Communication with Corporate Psychopaths

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Diplomatic communication	Socratic Questions	Five Points Verbal Response Test	Rules of Verbal Self Defense	Copying with anger
Communication with Micromanagers	The psychopath in the corner office	Coping with the micromanagement induced stress	Humor	Etc

She is intolerable, but that is her only fault
I find that nonsense, at times, is singularly refreshing
Speech was given to man to disguise his thoughts.
Diplomacy: The art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you find a big enough rock
Mistrust first impulses; they are nearly always good.

Prince Talleyrand:

"Diplomacy is the art of telling someone to go to Hell, in a manner which will make them look forward to the trip"

(From a sign on the office wall
of President Putin's Press Secretary)

Note 1: Most people dramatically overestimate their communication abilities. As a raw estimate consider them approximately equal to your abilities to play chess. And that's as close to playing chess as you can get.

Note 2: Communication with corporate psychopath cannot and should not be spontaneous. It should be very formal, prepared and you should never avoid the possibility to ask the question or statement to be repeated to win some time. If you are taken by surprise took a pause, go for a cup of coffee or invent other maneuver helping you to find the best move in the new situation.

Note 3: PIMM often use term "improper communication" or "bad teamwork" for pigeonholing. Be prepared to those false accusation and calmly point out on the attempt to pigeonholing:

Pigeonholing is a term used to describe processes that attempt to classify disparate entities into a small number of categories (usually, mutually exclusive ones).

The expression usually carries connotations of criticism, implying that the classification scheme referred to does not adequately reflect the entities being sorted, or that it is based on stereotypes.

Common failings of pigeonholing schemes include:

Categories are poorly defined (often because they are subjective).

Entities may be suited to more than one category. Example: rhubarb is both 'poisonous' and 'edible'.

Entities may not fit into any available category. Example: asking somebody from Washington, DC which state they live in.

Entities may change over time, so they no longer fit the category in which they have been placed. Example: certain species of fish may change from male to female during their life.

Attempting to assigned fixed set of categories for traits that would be better viewed as a continuum. Example: attempting to sort people into 'introverted' and 'extroverted'.

....

Introduction

The less we speak, the more we learn;
the more we learn the less we speak

The regular rules of human interaction do not apply when you are talking to a corporate psychopath. During normal conversation, we often anticipate questions and volunteer information.

Here god forbid volunteering any information. The less you communicate the better (within certain limits). Forget about advice of the type "let's clear the air, clean the slate, have a sit down, face-to-face, heart-to-heart meeting. In the business cancelling industry the solution is better communication/ But even genius communicator cannot do much facing mean spirited, easily threatened micromanager, who is, simply put, a nut case. Often it's worth not to communicate especially if you know that situation is changing or could change soon.

Also forget useless crap about "lower your expectations and live happy" or "the power of positive thinking". It can serve as a useful sedative especially if you play it during your daily commute to work with a corporate psychopath, but that's about it. There is more here then just a communication problem. and there is such thing as talking to the wall -- that's exactly the case when you deal with corporate psychopath be it micromanager, narcissist, bully or some other flavor.

Consider such conversation to be more of courts deposition then a free conversation as the goals of corporate psychopath are the same as hostile lawyer during depositions. Each your slip can be used against you. Here is one usable set of recommendations from Court Appearance and Deposition - Divorce Question

Be polite. Always say: "Yes, sir," or "No, ma'am," .... Never argue with anyone. ... Do not tell jokes or say anything sarcastic... Listen carefully to every question. Pause before answering, make sure you understand the question, think, and then be direct with your answer.

Answer only the question asked of you, and then stop talking. Do not add any commentary. One of the oldest (and most effective) techniques is, once you've given your answer, the lawyer looks at you as if to say: "Keep talking." Do not fall into this trap. Just look back at him calmly and politely as if to say: "I am waiting on you to ask another question."

... ... ...

If you do not understand a question, ask for the question to be repeated... If you think you are speaking too fast, stop, pause for a second or two, slow down, then finish your answer. You are not in a conversation.

The regular rules of human interaction do not apply. ... If you lose your temper, you may lose your case.

Never begin answers with the phrases: "To the best of my recollection," or "I do not recall." Most people will think of President Clinton. Simply say, "I don't know."

Extended rules (commandments)

A helpful tip that simplifies communication with corporate psychopath is to imagine yourself in torture camera with an inquisitor presiding questioning you. Or deposition in a court.

