Toxic People: Decontaminate Difficult People at Work Without Using Weapons or Duct Tape (2 page)

Use this TLC approach whether the hair in your biscuit is a person or an annoying situation. When others try to involve you in their problem, create your own environment—and a better outcome—by calmly using the TLC approach.

External Use of TLC

The next time your Toxic Person comes up to you complaining,

“You won’t believe what happened,” and then rants on and on about some problem, you respectfully interrupt and say, “You know what I’ve learned? I’ve learned that I always have three choices. I can take it, leave it, or change it.” (Explain each of these choices.)

“So what’s your plan?” Notice the use of “I” language rather than “you” language. This demonstrates your personal accountability instead of pointing a finger at the other person, and you become a role model.

The Toxic Person may go on with, “Well, you know I have no control.” Again, you respectfully interrupt and say, with the same graciousness you used before, “You know what I’ve learned? I’ve learned that I have three choices. I can take it, leave it, or change it. So what’s your plan?”

The other person then chimes in with, “Well, it’s a jungle out there.” Again you respond, “You know what I’ve learned? I’ve learned that I have three choices. I can take it, leave it, or change it. So what’s your plan?”

You probably are not going to change anyone, but these Toxic People will leave you alone and go suck the life out of someone else, because you are not buying into their behavior. This technique of making the same statement repeatedly is called the
broken record
technique. Keep repeating the same thing using the same tone, pleasantries, and focus. If you are a parent, I’ll bet you use it with your children. You will find out that it is effective at work as well!

Dear Marsha,

I heard you on our monthly learning session. I am a consultant with a multilevel marketer (MLM) and am working to be promoted. I listen to positive, self-affirming information every day. Your idea of the TLC approach is brilliant!

Here is my main problem. I talk to one of my downline people, Marcia, every day. She is the most negative person I know. She constantly complains about how she has too few shows, has exhausted her list of contacts, has too much paperwork, and so on. Everything in her life is a complaint, and of course nothing is ever her fault.

She plays the blame game. I loved your advice about TLC and want to use it with her. I am worried about her response. Do you have any advice for me? She really could be a great producer. I try to help her in many ways, and nothing is ever enough. She absolutely does not buy into my way of thinking. You are what you think about.

Thanks for reading my message and for any advice you can give.

Diane

Here is the response from me, the Decontaminator of Toxic People:

Great to hear from you! Why do you worry about her response? Will it make her more negative? When you approach her using the TLC, you are not being emotional, judgmental, or abrasive. You are just giving her your point of view. When you ask her, “So what’s your plan?,” you are putting the ball in her court.

I also think it is really great to ask negative people whether they just want you to listen or they are looking for solutions. If they are just wanting me to listen, I will say something like, “Okay, I have only two minutes” (or whatever time I want to give them), and if they say they need more, I will tell them that I’m trying hard to stay positive. Then I will go into the TLC! Does this help?

Thanks for using “Ask Marsha” from the web site, and I look forward to hearing from you!

Marsha

The TLC approach works with any Toxic Person. It is also important to identify which toxic type you are dealing with and then tailor the approach to what works best with that type! Remember: They can’t get you unless you let them! Learn to identify which toxic type they are, and then you can choose the best approach. In this book, six types of Toxic People are identified, and you will learn how to spot them, manage the situation, and keep yourself sane.

Chapter 3—The Steamroller: bully, aggressor, always right.

Chapter 4—The Zipper Lip: clam, no response.

Chapter 5—The Backstabber: snake in a suit, psychopath.

Chapter 6—The Know-It-All: arrogant expert, always right.

Chapter 7—The Needy Weenie: wimp, worrywart.

Chapter 8—The Whine and Cheeser: chronic complainer, always negative.

You can probably guess the behaviors associated with each of these, and you may even have names you could attach. Understanding the message they send, how
you
perceive it, and why they choose the behavior is all part of the decontamination process. Each of these Toxic People types will be reviewed in detail.

