millbank Posted October 30, 2006 Posted October 30, 2006 The No !@#$ Rule How to indentify a !@#$ Suttons’s dirty-dozen list of everyday !@#$ actions: 1. Personal insults 2. Invading one’s personal territory 3. Uninvited personal contact 4. Threats and intimidation, both verbal and non-verbal 5. Sarcastic jokes and teasing used as insult delivery systems 6. Withering email flames 7. Status slaps intended to humiliate their victims 8. Public shaming or status degradation rituals 9. Rude interruptions 10. Two-faced attacks 11. Dirty looks 12. Treating people as if they are invisible To Avoid being one, 1. Face your past. The past is a very good predictor of future behavior. For example, were you a bully in school? If your parents and siblings were !@#$s, you may have caught the disease. Knowing that you’re an !@#$ is first step towards change. 2. Do not make people feel oppressed, humiliated, de-energized, or belittled. If you find yourself having these effects, it’s time to change your behavior no matter what you think of yourself. 3. Do not mistreat people who are less powerful than you. One of the sure signs of an !@#$ is treating people like clerks, flight attendants, and waiters in a degrading manner. 4. Resist !@#$holics from the start. The easiest time to avoid becoming an !@#$ is at the very beginning. Don’t think that you can do “what you have to” to fit in and can change later. It won’t happen. 5. Walk away and stay away. Don’t be afraid to leave a bad situation. It’s unlikely you’ll change the !@#$s into good people; it’s much more likely that you’ll descend to their level. 6. View acting like an !@#$ as a communicable disease. If you have any sense of decency, when you’re sick, you avoid contact to prevent spreading the disease. So if you act like an !@#$, you’re not just impacting yourself; you’re also teaching other people that it’s okay to be an !@#$. 7. Focus on win-win. Children (young and old) think that the world is a zero-sum game. If another kid is playing with the fire truck, you can’t. As people get older they should realize that life doesn’t have to be a win-lose proposition--unless, that is, you’re an !@#$. 8. Focus on ways you are no better or even worse than others. Thinking that you’re smarter, faster, better looking, funnier, whatever than others turns people into !@#$s. Thinking that you’re no better or even worse keeps you humble. 9. Focus on ways you are similar to people, not different. If you concentrate on how you and others have similar goals, desires, and passions, you’re bound to be less of an !@#$. How can you treat people that are similar to you with disdain? 10. Tell yourself, “I have enough stuff (money, toys, friends, cars, whatever).” Discontentment and envy is a major factor in becoming an !@#$. If you’re happy, there’s no reason to stomp on others. To Deal with one, 1. Hope for the best, but expect the worst. One of the most frustrating aspects of dealing with !@#$s is that they disappoint you--making you wonder the very value of humans. Lowering your expectations can help reduce disappointment. Don’t solely lower your expectations, though, or you will slip into cynicism (and possibly turn into an !@#$ too.) Continue to hope for the best. 2. Develop indifference and emotional detachment. Sutton may be the only author who has the insight and courage to recommend that being indifferent and detached may be a good thing in work environments. If it permits you to survive, then it is. In other words, don’t let the jerks get to you. 3. Look for small wins. Small victories can keep you going. Most !@#$s pride themselves in total control and absolute domination. Any victory, no matter how small, can keep you going. Rest assured that small victories can lead to winning the war. 4. Limit your exposure. You can do what you can to avoid meetings and interactions with !@#$s. This involves finding or building pockets of “safety, support, and sanity,” to use Sutton’s words. He cites an example of a nurse’s lounge as a refuge from an !@#$ doctor. 5. Expose them. In Sutton’s blog he mentions Marge’s !@#$ Management Metric. This refers to four-point system from 0 to 3. Marge, the boss, would point to people who were behaving like !@#$s and hold up one, two, or three fingers according to this code: * 1 = You are a normal person who can occasionally assert yourself on an issue you are passionate about, but you handle yourself in a non-confrontational way in nearly all occasions. * 2 = You can consistently assert yourself in a non-confrontational way and are occasionally an !@#$, but you feel horrible about it afterwards, and you may or may not apologize (but you probably will have to confess your remorse to someone). * 3 = You can consistently be an !@#$ and you either do not recognize this or you simply enjoy it. By the way, 0 in her system means this: You are a very nice person, and very passive. No one can say a word against you and would never think to call you an !@#$. If you are safe in your position, then calling !@#$s out is a good way to deal with them. 6. De-escalate and re-educate. This strategy requires that the !@#$ you’re dealing with isn’t a “chronic,” “certified,” and “flagrant” !@#$. It means meeting !@#$ behavior with calmness (instead of either similar behavior or fear) and trying to re-educate the person about how he’s behaving. 7. Stand up to them. Funny thing about !@#$s: Standing up to them shouldn’t necessarily scare you. While I was an Apple employee, I was in a meeting with a highly placed Apple exec and Apple’s ad agency. The ad agency person showed the new television spots and said he’d give a copy to the Apple exec and me. The Apple exec told the agency person not to give one to me. I spoke up: “Are you saying you don’t trust me?” The Apple exec answered: “Yes.” To which I replied, “That’s okay because I don’t trust you either.” You know what? The sun rose the next day, and my family still loved me.
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