The title isn’t (just) click-bait. This posts focuses on ways of dealing with people that demean others. At this moment I am very happy with the group of people I get to work with at my job. I don’t have an issue with any of them. This of course has not always been the case, and in fact it isn’t the norm. For some reason I saw the book “The A$$hole Survival Guide: How to Deal with People Who Treat You Like Dirt” by Robert Sutton and I just felt like I should read it. I thought it might be good to read up and prepare for the inevitable time when I am forced to work again with someone that meets this “classification.” It is a reasonably good book giving some good suggestions, many of which you might figure out on your own. The “real life” stories really help bring some of it to life and make it a bit more real.
I did start thinking of how this ties into individuals at church. Like any organization, the church will have a fair number of, “A-Holes.” My experience leads me to believe there are fewer in the church than the society at large. But there is no personality test to become or stay a member. The church scenario is different than a business scenario where individual (usually) desires to keep their income and they can be fired. It is even different than some other volunteer organizations. Most any volunteer organization wants to keep its volunteers, but in the church there is a deeper desire to try and keep everyone (by and large) to increase the number of souls saved. Also within the church we are encouraged not to be “in contention” with others and I think this does check many people before they act on urges to be mean to others. But sometimes all that social pressure does is move the aggression to be passive aggressive behavior (“passholes”?).
There are a few areas where the church, like most any organization, will draw out some of the bad traits latent in some individuals. This often comes into play when you give individuals power. Call it human nature or the natural man, but power just brings it out in many people. The author Sutton talks about “mini-tyrants” that have their role and love to leverage every bit of power (or FEELING of power) they can. This could be the ward librarian that counts to make sure you brought back the same number of pieces of chalk you borrowed. Or maybe the person put in charge of getting the building cleaned and they become the equivalent of midshipman over the plebes – looking for every missed cleaning item with their white glove.
And then there are those in Gospel Doctrine that are there to make sure that no other words other than what is in the lesson manual are uttered in class. They sit in class ignoring the lesson on “We need to be like Jesus.” Instead of listening to the lesson to apply it in their life they wait to jump on someone. The moment an uncorrelated comment is uttered they pull out their extensive scriptural hammer to refute someone’s ignorant blasphemy.
Of course the “power corrupts” cliché is not at all limited to church, but is rather universal in humans. The author points out
Wielding power over others is the second big risk that you will eventually start treating others like dirt. Professor Dacher Keltner from the University of California at Berkeley has devoted more than twenty years to studying the effects of wielding power over others and simply feeling powerful; the findings aren’t pretty. Regardless of how kind, cooperative, and empathetic you’ve acted in the past, Keltner and other psychologists show that power can cause you to have less empathy for others, to exploit them more, to focus more on your own needs and less on the needs of others, to be rude and disrespectful, and to act like the rules don’t apply to you.
Sounds a lot like D&C 121:39
We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion.
As I read the book it brought back memories of my past where I had already figured out some of the strategies for dealing with abrasive people. I remember as a missionary getting the door slammed in my face. I learned it was best to just laugh it off. I recall one time they slammed the door so hard it bounced right back open. This gave me an opening (pun intended) to leave with an upbeat, “Thanks! Have a great day!” This is certainly one strategy suggested in the book. Trying to frame the behavior in a way that keeps it from being so emotionally damaging to yourself. In essence, “don’t take it personally.” This is one of what the author calls, “Mind Tricks that protect your soul.”
The book does much more than give stories that are examples of A-Holes. As the title indicates, it attempts to help those that are on the receiving end of such people. He puts forward a strategy on how to look at and deal with those that treat you poorly.
The first few steps deal with looking at just how bad the person is (or “persons are”) and your relationship and situation. Once you have that then you can look at ways you can deal with this. Many of these suggestions are ones you have already thought of or even subconsciously done – such as avoiding being near the person that really bothers you. In many cases this is the easiest and best course of action. This can be as easy as making sure you walk out of the chapel on the opposite side of Brother Buttewhole, or avoiding the angry ex-Mormon that asks you over and over, “why do you still go to that church?”
One of the items he goes into is to determine the type of “fun” individual you are dealing with. Is this just someone that occasionally goes on a rant (remember we ALL do this at some point), or maybe only in certain situations, or is this someone that stays “in character” all the time and with everyone? Sutton warns that it is hard to change other people, so don’t assume you can just fix everyone with a smile. He gives examples of how to “redeem” some minor offenders.
