How Do You Confront Passive-Aggressive Behavior Professionally?

This episode touches on the theme of Strengthen Culture.

In this episode, we explore both Passive-Aggressive and Aggressively-Passive behaviour. We dig into how and why it exists in our workplaces and, most importantly, how to address it.

Our prescription for this episode is to understand and look to adopt language and policies around Workplace Incivility to give greater impact to confronting Passive-Aggressive behaviour in your workplace.

Past Episode Referenced:
S4 E5: Why Am I So Exhausted After Work Every Day?

S4 E3: How Do I Fix A Competitive Or Hostile Team Culture?

S4 E1: How Do You Create Psychological Safety In Trauma Infused Workplaces?

To talk more about Workplace Incivility, reach out to us at info@roman3.ca or through our LinkedIn page at https://www.linkedin.com/company/roman3

Don't forget to sign up for our New Quarterly Newsletter that launched in the fall of 2024!

About Our Hosts!
James is an experienced business coach with a specialization in HR management and talent attraction and retention. 

Coby is a skilled educator and has an extensive background in building workforce and organizational capacity. 

For a little more on our ideas and concepts, check out our Knowledge Suite or our YouTube Channel, Solutions Explained by Roman 3.

Chapters

• 3:28 Identify
• 9:37 Understand
• 24:27 Resolve

Transcript

ANNOUNCER: 0:00

Breaking down everyday workplace issues and diagnosing the hidden sickness,  not just the obvious symptom. Our hosts, James and Coby.

COBY: 0:10

Did we lose a patient?

JAMES: 0:12

No, that's just my lunch.

COBY: 0:14

Hey, thanks for joining us. I'm Coby, he's James. And let's get started with a question.  How do you confront passive-aggressive behavior.

JAMES: 0:29

Professionally with pure, unfiltered aggression? Next question. maybe professionally.  Professionally, right. Oh, yeah, that's, that's the part that I missed. And yeah,  that would probably be very, very satisfying, but might not reach that threshold of professional.  So as with most, especially like with interpersonal conflicts in the workplace,  really, our answer is going to come down to, like, it's going to have three parts, right? We need to  be able to identify the behaviors. We need to be able to understand where they are coming from,  and then we need to resolve the situation in somewhat of a professional manner, maybe not  with unfiltered aggression and hostility. And if you have been in a leadership role for, well,  pretty much any amount of time, you're probably getting pretty good with the identify angle. it's  the understanding and resolving that that needs a little bit of work. And it's just, I mean,  this topic, man, the amount of passive-aggressive behaviors that we see in the workplace is just  staggering. And personally, as someone who this is going to come as a surprise tends towards  the more direct confrontational approach, it also needs to be handled with a little bit of finesse.

COBY: 2:01

Yeah, yes, absolutely. No, that's, that's very on brand for you. but yeah,  you're right. This is like, this is a topic that we were excited to talk about because it's again,  like, so much of the podcast content comes from the stuff we see in our everyday practices, the  stuff we see with clients, the, like, culmination and patterns that just seem to keep emerging,  no matter if we're working in governmental stuff or nonprofits or private sector or regardless of,  the industry. It's, it's. Yeah. So, I mean, but this is one of the most pervasive things that  I think that I think we see. So I'm hoping that this is something that people. I'm hoping that you  listening are going to find this conversation helpful and that, you're going to recommend  this episode to other people because there is likely, you know, if we do a good job with this,  there's likely not going to be, you know, so there's likely to be something for here,  for anybody, because this is such a pervasive issue that is everywhere. And you're right.  We're going to go through the steps of identify, understand and resolve. That's  going to be how we're going to get there. but yeah, so I think we'll kind of use those as  kind of our framework to kind of go through. but you're right. If you've been managing,  if you've been managing staff, you've been working with people for more than a few weeks, if.

JAMES: 3:32

You've encountered somebody in your lifetime,  you're probably getting pretty good at identifying passive aggressive behavior.

COBY: 3:40

Yeah, absolutely.

JAMES: 3:43

It's ridiculous. But I mean it is a problem though. Like, like legitimately  passive aggressive behavior in the workplace is a concern. It's a problem m. Because it  is a form of workplace incivility. It is a way of undermining people,  you know, without having to directly confront them. It is gossip. It is,  you know, it, it just, it can tear apart the fabric of an organizational culture.

COBY: 4:16

Right. So I do think that we want to kind of clarify and put some, put some parameters,  maybe not hard definitions around passive aggressive behavior. But I think it's going  to be important for us just to make sure that we're anchoring. It's that everyone's on the  same page hearing about it. Because like again, I do think there's a bit of like with most things  they're kind of out there in the ethos of kind of like, you know, society. Sometimes there's  not a clear understanding of what, what isn't, what constitutes and doesn't constitute certain  behavior. So, and actually want to talk about passive aggressive. But I also want to talk  about something that's not as common, which is aggressively passive behaviors. So let's first  talk about passive aggressive again. The thing that we see the most often. This is again, this is  a pretty familiar term. It really refers to kind of indirect expressions of hostility or resistance  or you know, like it's like masking our true, you know, like dismissive, opinions of people using  politeness or silence as our way to kind of again show that kind of. That, that hidden hostility.

