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PlacatingatWork

I know of many people who placate at work:

• "Sure, I'll work overtime this weekend." -- even though I have something planned.
• "Sure, I'll cancel my vacation."
• "Sure, we can start this at 4pm before the long weekend, even though we're supposed to...."

I saw the start-something-late-Friday twice last week, so I know it's alive and well :-)

I refused to change a vacation once. My manager was furious, and told me that he was sure the product would ship while I was gone. If it did, I was fired. I said fine. The product took another two months to release. I could have gone on three vacations, and it wouldn't have affected the release date. (My work was as complete as it could be, and they wouldn't let me help the developer in trouble.)

Do you recognize when you placate at work? Do you act in some way to avoid placating? Is placating necessary sometimes?

JohannaRothman 2003.05.27

This is a rough one. I have noticed that placating is often necessary to "enter" other peoples reality. If you do not engage in behavior that they understand they you do not develop their trust and are unable to try and challenge their beliefs (overtime is necessary). How do you gain their confidence if your behavor does not fit in their model of the world?

Jerry ran an amazing session at AYE last year about "saying no congruently" (NoBirdsofaFeather). One major idea was to agree with their desire but to decline their implementation. "I would love to have that work done by monday, but I do not know how to meet my personal comitments and get the work done".

KenEstes 2003.05.27

"I would love to have that work done by Monday, but I do not know how to meet my personal commitments and get the work done".

This sounds congruent rather than placating to me. It has self, other and context.

A reply, such as "No, I already have something planned." sounds blaming to me. It has self (and lots of it), but it's missing the other person and the context of the request.

If I ask someone for help, at worst, the congruent reply might frustrate me. The blaming reply would anger me because both me and my desires are ignored.

The congruent reply gives the message receiver an opportunity to solve the problem, which is the difference between things as desired and things as perceived. The congruent works on the other person's perception. It expands it to include other factors. The blaming reply offers no opportunity to solve the problem, even if it perhaps can't be solved.

Finally, for me, the congruent reply reframes the situation as a DESIRE rather than a NEED. That distinction is important to me. I've placated too many times because I interpreted the request as a need (requirement), which triggers a survival rule that I must agree to the request.

SteveSmith 2003.05.27

I refused to change a vacation once. My manager was furious, and told me that he was sure the product would ship while I was gone. If it did, I was fired. I said fine.

The problem here is way more than placating, and very different from job sharing, for example. Manager-person is out of touch with reality, and using positional authority to force that fantasy to be shared. So another variation, similar to separating desire and implementation is to separate direction from agreement. "I will accept your direction to do X, Y, Z, while I do not agree that this is the best, or even a feasible, approach."

You'd like to agree with the plan. At some point flawed plans are bad enough that it's TimetoMoveon. The interesting part is the middle ground, when you're not sure you agree, but not willing to quit over it. Another separation of direction and agreement goes: "I will be about doing as you direct, and I have no opinion about this approach. It's out of my experience and I don't have enough data."

-- JimBullock, 2003.05.27 (Above is a post to make, which may or may not work. At least as my own boss I agree with it for the moment.)

Do you recognize when you placate at work? No, I don't think I recognize when I placate at work, at least not at the time. Is placating necessary sometimes? One person's placating is another person's compromise. I have moved my vacation to accommodate changes in a fantasy schedule. The friend who was accompanying me was flexible. And there were limits to how much the vacation could be moved. It was a one week vacation and there was about a four week window during which I wanted to take it. Also, once it was moved, it stayed moved, I did not change my plans at the last minute to accommodate the reality that had imposed itself.

Some people's job is to work overtime on the weekend, even though they have something planned. In my world view those people are the managers who didn?t arrange for coverage ahead of time. A problem is when this isn't negotiated ahead of time. Here, I'm having issues because as the development projects have progressed to the point where they are being used, suddenly our jobs include on call support. But this wasn't obvious or an explicit part of the job when I hired on. And there was no attempt to renegotiate the work. One day an email went out asking all the programming staff for home/cell phone numbers. I provided mine. This was probably worse than placating, since I never answer either of my phones. They got what they asked for, but probably not what they wanted. Is this what people refer to as passive-aggressive?

-- ShannonSeverance 2003.05.27

This discussion brings to mind the greatest instance of placating in my life. In 1982, I called up a young lady and asked her if she wanted to go to dinner and a movie. She said yes. Many years later, she confided in me that after she said yes, she hung up the phone and asked the people in the room with her why she did that. She really didn't want to go on a date with me, but found her self saying yes anyway. She placated. Well, this July we will be married 20 years.

Sometimes placating works out well in the end.

DwaynePhillips 28 May 2003

Perhaps the "work" of dating is underestimated?

-BobLee 2003.05.28

Sorry to misdirect the thought to placating in romance.

Another thought hit me in that I haven't placated at work for a long time, at least it seems like a long time.

I think there are things a manager can do so that people aren't put in the situation of having to placate. Some people above have hit on counter examples where a manager mis-managed a project and asked people to ruin their lives.

My current supervisor doesn't seem to do that with me. He understands personal and business lives, has a wonderful personal life of his own, and encourages others to do the same.

Some might counter, "Well, you work for the government. You don't have the pressures of the marketplace pushing you."

I do work for the government, but I have seen many managers who pushed everyone all the time for various reasons. I have also seen managers, like my current one, who seemed to accomplish all the necessary things without pushing people to incongruence.

DwaynePhillips 29 May 2003