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5 Ways to Limit Workplace Frustration

Guest post by: Sylvia Lafair

Article Overview: Make a list of the things that annoy you most at work. I bet they would include things we could all classify as "petty". Many of us often compartmentalize and say they are not bothered. Others, more often than not, will want to discuss with a friend yet never go directly to the person or persons that caused the upset. Our past experiences pop up to haunt us in a thousand small ways and rarely are we prepared to see what is super old, and what is from just today. This article has 5 ways to limit the frustration in the workplace.

5 Ways to Limit Workplace Frustration

Make a list of the things that annoy you most at work. I bet they would include things we could all classify as "petty". Stuff like leaving the coffee area a mess, or having someone answer you in a condescending tone, or not answering an email you marked urgent till much later in the day, or ignoring you and saying hi to a colleague as you both walk down the hall.

The prevalence of workplace conflict, played out again and again is not really made up of dramatic acts of violence, but of incidents of covert conflict that make us feel awful. Our hurt feelings are real, yet, they often seem over the top in comparison with the situations that triggered them.

Many of us often compartmentalize and say they are not bothered. Others, more often than not, will want to discuss with a friend yet never go directly to the person or persons that caused the upset.

One executive I coached put it this way, "Everyone was so frustrated, a schism developed in our team and kept us from really working together for weeks. It all boiled down to a petty thing that grown-ups should be able to resolve on their own, things like being excluded from a birthday lunch."

However, and this is a big however, these "petty things" mask far deeper emotional struggles that have carried over from when we were small - struggles relating to our families' anxiety to keep tensions and stressors underground.

It might seem as if a conflict between co-workers is about exclusion from a birthday lunch, but for at least one of them the situation may evoke associations with a stern and uncaring father, for another, a memory of parents who could not even enter a restaurant because of race.

Our past experiences pop up to haunt us in a thousand small ways and rarely are we prepared to see what is super old, and what is from just today. Here are 5 ways to check on where the upset belongs and diminish frustration:

1. Stop: take a few minutes to check your biological reaction. If you feel nervous, sad, and angry for more than five minutes you are in a place of a memory rather than just in the moment.
2. Start: to write down your reaction to the present situation and then go back and write about a similar reaction within the past months.
3. Stop: and think about what you would like to say to the person/persons who have upset you.
4. Start: to find time for a live conversation with those who are causing you the upset
5. Start: to look at the patterns that get in the way of clear communication and practice practice, practice new ways of talking with colleagues.

This may help; there is a neurological basis for why potent memory traces persist so long and give rise to behavior patternsplayed out in the work setting. Eric Kandel, winner of the Nobel Prize in medicine, has shown that when specific behaviors are repeated over and over, the involved brain cells are stimulated to grow dendrites (extensions) to connect with each other. Hebb's Law states that "neurons that fire together wire together."

So, with enough repetitions the behavior becomes an ingrained pattern, and when something happens in the present that recalls past experience, the entire network of dendrites is activated. Our patterned behavior is replicated even in a situation that is very different, superficially at least, from the original one.

Pay attention! When you can be accountable for your personal behavior and see where the old is taking over, you can change it. Your frustration level will lower and you will be a great example of positive leadership.

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Article Tags: Behavior Patterns, Conflict, Conflict Resolution, Leaders, Leadership, Workplace, Workplace Relationships



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