JAMES: 5:25

Yeah. And it's the mask of politeness that is kind of the dead giveaway. It's the  trying to undermine or trying to like I, I see it as undermining because there I have, it'll come  out. I have some very specific examples in mind that are all too common. But it's that thin veneer  of ah, polite behavior, that is really framed from. It's an excuse to say something bad about  somebody while trying to shrug it off as you're well. Oh, I'm m just, I'm just being helpful.

COBY: 6:01

Yeah. Or it's using the silent treatment.

JAMES: 6:03

Yeah.

COBY: 6:04

Instead of expressing kind of frustration. It's the whole you know like fine,  whatever and you know like it's, there's, there's lots of. It has a lot to get into.

JAMES: 6:13

Some very. We'll get into some specific.

COBY: 6:14

Yeah. But I do want to talk about aggressively passive behavior. This is  something that's not nearly as common as a term as a phrase, but I think it's probably just as  abundant. And this is really kind of it's a, it is a bit of a flip on the whole dynamic of  passive aggressive because what it is is it's an intense, even forceful refusal to engage or  take responsibility. Like it's almost like weaponizing inaction. Right. So it's like  refusing to make decisions or forcing others to act. It's like withdrawing completely in a way  that like totally derails people and derails progresses. it's about using helplessness or  apathy as a control tactic. Like the whole do whatever you want, I don't care but then blaming  people and talking crap about the outcomes after, after that aggressively passive response to it.

JAMES: 7:16

Like it's, it's an, it's a avoidance tactic taken, taken to the extreme.

COBY: 7:22

Well it, it's, it's using passivity as a weapon and not just for avoidance but it's like  active disengagement. You with the intent to frustrate, to manipulate into control.

JAMES: 7:34

Yeah. See I personally have a much easier time dealing with that type of behavior because it  is clear cut if you are refusing to do things or if you are passing the buck or if you are  weaponizing this tactic. I'm. My default is going to be to address it head on. And you know where we  are very now getting into performance. and that's how I'm going to deal with it. I mean that's not  going to be a surprise. I've. I often lean on our performance management frameworks as my go to  because it is a very powerful tool to address not how the behaviors are impacting the workplace.

COBY: 8:21

Yeah, you're right. But the thing that keep in mind with kind of both of these two  things is like is, is the fact that it's not like it's often not refusing to do the work,  not refusing to do the big things. It's the small. Like again like passive aggressive  behavior is about that concealed hostility. It's about like you know, that, that thin veneer of,  of, of like sweetness that kind of like is, is covering up the, the,  the contempt where aggressively passive behavior is really more about strategic disengagement.

JAMES: 8:50

Right. Like it's, that's fair.

COBY: 8:53

Right. Because so it's usually, it's often very tactful. It's often  very intentional. And it's one of those things where it's like, you know, like I know better,  I know what's going to happen and I'm not going to tell the new person that  that they're going to, that's going to fall on them because not my job and I don't really care.

JAMES: 9:11

Right, right.

COBY: 9:13

So sometimes it really is more about that strategic disengagement. And this is one thing  that I think we want to talk about when we move into understand a little bit is the,  the level of intent when it comes to passive aggressive and aggressively passive behavior  plays a big part in it. Because I mean the problem with. Again, the problem with it. Actually, you  know what, let's just, let's move in to understand because I think we've outlined stuff pretty well.

JAMES: 9:41

We've got a common definition that we can work from for passive aggressive.  And at this point I'm not worried about any of our listeners not knowing what  passive aggressive behaviors are because you've seen them.

COBY: 9:53

Yeah. So moving into understand, some things that are important to know is that  some people are legitimately like raised on passive aggressive behavior. It's been modeled  in their entire life. So they don't, they're not intentionally using it as, you know, like they're  not weaponizing it. the way that someone else that may be using it very strategically might  be. Right. Some people are just, it's kind of like how they, what they think is normal.

JAMES: 10:20

Sometimes it's cultural, sometimes it's just. You're right, it's how they've been brought  up in an environment where passive aggressive is the standard. You don't address things head  on. You beat around the bush and you try to. It's undermined and undermine or manipulate or like,  unfortunately that's the reality. And that upbringing carries through. all of our upbringings  carry through throughout our entire lives. They, it continues to impact, how we behave,  how we interact with people. Yeah. So this is, and this is honestly if I'm being somewhat,  self aware and honest. it's the, this is why I sometimes struggle with passive aggressive  behavior because my default is to hit things head on. Right. and that for the person who this is Not  a strategic manipulative action. All that does is create more conflict.Right. If this is coming from  a place of this is how this person understands how you address problems, then my default approach of,  well, I'm just going to cut through the noise and address the behaviors head on and call it  out. Doesn't always produce the best results. Which is why I kind of alluded to in my intro,  you know, I will admit. Ooh. On camera. That I'm not always right. That hurts me.

