The personality trap
Navigating challenging encounters is tough. Ease into it by focusing on the behaviour, not the person.
By Jim Buckell
When we ask people in groups how they respond to someone whose behaviour is a challenge, they often say to us, “Oh, that’s just their personality”. It’s as if they don’t expect any better … That’s just the way they are; we have to suck it up.
But people can change, and they are more likely to make the effort if we let them know their behaviour is not working for us. One of our principles at Groupwork Centre is: “Everyone has the capacity for insight and transformation”.
If we back away from a tricky conversation with someone who strays too far from what is reasonable, they will continue to get away with poor behaviour – and we will pay the price. It could be argued that we let them get away by not stepping into the responsibility of taking action.
When harmful behaviour goes unchecked, we end up feeling resentful, hurt or we avoid the person entirely because it’s all too difficult. When we don’t get along with a colleague it makes it harder to achieve our goals, whether it’s at work or in groups we are part of. Everyone suffers.
This is why we say a better frame to use in place of “personality” is “behaviour”, because behaviour can be changed. Personality tends to be something we think of as fixed and unchangeable.
We need to be able to draw on a range of skills to manage poor behaviour – and we have to approach the discussion in a way that makes it easy for them to hear our concerns. These skills can be learned, helping us gain the confidence to have courageous conversations and set standards of behaviour that work for everyone.
Why it’s so hard
There are good reasons we consign poor behaviour to the too-hard basket of personality. It’s often a choice we make because talking one-on-one with the person involved is one of the trickiest tasks we will ever take on.
We might not feel confident about giving someone feedback in a way that works – for us and for them. The perpetrator might be a serial offender with impenetrable walls built up over time, or they might be extremely sensitive to feedback, making any headway difficult.
Perhaps our biggest fear is that we know it will be uncomfortable, which is itself a sign that we are doing something significant and rewarding. As US researcher and writer Brené Brown famously says, “You can choose comfort or you can choose courage, but you cannot choose both.”
Absolutely, challenging poor behaviour requires courage. At times, we may feel nervous or vulnerable as we do this. These feelings are perfectly natural and, again, signs that big breakthroughs are within our reach.
Power plays
What else might be going on that makes all of this difficult? Sometimes there is a power dynamic at play. The perpetrator might be older, bigger, louder or have a senior position or an important-sounding title.
Or we might be cautious because too often we’ve been dismissed or even belittled for sticking up for ourselves. Retorts like “I’m joking. Get over it!” are often signals that a person is hiding from scrutiny and won’t take responsibility for their behaviour, regardless of how you feel.
Other times there may be subconscious dynamics at play: projection or deflection – “It’s your problem, not mine!”
For all these reasons, we need to be at our best, centred in our Wise One, when dealing with challenges of this kind.
Skills we can draw on
Even in the trickiest of circumstances, there are almost always things we can do. We can draw on a range of microskills: noticing and naming, wondering, validating, summarising and clarifying, say more, standing by (ourselves, them and/or the group).
We can use some helpful processes and tools. For example, agreements that have been mutually worked out set a standard we can all try our best to live up to. Hearable messages and models for dealing with conflict are invaluable guide rails when the going gets tough.
Cushioning and leaning in
The tone of our voice and the body language we convey are critical too. How we have these conversations is just as important as what we say.
As Groupwork co-founder Glen Ochre would often say to us: “When you have something difficult to tell someone, put a cushion underneath it.” A gentle approach – curious, open and leaning in to truly listen – signals we are coming from a good place. A place of goodwill and compassion, not of anger, resentment or self-righteousness.
Safety first
In more extreme cases of aggressive or threatening behaviour – and fortunately these are rare – safety can become an issue. If that’s the case, our first response must always be to protect ourselves and others from potential harm – physical or emotional. When things get seriously troublesome we will need to withdraw.
We may occasionally encounter people who simply don’t possess the empathy or remorse to address our concerns. This can be highly confronting because it’s outside our understanding of human nature. If this happens, we have little choice but to back out and seek help from the support available to us in our workplace or organisation.
People are not their behaviours
Fortunately, as we know in our hearts, there are far more empaths than psychopaths. We will have some exceedingly difficult interactions from time to time. But most people will get it when we make the effort to find the right way to reach them.
People are not their behaviours. We are all a rich and intriguing mix drawn from our experiences and our interactions with each other, and the feelings and thoughts these encounters evoke.
Assessing tricky encounters from the frame of “personality” too easily locks us into an unhelpful mindset. One that says it’s all too hard and too scary to be able to change how any of us behave towards each other.
When we have a breakthrough in communication as a result of a courageous conversation done well, we begin to truly understand the power of the connection we create when we come from our wise and centred heart space. It’s so worth a try!
The skills and tools mentioned in this post are covered in our courses on challenging behaviour, tricky conversations, conflict resolution and facilitation skills. Find out more on our website.