Listen carefully to every question. Pause before answering, make sure you understand the question, think it over, and only then try to answer; then be direct with your answer. Pause 10 seconds before you try to answer any question.
Short answers are the best. Do not offer any information you more than asked of you. Answer only the question asked of you, and then stop talking. Do not add any commentary. One of the oldest (and most effective) techniques is, once you've given your answer, the lawyer looks at you as if to say: "Keep talking." Do not fall into this trap. Just look back at him calmly and politely as if to say: "I am waiting on you to ask another question."
Systematically use pause before an answer to weight and reassess your options. Do not jump to answer or reply to anything. Do not attempt to be smooth. This is not a conversation. You might use you watches to ensure proper pause before an answer or to keep silence and back off if you speak too much.
Be polite and formal, practice negative politeness. Always say: "Yes, sir," or "No, ma'am," ....
Never argue, just state the facts.
Do not, for any reason, exhibit hostile feelings or aggression towards corporate psychopath. They are vengeful and can play this masterfully against you as it's easy for the boss to pretend that he was threatened by subordinate of in case the psychopath is a woman that you used some anti-woman statements
Do not tell jokes or say anything sarcastic... This also can be boomerang that will return to hurt you.
Keep your composure, maintain your focus and your credibility. Ignore emotional tantrums from psychopath as they are usually carefully planned provocations. If they are provocations then they are aimed squarely to get you out of balance so that you make a mistake or commit a blunder.
Ask for a break, or ask permission to bring coffee if you feel the need to expend some emotion or situation got out of control

What to do is the psychopath is a micromanager

Also while you should have no illusions ("my way or highway" is the rule of PIMM's game) but subtly influencing PIMM agenda can be useful: if PIMM adopts your ideas as his own, you've have eliminated one of biggest stress factor -- performing idiotic or completely counterproductive assignments or creating useless reports (death by PowerPoint or spreadsheet ;-) . Your loss by sacrificing your idea is less. this is like chess. Sometimes you need to sacrifice a pawn.

Also remember that if you in IT it's harder to fire you then if you are in Wall Mart. Even though PIMM are inevitable, they don't have to be terminal for your employment, at least you might win some time before leaving (and this is highly recommended strategy). Or if you are really lucky you may outlast PIMM (don't count on that).

In no way you can trust PIMM. They are either obsessive compulsive or psychopath or both. In any case you should not be too trusting and gullible for your own good. Remember that few people are sophisticated enough to avoid to be manipulated by skilled and determined psychopath. Programmers and system administrators are definitely outside this small strata. Understanding this improves your chances to avoid becoming a victim of your own gullibility.

The first rule of communicating with micromanager is to feed the beast regularly but never provide any information that is not strictly connected to your projects/assignments. Any information that you communicate can later be used against you. Remember that acute micromanagers are a special type of corporate psychopath and that the driving source of such micromanagers is their own insecurity as well as anxiety about failure. Keep him in the loop feeding with washout information, and then do so on a periodic basis that you can negotiate. As for the length of the period you mileage can vary. I saw pathological tenacious PIMM who, paradoxically, was comfortable with just monthly reports. You need to test PIMM tolerance and if monthly reports are enough consider yourself somewhat lucky, if we can talk about luck in such a desperate situation. With some inventiveness you can safely avoid him/her for the rest of the period.

Think about those periodic reports as feeding money into a parking meter. If you stop putting money in, your meter will run out and you can get a ticket.

You can feed micromanager with spam instead of useful information as long as the period is observed. Micromanagement is all about the procedure not about the substance and that observation alone gives you considerable leverage even on the worst of control freaks. In other words cheating is a noble art for anybody who reports to a micromanager. Usually control freaks do not have time to read all the mail and even if they do they easily swallow regular corporate BS due to self-induced overload. You need to understand the level of their competence and if it is dismal use this weakness. You can usually slightly fudge facts in your favor with little risk: they have no time to check them as they are preoccupied with some meaningless activity like creating yet another gigantic useless Excel spreadsheet that documents absurd procedure for doing trivial things.

The second rule is to sugarcoat everything. PIMM have deeply seated insecurity and their triggers go off at slight hint of criticism. That does not mean that you should avoid confrontations. But you need to chose your battles. Just treat the jerk as if he/she is a child. You can find a lot of material how teachers should behave with difficult children and some is relevant to communication with PIMM.

I advice being as to limit communication and be non-confrontational as possible. Your mileage may vary. Hidden insecurity is the most prominent trait of this flavor of corporate psychopath. Remember that you essentially are dealing with a sick person. Feed him/her the information that makes him comfortable with the hope that it will let you avoid stupid outbursts of anger. But if such approach fails, you can and probably should confront such behavior calmly and firmly: “Understand, but do not accept negative behavior.” That's about your dignity after all.

Be assertive and confident but never trust paranoid micromanager and never try to build trust beyond some superficial ("I respect you as I would respect any living creature o n the earth including cockroaches") level. PIMMs are special type of corporate psychopaths and a psychopath is always a psychopath. Moreover they are usually very skillful manipulators and will try to lure you into frank discussions. Never bite this trap. Never volunteer any information that can be used against you. This is a war and "a la guerre, comme a la guerre" as French defined such relationships: war does not determine who is right - only who is left.

Never try to reform a PIMM. Leave this task to other people or to qualified medical personnel. To quote Susan K. O’Brien (see Tips for coping with a micromanager) “:

Micromanagement is a personality aberration of insecure individuals. Confronting them is likely to make things worse.”

Never try to reform a PIMM. Psychopath cannot be reformed. Leave this task to other people or to qualified medical personnel.