COBY: 11:58

Someone capture this for posterity.

JAMES: 12:00

This better. This clip better not show up as a YouTube short. But really though,  like, we all have things that we need to work on and for me,  I, Passive aggressiveness just rubs me the wrong way because I tend to be fairly direct  in my communication when I'm encountering these behaviors in the workplace. It just,  it grates on me. So I have to recognize that in myself and recognize that it's not always  coming from a manipulative standpoint because that's how it feels when I'm,  When I have a staff member who's coming to me with these passive aggressive complaints or you know,  it feels like they're trying to manipulate me. And that is an immediate trigger. yeah, yeah.

COBY: 12:53

And I mean like. Yeah, let's. Again, we. I don't want to dwell too much on the. Again,  there is. We have to be fair and say that some people hurt people. Hurt people.

JAMES: 13:05

Yes.

COBY: 13:06

And it's sometimes it's not again, a strategic, intended,  you know, like effort to manipulate. Sometimes it's just this is where they  fall in on as far as the only way that they can or they're able or they know  how to deal with stuff is through. Through passive aggressive approaches. Yeah. And.

JAMES: 13:28

And this is why it's so important to extend grace. Right. Like we can just extend a little  bit of understanding and not assume that people are coming at it from a manipulative standpoint.

COBY: 13:41

Yeah. Now the problem though is whether it's intentional or not intentional. The result,  the outcome, the impact on the workplace is the same.

JAMES: 13:48

Yes.

COBY: 13:49

And so I think that with. We said that caveat. So. And we will,  we'll talk about the unintentional and the intentional. We get into the resolve  pieces. But providing grace. And again, understanding where it's coming from is  important. When you're looking at resolve, that's really what we want to get to. However,  some people legitimately do use it as intentional manipulation, right?

JAMES: 14:14

Yep, they do.

COBY: 14:16

And I think the reason why they use it is because it falls  below the Line for like thresholds around traditional misconduct in like policies.

JAMES: 14:30

Yes.

COBY: 14:31

It is subtle. It is kind of like it. It is micro. It's. It's one of those smaller  things that isn't overt enough to maybe trigger discipline policies. Because it is, it does  fall below that line and in the traditional way that we define misconduct. And people know that,  so that's why they leverage it. Because it's one of those things where, you know,  the idea of death by a thousand cuts, but each of the cuts themselves do not constitute enough  action for discipline. And usually by the time it does, it's too late. So there is,  there is. There are people that do see that. And again, why they do that can be a number of things.  One of their common reasons. We, I mean, we talked about this in a previous episode about the  impact of job dissatisfaction. Yeah, right. Talk about how when we're dissatisfied with our jobs,  we start pointing at other people and, and one. And one. Almost like I'm not happy,  so I want to take away what they have. You know, we get into the whole idea of like we talked about  in a couple episodes, we talked about strongholds. Strongholds kind of create all that stuff. Right.  And there is that sense of I'm dissatisfied, so I want to make everyone else dissatisfied  with me. But again, which is kind of also a sample of hurt people. Hurt people.

JAMES: 15:57

Right, Exactly.

COBY: 15:58

But I mean, you know, sometimes. But it's like I want to take this person down a notch.

JAMES: 16:03

Yeah. And I, I really. I think the. The understanding that behavior. That it is  any individual instance of passive aggressive behavior can be really hard to nail down as a behavioral issue. As a something that would trigger a behavior modification.

COBY: 16:25

Right.

JAMES: 16:26

Because. And this is the almost insidious nature of passive. Passive aggressive behaviors  in general is that it gives the person so many outs too of Oh, well, I was just trying. I was  just raising a concern or I just want you to be aware or you know, I know like is very difficult  to nail down a particular behavior, which is why we need to look at actually expanding  how we address hostility in the workplace in general. We've talked about it a lot in terms of  Workplace incivility is kind of the. The go to that we use to address this. And I know we are  kind of blending the understanding with resolve. But I think it's important to link these two  points very closely of your traditional behavioral management or the progressive discipline.  Progressive discipline. It, you know, your, Your traditional methods are probably not going to  be enough to trigger a disciplinary process for passive aggressive behavior. Unless you're able  to document over time this pattern, of behavior and the impacts that it's having. And even then  the impacts are often so far removed from the behaviors that it's going to be really difficult  for you to draw that direct line, which is what makes it such an effective tool, for caus problems  in the workplace. Yeah. But if you can, if you want to address this, one of the really effective  methods that we have seen and that we have used is to link it to workplace incivility and to have  a really strong policy around incivility that allows you to identify these types of behaviors  and get ahead of it, rather than relying on more traditional progressive disciplinary processes.