Liar Liar, Pants on Fire

Liars can be the hair in your biscuit. J.J. Newberry was a trained federal agent, skilled in the art of deception detection. So when a witness to a shooting sat in front of him and tried to tell him that when she heard gunshots she didn’t look, she just ran, he could tell she was lying. How did Newberry reach this conclusion? By recognizing telltale signs that a person isn’t being honest, like inconsistencies in a story, behavior that is different from a person’s norm, or too much detail in an explanation. In this case, her described behavior didn’t match what people typically do when a sound startles them. From birth, individuals with normal hearing will react by immediately turning in the direction of the sound.

While using these signs to catch a liar takes extensive training and practice, it’s no longer only for authorities like Newberry. Now you can become good at identifying dishonesty, and it’s not as hard as you might think. Here are 10 tips.

LOOK FOR INCONSISTENCIES

Listen for inconsistencies in what people are saying. This means you have to really hear their message. Newberry was questioning a woman who said she ran and hid after hearing gunshots—without looking—and Newberry saw the inconsistency immediately.

“There was something that just didn’t fit,” says Newberry. “She heard gunshots, but she didn’t look? I knew that was inconsistent with how a person would respond to a situation like that.” So, when she wasn’t paying attention, he banged on the table. She looked right at him. “When a person hears a noise, it’s a natural reaction to look toward it,” Newberry said. “I knew she heard those gunshots, looked in the direction from which they came, saw the shooter, and
then
ran.” Sure enough, he was right.

He knew her story was illogical. You need to look for inconsistencies if you think someone is not being truthful. Is there anything that just doesn’t fit? The key here is to pay attention to what they are saying rather than trying to figure out what you will say next. (More on listening in Chapter 11, “Listen Up!”)

ASK THE UNEXPECTED

Did you know that approximately 4 percent of people are accomplished liars? To catch them, you have to be more clever than they are. What would be great is to have a lie-o-meter or a Pinocchio-reader ring. Since neither of these is available, you have to use your questioning and observational skills.

Use your eyes and watch them carefully. When they least expect it, shift the conversation with a question they do not anticipate and listen for their response. Have you tripped them up? Are they stammering? Do they lose eye contact? Watch their body language, and if they start to lean or step back, this can be a good indicator. Excessive eye blinking is also a sign. (But beware—they may just be nervous.) If you do detect a combination of these peculiarities, you may have caught them in a lie!

DOES THEIR BEHAVIOR CHANGE?

When you know someone, be alert for changes in behavior. If someone who is generally calm all of a sudden becomes fidgety, this is a red flag that sends you a message of behavioral change. Or perhaps someone who usually is very quick-paced and talks at a rapid rate suddenly appears to be moving more slowly and their speech pattern slows down.

“One of the most important indicators of dishonesty is changes in behavior,” says Maureen O’Sullivan, PhD, a professor of psychology at the University of San Francisco. “You want to pay attention to someone who is generally anxious but now looks calm, or someone who is generally calm but now looks anxious.”

The trick is to gauge their behavior against a baseline. Is their behavior deviating from how they would normally act? If it is, that could mean something is up.

LOOK FOR INSINCERE EMOTIONS

Have you ever faked a smile? Of course you have! Most people can’t fake a smile convincingly. You have detected a fake smile when the timing was wrong, the smile was held too long, or it was incongruent with the situation. O’Sullivan says, “Maybe it will be a combination of an angry face with a smile; you can tell because their lips are smaller and less full than in a sincere smile.” These fake emotions are a good indicator that something has gone amiss.

PAY ATTENTION TO GUT REACTIONS

Your gut reaction is a result of all the experiences you have had. This includes the good, the bad, and the ugly. When you hear those voices in your head warning, “Beware!,” listen to them. Events and people in your past have done or said something memorable that became a frame of reference for you. When all these frames become a reel of film, they speak in the form of gut reaction or intuition.

