"Go Direct"

Why do we emphasize filling buckets and going direct?

Bob Sutton explains that bad can be stronger than good in a workplace (and all relationships):

Research by Will Felps and his colleagues on "bad apples" is instructive. (You can hear him talk about it on This American Life). Felps decided to look at the effect of toxic colleagues on work groups, including what I would call deadbeats ("withholders of effort"), downers (who "express pessimism, anxiety, insecurity, and irritation," a toxic breed of de-energizers), and assholes (who violate "interpersonal norms of respect"). His estimates that a team with just one person in any of these categories suffers a performance disadvantage of 30% to 40% compared to teams that have no bad apples.

Similarly, another study by Andrew Miner and his colleagues tracked employees' moods, and found that the impact on an employee's feelings of a negative interaction with the boss or a coworker was five times stronger than that of a positive interaction.

So, negative interactions (and the bad apples that provoke them) pack a real wallop in relationships at work and elsewhere. They are distracting, emotionally draining, and deflating. When a group does interdependent work, rotten apples drag down and infect everyone else.

Don’t complain. Go direct!

"The void created by the failure to communicate is soon filled with poison, drivel and misrepresentation."

— C. Northcote Parkinson

Are you annoyed with one of your colleagues? Do you find yourself wanting to talk about them with co-workers? Do you want leave a passive-aggressive note? Fire off an email to call them out and put them in their place? Go straight to the top because you’re friends with the boss?

DON’T do it. Here’s what to do instead:

Take your own inventory. Have you contributed to the problem in some way? Be prepared to take responsibility for your part.

Are you making assumptions about the motives of the other person? Is it possible that your information is incomplete and you are filling in the blanks with assumptions? Ask yourself, why a decent, hard-working ally would do that? This will help you stop thinking about them as a villain and start thinking about them as a human.

Go direct. That’s right, speak directly (Phone or in-person rather than by email.) to the individual involved and express your concerns and work toward resolution. Go to the conversation assuming good intentions, with questions rather than conclusions and be prepared to listen. It might take a simple, “I noticed that yesterday you felt really strongly about X in staff meeting. Can you tell me a little more about where you’re coming from on that?” Often, intentions and understandings become clearer and the conflict is over before it really begins. If you aren’t satisfied with the outcome, then...

Talk to your supervisor. Your supervisor will ask you whether you’ve gone direct, so be sure to do that first. Your supervisor may ask you to put it in writing - write down exactly what your concern is, and what you’ve done so far to address it. Your supervisor may also ask you to meet with the other person again, with the supervisor present. If you still aren’t satisfied with the outcome, then...

Present your issues to the Clinical Director or President. The Clinical Director or President will arrange a meeting with you and the other party. This is the final spot to reach resolution

Keep in mind that:

Everyone who has made a decision to work at Dawn Farm has made a commitment to upholding Dawn Farm’s Values and Ethics. We are committed to holding ourselves and everyone else accountable to that commitment.

Interpersonal problems, conflict and frustration are normal obstacles. While we all wish it wasn’t so, we recognize that people will sometimes fall short of expectations.

In the spirit of effective teamwork, we are committed to addressing these problems quickly, constructively and most importantly, directly.

We know it takes courage and determination to act directly to work difficult issues through to resolution. We have to practice what we preach. We ask clients to deal with conflicts in a direct manner, and we ask that you do too.

If one of us is falling short in our work, please let us know how we can improve.

We understand that if each of us does not follow through with the process, we are choosing to accept and support the very behavior or work problems with which we are frustrated.

* Supervisors need to know about ethics or policy breaches. However, you can still go direct and let your co-worker know that this is something that needs to be discussed with a supervisor.**This does not apply to harassment. In the case of harassment, you can go directly to the President or Clinical Director.

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