COBY: 18:33

Yeah. And we'll jump into that when we get into resolve in more detail. But the one  thing that I wanted to kind of just touch back on with, with understand is in this may be an  opportunity to share some specific examples. because like one of the things that is important  to understand is what does constitute the types of like behaviors that may, that, that may,  this may look like. And one of the things that we were talking about kind of before,  before we started the podcast was around toxic accountability.

JAMES: 19:06

Yeah. So this. Okay, so I'll give you a scenario that I have encountered of a team  member who is monitoring the, their supervisor, monitoring where they are when they go there,  tracking their activities, tracking when they are in the office, tracking when they are not  in the office, even going into our you know, time tracking software and making sure that the dates  that they have said that they are working from home are tracked as absences in like  really strictly monitoring what their supervisor is doing and then raising these as. Oh, I would.  I think it's important for you to be aware of. Here's 47 dates that I have tracked. You know,  47 is a bit of an exaggeration. If there were 47 dates that they were been out, that's something  else. But here is a list of times and dates that are, that don't line up right. and you know,  even starts from a. I know this isn't my job, but I just want you to be aware. It's important for  you to know it's. I'm looking out for your best interest type of conversation and to be clear,  wonderful human being, very good at their job and very effective in their role. But the passive  aggressive behaviors of monitoring what other people are doing and of, you know, really to the  minutia of verifying whether or not that person has updated their time tracking system to coincide  with the records that the staff member has kept. Is this idea of toxic accountability. It is  passive aggressive behavior, it is inappropriate behavior and it does cause significant impacts in  the operational culture of the workplace. And so toxic accountability really happens it when  the organizational culture shifts from the idea of maintaining standards to maintaining surveillance.

COBY: 21:33

Yeah. And I mean we've talked about this in kind of different examples when companies,  when work from home happened and people, companies were implementing keystroke software.

JAMES: 21:44

Yes. Right. COBY: I mean a lot of that stuff when managers  were hyper fixated on, on moments that people were working, you know, they were so focused on  surveilling people's time than they were about maintaining the quality standards of the work. Yeah. Right. And these are passive aggressive behaviors from  the organization too. Right. It's not only employees that do this.  Everybody's guilty of this. And B. And I, I love examples. What's that?

COBY: 22:14

Everybody can be guilty of this.

JAMES: 22:15

Everyone, everybody can be guilty of that. I mean,  we're all guilty of it at different points in our lives. let's be real. Yeah,  I'm going to call you out on it too. I'm sure you've done it at some point in your life.

COBY: 22:27

Fine. All right, moving on.

JAMES: 22:30

I've got to justify everything I say. no, but I think you made an important point  though that, you know, these, the work from home restrictions, the managers,  surveilling people's every moment, the key logging software to make sure that people are in front of  their desks. That is toxic accountability. It is passive aggressive behavior. Because what  you're worried about is not really, if the work is getting done or not. Because if you  were worried about the work being done, then you would check the outcomes. Right. It's,  you don't trust people. So you're putting these restrictive, policies and practices in place.

COBY: 23:10

Yeah.

JAMES: 23:11

And it is just as passive aggressive and it is just as damaging as any other instance.

COBY: 23:16

Yeah, yeah. And I mean we definitely have seen, you know, the toxic accountability really  popping up since kind of work from home was normalized and hybrid was normalized. And again,  it's one of those things where, yeah, it's, it's, it is a term that people may appreciate hearing  and they'll go, oh, that's what that is. But yeah, but it's one of those things where again  you've seen it firsthand where it's employee to manager. We've seen it countless times where  it's manager to employee. We've seen it where it's organizational rules to all employees,  management and non management. So I mean it's, it's definitely a pervasive issue that we've  seen more and which why I thought it was a good example for us to talk about under this understand  piece. Understanding what it looks like and how it kind of plays up and down the hierarchy or the  original like structures hierarchy. is important to know that anybody can, anybody can weaponize  that toxic accountability as one example of what, you know, what it looks like to kind of  have this passive aggressive type of, you know, like undertone within your normalized culture.

JAMES: 24:26

Yeah.

COBY: 24:27

Okay, so let's move on and talk about resolve. and I, I suspect you and I may have  slightly different approaches to, to this based on how you've been talking thus far, and knowing.

JAMES: 24:40

And everything that is known about and…

COBY: 24:42

Knowing you for 20 years. but I mean one of the things that I think is a fair  point that you and I are going to 100% agree on is we need is I think and you alluded to what  you're talking about. This one example of this employee monitoring their, their manager. It's  not about the person, it's about the pattern. Right. So naming the pattern and not, and not,  you know, not demonizing the person is probably a good place to start. Right.  So it's about trying to put some, some honesty into this, into the situation and providing  some light on it without necessarily finger pointing it and casting blame as intention or  trying to say you're doing this wrong, you are wrong. More saying this is a,  this is a unproductive and, and damaging pattern that I'm seeing within you.