Beatrice was an excellent caregiver, and Jeff’s mom, Sophia, always looked forward to her scheduled time. Christmas Eve was traditionally a family event with neighbors dropping into Sophia’s home to savor homemade cookies and champagne. Beatrice surprised Jeff by staying past her scheduled time. Her behavior was also a shock, as she imbibed too much and became quite different. She apologized the next day, and Jeff let it pass. However, his gut told him to beware.

Jeff started paying closer attention to Beatrice’s behavior. About
two months later, he was notified that she had lied and had not taken care of Mom for an entire day—leaving Sophia alone! The service that employed Beatrice was very apologetic and asked Jeff what he wanted to do. Their recommendation was to terminate her. Although difficult to do, Jeff knew firing her was appropriate.

While you might not know what it is you’re seeing when you think someone isn’t being honest and you might attribute it to suspicion or instinct, a scientist would be able to pinpoint it exactly, which leads us to the next tip.

WATCH FOR MICROEXPRESSIONS

When you have a gut feeling, Paul Ekman, PhD, a renowned expert in lie detection, sees microexpressions. “A microexpression is a very brief expression, usually about a 25th of a second, that is always a concealed emotion,” says Ekman.

When someone is acting happy but in actuality is upset about something, the true emotion is revealed in a flash on the face.

Whether the concealed emotion is fear, anger, happiness, or jealousy, that feeling will appear on the face and be gone in the blink of an eye. The trick is for you to see it on other people.

“Almost everyone—99 percent of those we’ve tested in about 10,000 people—won’t see the microexpressions,” says Ekman. “But it can be taught.”

In fact, in less than an hour, the average person can learn to see microexpressions. Develop this skill and you will have a powerful tool for interacting with others. Google Microexpressions for more information.

LOOK FOR CONTRADICTIONS

Do their words match their facial expressions and their postures?

Paying attention will help you to identify contradictions and incongruities. Watch and listen carefully to a Toxic Person.

Your tendency is to play the mental terrorism game and think about all the ways you are going to get back at them.

Sometimes when people are falsely saying, “Yes,
she
’s the one who lied,” they will, without knowing it, make a slight head shake “no.” That subtle gesture contradicts what they’re saying in words.

These contradictions, explains Ekman, can be between the voice and the words, the gesture and the voice, the gesture and the words, or the facial expression and the words. When you see a contradiction, watch out. Something isn’t quite adding up. They could be lying.

NOTICE A SENSE OF UNEASE

You can see untruthful people beginning to squirm. Watch their breathing. Are their shoulders moving up and down more than usual? If so, they are breathing shallowly, probably because of nervousness. Licking the lips too much, fidgeting, sweating, shifting from foot to foot, all can be signs of anxiety and uneasiness. You have to pay attention to the other person, not yourself!

Listen for vocal interjections. Too many “um’s,” “uh’s,” or “you know’s” can be indicators that they are searching for more words to cover up their lies.

BEWARE OF TOO MUCH DETAIL

You have heard children include extra detail to cover their tracks and lies. Adults also do this when lying, but they are much more clever about it. Wordiness may be a behavioral and vocal trait, though, so beware of jumping to conclusions. In most cases, however, it is not and is used when people want to fill the airspace for their own reasons. Too much detail could mean they’ve put a lot of thought into how they’re going to get out of a situation and they’ve constructed a complicated lie as a solution.

DON’T IGNORE THE TRUTH

When the environment is toxic, you must be aware of when someone is
telling the truth
. Experience and the negative frames of reference can begin to jaundice you into thinking there is no truth.

While it sounds contradictory, finding the truth buried under a lie can sometimes help reveal the answer to an important question: Why is a person lying?

These 10 truth tips all help detect deception. What they don’t do is tell you why a person is lying and what the lie means.

This is where your experience and training in human behavior will help you understand if emotions are concealed. When you think someone is lying, you have to either know the person well enough to understand why they might lie, or be a people expert.

Learn to speed-read people, their expressions, and their approaches.

Make it more about them and less about you. I believe that in today’s society most people are so focused on themselves that they don’t function well in any situation, especially difficult ones.