How to Identify Fixers, Bullies, Avoiders
and Schmoozers
By: Harry Dennis
I want to thank Morris R. Schectman, a brilliant international
change-management consultant, for the content of this month's
column. He has been identified as one of the most influential
thinkers of this generation. This man is truly "out of the
box." Want to try him on for size?
Each of us has acquired amazingly strong and sustaining drives
from our childhoods that makes us act in certain ways throughout
our entire lives. These are the "familiars." Whether
associated with positive or negative consequences, if it is familiar,
we'll go for it first before we tackle the unknown and the unfamiliar.
You are probably asking yourself how this applies to a business
environment. Well, our "familiar" is who we are. It's
the one definable security that people have in an increasingly
insecure world.
For example, suppose you have a manager who wants to make people
happy, so intensely so, that he or she becomes irritable at the
slightest distraction. Or how about the CEO with an obsessive
need for struggle and misery, so whenever things are going well
he needs to disrupt something?
There are really four types of "familiars" common
to the workplace: The Fixer, The Bully, The Avoider, and The
Schmoozer. See if you can relate to them.
The Fixer
Their familiar is working on causes that appear to be lost and feeling that
they tried their very best, but still couldn't do much. Usually, they are
asked to try and change people that no one else has had much success with.
Morrie tells the story of Carol, a human resource specialist
in a high-tech company, who is sent all over the world working
with highly problematic and difficult general managers. These
people were made GM's because of their technical skills, but
their people skills were sorely lacking.
Unfortunately, Carol is trapped. She does her job well and,
as a result, is too valuable to promote. In other words, Carol
the excellent "basket case" fixer will probably remain
in this role indefinitely-unless she decides to pursue the unfamiliar.
Carol must be willing to recognize her quandary, approach her
boss and ask for a change.
The Avoider
Avoiders, on the other hand, think they are responsible for everyone else's
happiness. In difficult people situations, they have a tough time making
the call for some form of direct confrontation.
The Bully
Bullies beat people up emotionally and physically. Often, they had difficult
childhoods, where fear of abandonment issues prevailed. As a result, they
reproduce these feelings in the workplace through the use of intimidation
and temper tantrums. Bullies need to be managed with "fierce conversation." Only
then will they realize that the intensity of their workplace responses
is out of proportion.
The Schmoozer
Schmoozers create the illusion that they are operating in the perfect world.
They pretend that everything is going great. Others around them sense a
profound lack of sincerity. The Schmoozer grew up with at least one depressed
parent who prevented him or her from enjoying any real happiness. Hence,
in the workplace, they fall back on their "familiar", pretending
to be on top of the world, while actually feeling like a victim.
What can you do if you feel trapped in one of those four "familiar" archetypes?
If you are a manager, would you be willing to share these suggestions
with a troubled but otherwise productive employee who might personally
benefit from Shechtman's advice? Likewise, if you were an employee,
would you share these thoughts with a manager experiencing any
or all of these symptoms? Schectman specifically outlines six
steps to move into "unfamiliar" and significantly healthier
territory:
1. Identify repetitive feelings. There are five feelings that
can become repetitive: hurt/pain, joy, fear, sadness, and grief/loss.
Dig behind secondary emotions like anger or frustration to discover
which of these five feelings are restricting you.
2. Trace the feelings back in time. Start with a recent occurrence
that generated a "familiar" feeling and work backwards
with it. Recurring feelings usually began very early in our childhood
experiences.
3. Express your feelings without blame or forgiveness. The key
is to articulate a feeling that has been dormant for years. Techniques
for doing this include writing a letter that you never send,
visiting a cemetery alone, writing something in a personal journal
every day, or sharing your feelings with a significant other.
4. Allow yourself the right to experience sadness and anger.
Do this reflectively by thinking of situations that engendered
both emotions. Then recreate alternative outcomes for these situations.
Make these alternatives your new "familiars."
5. Take increasing risks to break the hold of the "familiar." No
one changes overnight. Moving away from our comfortable "familiars," especially
in the workplace, requires small increments of change. This is
the process of creating new responses to "the same old stuff."
6. Create a new "familiar" that redirects your energy.
If someone ever says to you, "it's none of your business," and
you reply, "thank you," then you have broken the sound
barrier of the "new familiars." And if you don't at
all agonize over their remark, you have truly arrived in this
new place.
A New Frontier: Creating personal transformations that lead
to success.
Copyright 2000, used with permission by the author. Harry
S. Dennis III is the president of The Executive Committee in
Wisconsin and Michigan. TEC is a professional development group
for CEOs, presidents and business owners. He can be reached
at 262-821-3340 or at hikduke@aol.com.