JAMES: 25:34

And this is really important lesson for, and some for us all to internalize. Regardless  of if we're talking about addressing passive aggressive behaviors or if we're talking about  addressing anything, attack the argument, not the individual. Right. Identify the pattern,  identify the behaviors, don't attack the individual. Right.  That keeps it from, it helps to mitigate the confrontation aspect because as soon as we  go into conflict mode, communication breaks down, people get defensive.

COBY: 26:07

Right. Well and that's just it. Like so the one thing, so again I've handled many  conflicts in the work we've done over the years and different roles that I've had and the one  skill I definitely have gotten very, very good at, is keeping people from getting defensive m in the  moment because I know as soon as someone starts to pull up that defensive shield,  we're done. It's. We're falling on deaf ears. It's not going anywhere.  I'm not going to get the outcome I'm looking for. So I've. So that's one thing that I always  am very committed on is making sure that, that we, I don't I don't allow for the conversation  to go to a point where someone's going to get defensive and shut down on me because then I  know this whole thing is done and I've shut me, I've shut meetings down when something  got defensive and I hate doing that because it prolongs the pain of these awkward situations.  But it is a better outcome than having someone sitting there with their shield up avoiding,  avoiding the whole stuff and not listening and disengaging and everything else like that too.

JAMES: 27:11

It shuts down dialogue. You're no longer able to get  to a solution because you're focused on defense.

COBY: 27:16

And it can actually trigger that aggressively passive behavior.

JAMES: 27:20

Right.

COBY: 27:21

Refuse to engage or refuse to protect responsibility and they'll  just become inactive and they'll say whatever, I don't care. Or they'll,  they'll again, they will start, they could potentially, if they,  they get mad, they'll get aggressively defiantly apathetic about the whole thing.

JAMES: 27:39

Yeah.

COBY: 27:39

And we just, and that's the best.

JAMES: 27:41

Case scenario because they could just get aggressively defiant and then  we have to move into escalating this in a way that we do not want to escalate  it. And that was not the intent of the conversation in the first place.

COBY: 27:52

Yeah. So the more that you can. Again I, the way I talk about  this with the teams that I lead is I talk about it as villainizing the situation,  not the people.Or, or again naming the pattern, not the person. These are the  types of approaches that allow for people to see the reality of it without necessarily  feeling attacked as a person because that's when the shutdown happens. So that's one of  the first things that I was trying to kind of do when we're looking at resolve on this.

JAMES: 28:22

Yeah. And for me what comes up is, as I've stated, I tend towards the more direct  method. And there is a way to be direct in addressing passive aggressive behaviors.  I like to call it forced reflective discovery. Yeah. Essentially what we're doing is being  curious about the situation. Right. forcing them to reflect on what like a bit of it is, you know,  play, play a little dumb. Asking questions that are open ended that allow them to talk about,  oh well, what are you hoping to accomplish with this? That's a bad Example, but you know,  instead of me coming out and saying you're undermining your manager, you need to stop.  It's. I've noticed you're often bringing concerns around these issues. help me understand what is it  that you're hoping will improve from this. Right. These types of open ended questions that are going  to force the person to actually make statements that they might not realize that they actually  have to make. Right. Like sometimes these passive aggressive behaviors, people don't necessarily do,  do the self reflection to see where these are coming from and if you can in a positive way  ask questions that lead them on a bit of a self reflective journey. Sometimes these,  you can actually mitigate and resolve the passive aggressiveness by just people going through the  process and, and seeing how these concerns play out and how they're perceived and how,  and really kind of getting to the heart of well, are you bringing this to me to act on? Are you  bringing this to me to come? Like one of the, the challenges as well is my leadership style tends  to be very open and personable. I like to joke around with people. We talked about this in a few  different settings that you know, I, one of the easiest relationship building tools that I have  when walking into any new situation is building those personal connections, being friendly,  not crossing that line between friends and friendly and giving people space to,  if they have, if they just need to vent. You can vent to me. But there's a time when, if you,  when venting is going to force me to put on my manager hat or my CEO hat or whatever role I'm  filling at the time and I'm going to have to start addressing these issues. So leading people on  this forced reflective discovery, which is a very nice way of saying manipulative question asking. It is an effective tool if you want to  be a little bit more direct in your communication and hit the nail on the head.

COBY: 31:36

Yeah, no, you're right. This approach again, especially  if you're leading it with curiosity, not necessarily confrontation. Right.

JAMES: 31:45

And that's the key. It's, it can't at this stage it can't be confrontational,  which no, no, no is unfortunate.