The author suggests the first think is to not just emotionally react before you study the situation and evaluate what is the best course of action. One of the first things the author suggests that you look at your relationship with the bothersome person. Some relationships give you more power to have your suggestions considered. If you are a new person and learn you have a real bosshole, your power and options might be rather limited. If you have a relationship with someone that treats others poorly on occasion, he suggests that you consider tactfully trying to show them how they are behaving badly. Some people honestly don’t notice when they are treating others badly. The author mentions a study that showed 50% of people say they deal with these problematic people on a regular basis and only 1% of people say they dish it out regularly. I don’t think I need to write up an equation that shows that math doesn’t add up. There are some people that subscribe to “good guys come in last” and think they will get ahead by being ruthless to others. Possibly the worst situation to be in is when you are in an “A-Hole farm” where the contagious behavior has spread through the whole group. In that situation the author suggests one simple word – RUN. Get away as fast as you can. Even if not EVERYONE is “infected” the “make a clean getaway” is a strategy to consider.
This strategy is not so easy in a ward setting, but if you find yourself in a group (EQ presidency, Primary presidency, etc.) you do have an option to ask to be moved to another calling. Other options for dealing with gruff individuals is instead of fighting fire with fire, instead you just the Benjamin Franklin approach. The Franklin approach to someone that was confronting him was for Ben to ask to ask to borrow some books from offensive person. No, he didn’t then burn them. He returned them and borrowed other books. Eventually the other person started liking Ben because he was able to get other person to serve HIM. There are many ways to do what Ben did. You can ask someone their opinion, show them respect, or just show them kindness and ignore the few stones they threw (maybe they will see that stones don’t work on you). If you take this too far and love-bomb them with a plate full of cookies, they might see through this and feel they have more power though. Be careful what behavior you reward.
The author admits there are some very limited situations when you might want to return A-Hole behavior to an A-Hole. A bit of, “give them a taste of their own medicine.” But he reminds the read that, “when you throw poo you are going to get some on you”. Don’t become an A-Hole in your pursuit to cure someone else of being an A-Hole.
If anybody is pulling their hair out dealing with someone that really degrades others, I would recommend the book. I assume it is as useful as “How to raise a child” books. It can help and give you some great suggestions, but in both cases you will still have to deal with a lot of the stuff in the back of the diaper.
And my intent is not to poke just at church members, but it is an area that many of us find (just like our families) we are in our ward and just have to deal with the good and the not quite so good that is there. The way someone treats others can be 100% independent of their status (or previous status) with the church. Sweet loving people with great people skills are both in and out of the church as well as jerks. And those that leave the church are not absolved of acting in less than becoming ways towards others. In fact my hope that, especially in families, that changes in belief in the church don’t draw out the worst in us all. It seems to me that way too many of us Mormons and ex-Mormons have some growing up to do in this area.
The author several times mentions that it can be hard to see when you yourself are being an A-Hole. Be slow to label others as A-Holes and be quick to question if you yourself are being one. We tend judge others by their actions and judge ourselves by our intentions. So given that I seem to feel I have no A-Holes around me at work, the author suggests that I might be the problem everyone else is dealing with. That thought did make me look in the mirror and reflect on if (where) I might be acting this way. It also reminded me of one of my favorite demotivational posters.
So does anyone have examples of where they or others were able to deal with someone that was really treating other poorly?
Have you ever had one of those epiphany that you were “that guy” and realized you could do much better?
Wheat & Tares 
Not a bad post, not bad at all. Practical skill training on how to be charitable would help a lot of us deal better with each other.
As does identifying poor behavior. When you teach a lesson:
* this is poor behavior
* this is how you deal with it
— you are also calling out everyone who engages in the poor behavior, both by teaching on identifying it and by providing a standard way to deal with it. That is a useful social dyanamic.
I really enjoyed this. Thank you, Happy Hubby.
One good one bad:
In high school, I saw a guy smashing a juicebox into a girls backpack and spilling her stuff all out on the courtyard. She fell to her knees, sobbing. I walked up and started putting her stuff back in her backpack. As I’m doing this, guy says that she deserved it. I kept helping her and calmly reply that it doesn’t matter. That at least diffused the situation and fast forward a few weeks she seemed a much happier person. I know there’s folly in looking to high school of all places for principles on morality, but I think that people who act this way usually have built some internal justification for their behavior. In some ways, the way we silently ignore their behavior builds their justification. But these justifications are often flimsy. Through our words and deeds we can slowly erode and sometimes destroy them. It takes endurance though. Also in my adolescence, I had one or two situations where it became clear to me that I was the one in the wrong. It never came when someone was being an asshole back, but when someone denied me the reaction I was looking for. I felt so shameful afterwards but there was no doubt in my mind that I had been at fault.
Now the bad: I’m going through a divorce. I know my spouse is going through a lot emotionally so I don’t fault her for doing it, but she’s been saying some very hurtful things for the last few months. I know I’m partly responsible for her pain and so I don’t feel good about asking her to stop it, so I just listen to it or find an excuse to get off the phone faster. It just happened again not ten minutes ago, and I came here looking for a distraction. I don’t know how to handle it, so I’m just sitting here commenting on a web blog instead of doing work since I can’t get my mind off of it. I know part of it will pass, but I’m realizing that I don’t really have a resistance to this kind of targeted anger. I also know I’ll have to interact with her in the future so I probably need to build up some sort of defense.
