September 21, 2005	Volume 5, Issue 38
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My Boss Is Driving Me Nuts

by Rick Brenner

When things go badly, many of us experience stress, and we might indulge various appetites in harmful ways. Some of us say things like "My boss is driving me nuts," or "She made me so angry." These explanations are rarely legitimate.

andy unlocked and opened the driver's side door, pushed the button to unlock the passenger door for Ed, and they both hopped into the car. They buckled up silently, while Sandy started the engine, put the car in gear, and moved out of the parking space toward the parking lot exit. Sandy felt it was best to wait for Ed to speak.

Finally, Ed did. "Well, at least it's over."

Sandy tried to be both supportive and honest. It was difficult: "Yes, it is over."

More silence. At a stoplight, Ed added, "If Alton hadn't made me so nervous, I could have explained the problem more clearly."

Ed's model of what went wrong is that Alton's actions made him nervous, and that caused his failure to perform. Perhaps. But we hear these explanations more often than they actually apply. Here are some other similar explanations:

• My boss is driving me nuts
• You made me so mad
• She destroyed my self-esteem
• I couldn't get a word in edgewise
• He left me no choice

In most cases,
these explanations
are invalidIn most cases, these explanations are invalid. Let's suppose that Ed believes that his boss is driving him nuts. Unless his boss has him incarcerated or physically restrained, it's an unlikely scenario. To actually drive someone nuts requires great skill and significant time and resources.

It's more likely that his boss is doing some things that are pretty abusive, and that Ed is using those things to drive himself nuts. If that's what's happening, all Ed has to do to keep from going nuts is to stop doing that.

When we tell ourselves that someone else is doing it, we're telling our brains to look in the wrong place for the cause. That way, we can do what we want to ourselves without getting caught at it.

In a strange way, believing that other people have direct control over us is very liberating. It frees us to harm ourselves without feeling guilty or stupid about doing it. So for instance, if my boss is saying horrible things about me in front of others, I can use that to destroy my own self-esteem, and gain an excuse to eat cheeseburgers with fries, which is what I really wanted to do. Then I can blame my boss for making me sick and fat. The reality is much simpler: I ate the cheeseburgers myself. And the fries.

And there's another neat trick — we not only relieve ourselves of responsibility for our own actions, but we also "escape" responsibility for dealing with the consequences.

I have a small metal mirror on my desk. It's a memento with other meanings, but it also reminds me that when I want to shift responsibility to others, I ought to check my own choices first. If you get something similar for yourself, please don't think I made you do it.  Top    Next Issue

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More articles on Personal, Team and Organizational Effectiveness:

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How to Make Meetings Worth Attending

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See also Personal, Team and Organizational Effectiveness and Critical Thinking for more related articles.

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The Race to the South Pole: Ten Lessons for Project Managers

On 14 December 1911, four men led by Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole. Thirty-five days later, Robert F. Scott and four others followed. Amundsen had won the race to the pole. Amundsen's party returned to base on 26 January 1912. Scott's party perished. As historical drama, why this happened is interesting enough, but to project managers, the story is fascinating. Lessons abound. Read more about this program. Here are some upcoming dates for this program:

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  your calendarCrowne Plaza Hotel, Cromwell, CT: September 15, Monthly Meeting, Southern New England Chapter of the Project Management Institute. Register now.
   
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  your calendarOverland Park Convention Center, 6000 College Blvd., Overland Park, KS 66211: October 4, Professional Development Day, Kansas City Chapter of the Project Management Institute. Register now.
   
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• Download to
  your calendarMITRE, in Bedford, MA: February 15, 2011, Monthly Meeting, Boston SPIN.
   

Organizational Politics for People Who Hate Politics

Have you ever felt powerless to implement an important new idea? Have you ever been "blind-sided" at a meeting? Have you ever lost two good employees because you could find no way to keep them from attacking each other? These are some of the issues of organizational politics. Many of us have become enmeshed in them from time to time, but we've also known some people who seem to be able to engage and prosper. How is that done? We'll inventory the challenges of organizational politics, and provide tools for anticipating and addressing them. The focus of this program is practical — attendees learn concrete techniques for dealing with the problems that arise in workplace politics, while keeping their integrity intact. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarOverland Park Convention Center, 6000 College Blvd., Overland Park, KS 66211: October 5, Professional Development Day, Kansas City Chapter of the Project Management Institute. Register now.
   

Managing Virtual Teams for Real Results

Managing global or dispersed teams is challenging — miscommunications, misunderstandings, and interpersonal conflict all thrive in the typical environment of the distributed team. And they're even more common in global teams, because of time-zone offsets and language and cultural differences. We'll inventory the challenges distributed and global teams face, and provide tools for anticipating and addressing them. The focus of this program is practical — attendees will learn concrete techniques for preventing and dealing with the problems that accompany global and distributed teams. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

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  your calendarPortland World Trade Center: October 18, Conference, Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference.
   

Person-to-Person Communications: Models and Applications

When we talk, listen, send or read emails, read or write memos, or when we leave or listen to voice mail messages, we're communicating person-to-person. And whenever we communicate person-to-person, we risk being misunderstood, offending others, feeling hurt, and being confused. There are so many ways for things to go wrong that we could never learn how to fix all the problems. A more effective approach avoids problems altogether, or at least minimizes their occurrence. In this very interactive program we'll explain — and show you how to use — a model of inter-personal communications that can help you stay out of the ditch. We'll place particular emphasis on a very tricky situation — saying no to power. In those moments of intense involvement, when we're most likely to slip, you'll have a new tool to use to keep things constructive. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

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  your calendarPortland World Trade Center: October 19, Conference, Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference.
   

Person-to-Person Communication for Project Managers

When we talk, listen, send or read emails, read or write memos, or when we leave or listen to voice mail messages, we're communicating person-to-person. And whenever we communicate person-to-person, we risk being misunderstood, offending others, feeling hurt, and being confused. There are so many ways for things to go wrong that we could never learn how to fix all the problems. A more effective approach avoids problems altogether, or at least minimizes their occurrence. In this very interactive program you'll learn a model of inter-personal communications that can help you stay out of the ditch. In those moments of intense involvement, when we're most likely to slip, you'll have a new tool to use to keep things constructive. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarMarist College, 3399 North Road, Poughkeepsie, NY 12601: October 22, Professional Development Day, Hudson Valley Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   

The Race to the South Pole: Lessons in Risk Management for Leaders

On 14 December 1911, four men led by Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole. Thirty-five days later, Robert F. Scott and four others followed. Amundsen had won the race to the pole. Amundsen's party returned to base on 26 January 1912. Scott's party perished. As historical drama, why this happened is interesting enough. But to organizational leaders and project managers, the story is fascinating. We'll use the history of this event to explore lessons in risk management and its application to organizational efforts. A fascinating and refreshing look at risk management from the vantage point of history. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarWherever you are: it's a teleseminar: February 2, 2011, Teleseminar, Computer Aid, Inc. (CAI).
   

The Organizational Politics of Risk Management

Organizational politics presents a risk not often accounted for by risk models. It creates one of the many components of risk management risk — the risk that the risk management process itself is inadequate. Political considerations can lead to risk products that seem acceptable but which are fatally flawed; or worse, the risk products are plainly unserviceable, but everyone chooses not to acknowledge the problem. In this program we'll examine how organizational politics influences risk management, and discuss several measures for mitigating its effects. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarWherever you are: it's a teleseminar: September 1, 2011, Teleseminar, Computer Aid, Inc. (CAI).