COBY: 31:53

And you, and this is, is something that you do well because you do a very good job of building  rapport with your people, very quickly partially by you know, just the kind of the fact that you  don't take yourself too seriously and you encourage other people not to take yourself.  You know, you just joke around with them in a very appropriate and like, you know, an almost  like Inclusive way. So it's a skill that you have for sure. So that makes that piece easier. But  it's also the idea of you're right, it's about having them reflect on their, on their behavior,  on their perspective and on their biases too. Right. So questions like, you know, can you help  me understand what's behind this reaction? What is it exactly that's making this such a high priority  for you? How much time are you actually placing into this? Or how, how much of your mental energy  gets eaten up by this on, on a regular basis? And again it, it's about putting them into a situation  where they're trying to like drop a, almost like drop like a question bomb on you and have you do  the things that they, that they want you to do to get the outcome that they're looking for. But what  this idea, idea, this reforce forced reflective discovery approach that, that you're quite good  at, it's about turning the tables on them a bit. And you're, and you're almost having them confront  with the stuff that they want to be more passive about or they don't want to say aloud. But you're  almost like leading them towards a path where they're going to have to actually like say what  they actually want and why they actually want it. And it's something that's very uncomfortable.  Often that doesn't happen in one conversation. No. And often the force like discovery approach of,  of having them put in the work to tell you what it is that they are looking for has either them  have those moments and usually when it's more of that, talked about, if they were raised on the,  on the passive aggressiveness, usually they end up going on the reflective  journey. But if they're being strategically manipulative, they just stop coming to you.

JAMES: 33:57

Yep.

COBY: 33:57

Because you're, you're not doing what they want.

JAMES: 33:59

You're not playing their game.

COBY: 34:01

Yeah. So they just go well I'm not gonna,  I'm not gonna get there. He's so I'm just gonna stop doing it altogether. And, and again,  which both of those are successful. Obviously the self reflective journey where they learn  about their biases and they maybe put a bit more accountability around what  they're doing is the better outcome. But stopping the behavior is, well, making.

JAMES: 34:23

Sure that the behavior is so self reflective journey. Absolutely. The best  case scenario, having somebody come to that realization of how, of the impact that these  behaviors is having and having them go on that journey and make the decision to change  behaviors. That's what we want Every single time, not going to happen. But that's what we're, that's  what we're working towards. The other situation that you identified, I just want to be clear that  just because somebody stops coming to you doesn't mean that they've given up. so if they stop coming  to you, you're going to want to make sure that those behaviors don't go from passive aggressive  statements coming to you to passive aggressive actions playing out in the team. Because that can  be exceptionally dangerous. And that's where like all of these things, everything that we talk about  in our, all of our podcasts are interconnected. Right? That's where workplace incivility, language  is going to help. that's where progressive discipline structures is going to help.  That's where your leader, the you know, integrity, leadership and the way that you handle leadership,  responsibilities and the power that you've been entrusted with is going to help. That's where  building focusing on eliminating or mitigating job dissatisfaction and building psychological  safety is going to help. Even the comment that you made earlier Coby, about you know,  where is it coming from and how much time and energy is it taking from you? That's where like if  you've had conversations around people's emotional load, it's going to help, right? If you can create  all of these things that we are talking about, have where we talk about the same issues and  resolving these issues and we can come at it from many different stand many different points. If you  look at the take a holistic approach of here are all of the different things that are going to help  us. It's not just relying on one tool, for one purpose. Everything that we talk about, and this  is a bit of a self plug but everything that we talk about on this podcast is designed to give you  more tools in your tool belt to be able to pull out the right response based on the situation.

COBY: 36:48

Yeah, absolutely. No, and especially our last episodes where we, again where we talked  about, you know, our last episode we got it. We dug into psychology around emotional load  and you know, and then leadership tips from earlier in season. So yeah we, and even,  even the ideas of like thinking that you need a single tool to, to address the, the one problem  passive aggressiveness is still is how silos get created and everything too. So it really does all  kind of play off each other. But I want to talk about two more kind of strategies for resolution  and then I actually want to fully go into work sensibility. you brought up a few times but I  Think we've got a really tangible take away from people with that. But so the first two things we  said around resolve were name, name the pattern, not the person. Second one was around the force,  reflective discovery, but again, using curiosity, not confrontation. But the next two are kind of  connected. But, one of them is about, and this is where you've been going from the beginning,  is set expectations for directness. Make it, normalize the fact that you can actually have  a direct conversation with somebody and talk about what you actually need to talk about.  Not beating around the bush, you know, you know, not, you know, like, you know, talking euphemisms,  like making it very clear about what we're talking about. And then the other part of that is the  fourth one is remodeling vulnerability. Right. So share your own discomfort and, or confusion  to lower the defenses of other people. So if you reinforce the fact that like, candor, directness,  addressing problems head on is the norm within your teams and within your organization,  that expectation of directness is valuable. But it also allows you to be more vulnerable by being  able to share your own discomfort or confusion in a way that will lower the defensiveness of  others. Because again, once they once put the defensive shield up, the conversation's over.  So those two things, whether done separately or in tandem, can be a really powerful way to again,  get to the heart of it. Like, again, like, I'm a bit thrown by what you said. Can we  unpack that a little bit? or the idea of going back to the directness, going to say, you know,  you don't have to agree, but we have to resolve this. And again, making it, you know, again,  calling it for what it is, but making sure that you're coming from a place of vulnerability,  allowing them to come from a place of vulnerability will actually make  it easier for them to get to the heart of it. I do look for actual true resolution,  not just placating and pushing the problem onto, like you said before, to another situation later.