Sorry to get heavy. I enjoyed the article and it’s definitely a skill under-utilized in adult social circles. We should be doing a better job of Christ-like calling people out.
awanderingwarlock:
I admire your response to the guy smashing a juice box…. I would have smacked him. I got into many fights in jr/ high school and lost most of them. I am here to witness, it doesn’t help and it isn’t worth it.
I hope not to insult you but I think professional therapy will help you deal with your ex and your own problems, if you have not already sought for it. Therapy has helped me with far lesser problems but then I had so much room for improvement.
A person breaks their neck and needs medical treatment. And a person goes through a divorce and needs some counseling.
Same idea.
***
One thing therapy taught me is to stop labeling myself and other people. For example, there is no official certification process for becoming an A-hole. So there are actually no practicing or retired A-holes in our midst. Now my father had a list of various types of human asses; smart a.., dumb a.., lazy a.., candy a.., weasel a.., sloppy a.., fat a.., hippie a.., righteous a.., and many more. But even though we might consistently label specific people into these categories, that is all in our collective imagination. And is not useful.
Now, when it comes to behaviors there are definitely better and worse actions. I hope that is what we are discussing here.
Recently, my husband and I listened to an interesting interview with Robert Sutton while on a road trip. The topic caught our attention because my husband has worked for and with “difficult” people over the past many years in the same company. I’ve often wondered if a greater percentage of senior execs are a-holes because they are good at schmoozing up the chain while stomping on the ones below them. Another thing Sutton mentioned that rang true is sometimes this type of senior executive tend to hire people like themselves—other a-holes. That appears to be true with my husband’s current boss and some former bosses.
A couple of examples pertinent to an LDS audience: (note my husband is not one who “wears his religion on his sleeve” so to speak).
At a dinner meeting his current boss asked him if he was wearing the Mormon “magic underwear.”
At another dinner meeting with executives, an executive (and evangelical)from a different department asked if him if he was Mormon and upon an affirmative response the executive stated Mormons believe they will have own planets. My husband then asked aren’t you a “born-again” Christian to which the (evangelical)executive took great offense.
awanderingwarlock: Sending hugs your way.
A friend who works in international business explained one time how to handle the magic underwear question: politely but with a touch of confusion turn it back to the questioner. “Why are you asking about my underwear?” It should tip most normal people off that they have crossed a line without having to be offensive back.
The technique of reflecting offensive questions back works with many sensitive topics such as when or how many children you’re going to have.
The puzzled but polite “Why are you asking?”
Mike: No insult taken, therapy has been and will continue to be a part of the process. I’ll add my own recommendation: everyone should go to therapy.
Cody: thanks<3 I look forward to your next python+statistics+lds analysis
While in the youth program, I participated in Ward Choir. That was one of my first eye-openers with regard to grownups in the ward not always getting along. I remember a couple of guys my dad’s age taking opportunities to vent softly to each other when the Brother annoying them was out of earshot. That seemed to help prevent an outburst. As for me, I couldn’t tally the number of times I was the unruly brat in Primary or Aaronic Priesthood. (To say nothing of the many times on my mission when I was arrogant and/or tone deaf).
I do remember one time I got particularly out of hand as a Teacher/Priest during class, joking and being cynical. This was not during a lesson, but during some sort of activity planning or debrief. So essentially I was mocking our adviser’s job performance. The adviser finally, with a red face, locked eyes with me and sternly said, “Jake, stop! Just stop it.” In the silence that followed, I became the red-faced (embarrassed) party. Not remembering the particulars, but I have no doubt I deserved the reproof. Then, a couple of minutes later, this same adviser found an opportunity to point out something positive/empathetic about me and my point of view to the quorum. I remember this as a great learning experience.
awanderingwarlock, thanks for the “good example” and sorry about the situation in the bad example. I see you have some level of self-examination and realize “it isn’t 100% her fault.” Best of luck in dealing with it to both you and your (ex?) wife.
Lois – on your “are top business leaders more likely to be a-holes?” question, I do recall hearing that the % of narcisist CEO’s is several times higher than the general population. I would venture to guess that narcisists are more likely to be a-holes more often than someone perfect like me (just kidding). So I think it is very much a possibility. Sounds like a PhD theisis that could easliy be turned into a book.
Need screen name – I really like that “why are you asking?” I have really come to see many people asking or judging others has as much to do about themselves as who they are judging and asking questions. This is a good way to bring a mirror up to them. Sure some are not going to get it, but some will (and some that overhear it will get it).
Jake – Nice story about when you were younger. We all are a-holes a bit as a teenager as we are learning. I hope we all learn better and do better over time.