Practice verbal aikido by deflecting direct questions and using indirect communication instead of direct whenever possible. Like the martial art of aikido, you don’t brace yourself for attack, but try to use your attacker’s momentum to thwart the advance. Rather than go into defensive mode, pretend to be proactive and cooperative and try to redirect the oncoming anger into complex question that always surround supposedly "black and white" situation.

When PIMM tries to put you on the defensive, thanks them but ask for more information using Socratic questions, for example:

If somebody says, ‘You did this,’ don’t respond with ‘I did not.’ Instead try, ‘Oh really. What area of this work looks in danger of slipping schedule?"
Or "We really experience difficulties due to recent change of the direction of the project. Let me explain them"
Or if you need to think about a proper response "Let me bring coffee, I will be back in a minute."
Always try to be indirect. Avoid volunteering important information, especially information about colleagues: it can always be used against you.

Be indirect. Avoid volunteering important information, especially information about colleagues: it can always be used against you.

For more detail please check two additional pages devoted to the topic:

And the last but not least: like any self-help this page is probably 80% crap and only 20% useful information. You need to be selective and adapt recommendations to your own situation.

Notes:

Those pages are written by people for whom English is not a native language. Some amount of grammar and spelling errors should be expected.
This is a Spartan WHYFF (We Help You For Free) site. It cannot replace the best teachers and the best books.
The site contain some obsolete pages as it develops like a living tree... Some links on older pages are broken. Please try to use Google, Open directory, etc. to find a replacement link (see HOWTO search the WEB for details). We would appreciate if you can mail us a correct link.

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Old News ;-)

[Feb 18, 2007] August 1997 -- Improving Verbal Communication

Mr. Gabor offers these tips for using TACTFUL conversations:

T = Think before you speak

A = Apologize quickly when you blunder

C = Converse, don't compete

T = Time your comments

F = Focus on behavior - not on personality

U = Uncover hidden feelings

L = Listen for feedback

Other DOs and DON'Ts to Accompany T-A-C-T-F-U-L Strategies

DO be direct, courteous and calm

DON'T be rude and pushy

DO spare others your unsolicited advice

DON'T be patronizing, superior or sarcastic

DO acknowledge that what works for you may not work for others

DON'T make personal attacks or insinuations

DO say main points first, then offer more details if necessary

DON'T expect others to follow your advice or always agree with you

DO listen for hidden feelings

DON'T suggest changes that a person can not easily make.

[Jan 13, 2007] 11 Communication Tips for a Healthy Workplace by MedicineNet.com

Misunderstandings and communication problems remain one of the most common sources of workplace strife, and interpersonal difficulties are magnified when conflicting work styles coexist in one setting. Generational differences (baby boomers vs. GenX-ers), personal management styles, educational background, and cultural diversity are all potential sources of office misunderstandings.
While conflict is inevitable, it need not ruin your workday or cause unbearable stress. Try these conflict resolution tips to make your work environment a less stressful, more productive place:

Be specific in formulating your complaints. "I'm never invited to meetings" is not as effective as "I believe I would have been able to contribute some ideas at last Thursday's marketing meeting."

Resist the temptation to involve yourself in conflicts that do not directly involve you or your responsibilities. Even if someone has clearly been wronged, allow him or her to resolve the situation as he/she chooses.

Try to depersonalize conflicts. Instead of a "me versus you" mentality, visualize an "us versus the problem" scenario. This is not only a more professional attitude, but it will also improve productivity and is in the best interests of the company.

Be open and listen to another’s point of view and reflect back to the person as to what you think you heard. This important clarification skills leads to less misunderstanding, with the other person feeling heard and understood. Before explaining your own position, try to paraphrase and condense what the other is saying into one or two sentences. Start with, "So you're saying that..." and see how much you really understand about your rival's position. You may find that you're on the same wavelength but having problems communicating your ideas.

Don't always involve your superiors in conflict resolution. You'll quickly make the impression that you are unable to resolve the smallest difficulties.

If an extended discussion is necessary, agree first on a time and place to talk. Confronting a coworker who's with a client or working on a deadline is unfair and unprofessional. Pick a time when you're both free to concentrate on the problem and its resolution. Take it outside and away from the group of inquisitive coworkers if they're not involved in the problem. Don't try to hold negotiations when the office gossip can hear every word.

Limit your complaints to those directly involved in the workplace conflict. Character assassination is unwarranted. Remember, you need to preserve a working relationship rather than a personal one, and your opinion of a coworker's character is generally irrelevant. "He missed last week's deadline" is OK; "he's a total idiot" is not.

Know when conflict isn’t just conflict. If conflict arises due to sexual, racial, or ethnic issues, or if someone behaves inappropriately, that's not conflict, it's harassment. Take action and discuss the problem with your supervisor or human resources department.

Consider a mediator if the problem gets out of control, or if the issue is too emotional to resolve in a mutual discussion. At this step, your supervisor should be involved. You can consider using a neutral third party mediator within your own company (human resources if available) or hiring a professional counselor.

Take home point: It’s not all about you - You may think it’s a personal attack, but maybe your co-worker is just having a bad day. Take time to think BEFORE you speak in response to an insensitive remark. It may be that saying nothing is the best response.