JAMES: 39:17

Yeah, and one thing that I just, I, it should be obvious, but I want to state it anyways.  you, you've said several times like you've made some really important, points around. Don't let  people get defensive. The same is true for you. You cannot approach these conversations from a  defensive standpoint. If you have your backup, if you have your guard up, when you enter into this,  into any type of discussion, with staff, it is not going to be as productive as it should be.  Yeah, the curiosity piece is a really good lens to look at things through because is  a way of breaking down some of those barriers, breaking down some of the, that defensiveness of  asking questions and asking questions in a way that doesn't feel accusatory is challenging.  Especially it is a skill that you are, you're not going to get it perfect the first time. you're not  me. but it is something that we all need to work on. Right. It is something that takes practice and  that you can develop. But it is so effective in many situations, not just in addressing,  passive aggressive behaviors, but that ability to break down defensiveness with curiosity and  openness and building that rapport with people. If you can do that, you will. Your  life and work will be much smoother, at least in how you interact with your staff. Yeah.

COBY: 41:02

And building on that, the other piece too is that modeling vulnerability. Because I mean  like one of the things that I always, I always lean into is, is so I say this all the time when  we're dealing with like awkward, staff issues. I say let's just embrace the awkwardness and just,  and putting the fact that this is, you know, again, we just had a disciplinary meeting,  with, you know, we're going to go back to work and we're all going to see each other  and we're all going to be like questioning our interactions with each other and like  looking for double meaning and it's going to be really awkward. And let's just own that.  And sometimes that again can be very like, it can lower defenses. Right.

JAMES: 41:47

There's, there's strength in acknowledging pieces M and things up front. Right. Calling  it what it is, putting, I mean putting a label on things does actually once, we can  identify something and we can label it, then we can address it. Right. Like it's this part  of the whole identify, understand and resolve is so that we can talk concretely about issues.

COBY: 42:15

Yeah. Okay. So again, so those four, four strategies for resolve. Name the pattern of the  person, the force, reflective discovery, setting expectations for directness and  motor vulnerability. Those four things are really helpful. But I think the most tangible,  helpful thing that I want to kind of end the conversation on is going to be around really  understanding and utilizing and implementing workplace incivility into your policies, into  your approaches, into the language that you use in your workplace is probably one of the single  most powerful tools. It's one of the first things we put into new policies when we start rebuilding  HR infrastructure for organizations because it gives teeth to policies around addressing these  lower intensities, these microaggressive, these passive aggressive behaviors. And m, it draws  A higher standard for normal behavior in the workplace that addresses many of the  things that fall between the gaps with current processes. And again it's one of the most powerful  tools that we've used and it has done so much great work when we've gone into organization.

JAMES: 43:27

Yeah. And there's really two aspects that I would like. If you want to roll workplace  incivility into your policies, there's two things that I would recommend you do. One, it's the  what and the why. What is workplace incivility? You need to be able to define it. So workplace  incivility is the low intensity disrespectful behaviors that violate norms of mutual respect,  collaboration and psychological safety. Even if not overtly hostile or abusive. That's a  definition that you can use that kind of lays things out. That's the what the why  are we doing this is really should be. So one of the other pieces that we often immediately  put into policies as statements around psychological safety. And this is another  opportunity for us to tie back to why are, do we have this policy? Because we organization,  xyz is committed to providing a organizational culture, a workplace culture that allows each  person to speak up without fear of retaliation, to do so in a professional manner. We're going  to tie in our professional conduct policy. We're going to tie in our you know, we're going to make  this really connect in it's not a appendix to our policies. It's going to be interwoven and  connected to many different elements of it so that we can keep coming back and we can  label something as workplace incivility when we need to put teeth to some of these behaviors.

COBY: 45:19

Yeah. So one of the tricks that I used a little while ago,  with, with an organization that I put, that I put in the language around work sensibility was  I intentionally referenced. So I referenced it in terms of like intentional dis dismissive behaviors  was kind of how I was positioned. And one of the examples that I gave was eye rolling. Because I  knew it was going to invoke comedic responses to it. People were going to joke about it,  people were going to talk about that. People were going to end up like making fun of it a  little bit like you know, in a light hearted way to me. And I did that with intention because what  that meant was people were talking about a new policy in a way that no one can claim ignorance.

