really listen to what they are saying.

Ask them questions about their position and try to get to the root of their concerns.  Keep your own feelings on hold for a day while you listen to what they have to say. This will help you lead discussions in a more positive manner and hopefully develop a better relationship for you both. It can also be really useful when you are ’stuck’ in a situation and need to move things forward.

How do you deal with fellow professionals when they are really getting on your wick? I’d love to hear!