JAMES: 46:12

Yeah.

COBY: 46:13

So when they start making eye rolling jokes that's confirmation that they've read  the Policy. And that's something that they can't claim. Well, I didn't know this new policy was  in place. When this says, sorry, it has been, it has been a topic of conversation around here for  a while. And it cuts out that, that, that often passive aggressive argument, to. It's my first  day. Right. but I mean, putting in those types of examples again and. Because one of the things too  is that what I like about incivility is that the language is that there is baggage behind passive  aggressive being used in policy. There's baggage behind microaggressions being used in policy. They  have like their own, like their own gravitational pull, those two terms. And they can trigger,  defensiveness very, very quickly. So not depending on the organization. I often don't recommend we  use those two terms specifically when it comes to the progressive discipline. I, like to kind  of categorize it under workplace sensitivity, which is a more friendlier term. But identifying  the behaviors around, you know, eroding trust, installing progress and creating psychological  strain within teams and these types of things into it basically saying microaggressions and  passive aggressive behavior without labeling them as such. Because then it almost like removes a  bit of the stigma around those two terms but still gets the heart of the issue. And I mean,  you know, so again, so, again, like there is some strategy when it comes to rolling it out  with the organizations and maybe adding it in later can be something that might be important,  but it is something that if you put this into your progressive discipline policies,  you label it and you label it with intention and then it gives again, like I said before,  it gives M teams, managers, co workers, everybody some teeth on how to handle  the stuff that we have tolerated in our workplaces for far too long that erode trust,  that damage, psychological safety, that, that really do start to like, you know,  like aggressively conceal hostility. It can be a powerful, powerful tool if done properly.

JAMES: 48:26

Yeah. And it kills any opportunity for people to feel, include it. Right. Like if we're  talking about, let's, let's tie this all back to our workplace culture hierarchy again. Right?  Complying, you know, job dissatisfaction, complying with the expectations of the workplace,  of the workforce, you know, are the factors of the workplace that's essential in mitigating  job dissatisfaction. Then we move on. And that without that we can't really  move into building psychological safety. And without psychological safety, we can't build,  a workplace where people feel that they belong. And if people don't feel like they belong,  then we can't build a Workplace where people are fully engaged and motivated,  and providing their best work, which is what we want from people. And passive aggressiveness.  Workplace incivility takes you out at the knees, right at the psychological safety stage. And  anything that you're trying to build above it gets harder and harder and harder to accomplish.  If you're dealing with workplace, incivility or passive aggressiveness, absolutely. No.

COBY: 49:40

That's good. So I think I'll just do a quick summary, but I think this was a great  conversation. I'm really hoping that we got to the heart of the issues and that if you listening  found that we provide some value, share this episode with other people. Because again, you're  not the only one that's experiencing passive aggressive or aggressively passive behavior.

JAMES: 49:56

And if you have questions, reach out to us. Like, we love interacting with people,  with our listeners. Yeah. All right.

COBY: 50:06

So the question was, how do you confront passive aggressive behavior professionally and  largely? We say that the strategy to address it is to identify, understand and resolve identifying  what passive aggressive behavior and what aggressively passive behavior looks like. Where  passive aggressive behavior is about concealing hostility and aggressively passive behavior  is about strategic disengagement. We need to understand why these behaviors are so normalized  in the workplace and why they're so hard to deal with. Largely it's because they fall below the  line of thresholds for traditional misconduct policies. People often do it intentionally or  they do it unintentionally. Either way it doesn't really matter to the workplace because, ah,  at the end of the day they have the same impact. So how do we resolve it? We say the we. You can  name the pattern, not the person. You can use curiosity and confrontation, or sorry, curiosity  and not confrontation. By using things like the force, reflective discovery, set expectations  for directness and model vulnerability. But most importantly, this is about workplace sensibility,  which should be something that is incorporated into your organizational policies because it's  something that helps you deal with low intensity disrespectful behavior and gives you teeth to  handle these issues in a way that may be unattainable with your current policies.  So intentionally using this kind of language, covering up the things that fall between  the gaps is going to be how you can really confront and resolve these passive aggressive  behaviors in your workplace with a professional approach and sustainability long term. Okay,  so that about does it for us. For a full archive of our podcast and access to video  version that's hosted on our YouTube channel, visit Roman3.ca/podcast. Thanks for joining us.

ANNOUNCER: 51:57

For more information on topics like these, don't forget to visit us at Roman3.ca.  Side effects of this podcast may include improved retention, high productivity,  increased market share, employees breaking out in spontaneous dance,  dry mouth aversion to the sound of James’ voice, desire to find a better podcast…