“Well, it’s just not my place to say anything.”
That’s what Madison said to me when she was complaining about her co-worker. Jason was continuously making commitments and not following through, being dismissive of her concerns, and basically just making her job harder.
I had suggested that she be open with him to see if they could resolve it on their own, but Jason wasn’t her direct report, and they both had their own teams. Jason wasn’t her boss, either, so she didn’t feel that she had a direct line to him. I mean, yes, if you go up high enough in the org chart, they share a boss, but given his role and given her role and that they were peers (or maybe he was even senior to her depending on how you look at it), she had convinced herself that she couldn’t do anything about it.
Like a lot of people, Madison believed that it was really up to Jason’s boss to manage his performance, and maybe there could be openness from Jason’s people directly to him, but who was she to talk to him about his performance? Oh my gosh, especially because when she talked to her higher-ups, they think he’s doing a great job.
Madison tried to do a few different things. When his team wasn’t taking care of things as promised, she would move it to the top of the agenda in their shared meetings. She explained why it was so important that it get done. She insisted emphatically in meetings that if it was something she could do herself, she would (more on that in the next blog…).
She also told her boss that he wasn’t getting things done, and that she felt stuck. At first, she felt reassured, because her boss promised that he would take care of it. Buuuut – he didn’t.
She brought it up to him again.
“Oh, that’s right. Yes, I’ll talk to him.”
This time, Madison noticed that she had no faith in his answer, and she felt a mild fury burning inside. When her boss saw the fire in her eyes, it made him almost chuckle, which brought the internal mild fury to an inferno.
And that’s where we were when we started talking. She was completely exasperated.
Feeling Helpless
“It sounds like you feel totally helpless,” I said.
But she wasn’t ready to hear me. She was so pissed off. Madison cared A LOT about her job, and she cared a lot about her team. It was her job, after all, to help her team get things done and hit their goals. And it wasn’t working.
She was absolutely fuming with anger and blame. And I get it – I really do.
I know what it feels like to be so frustrated with other people not pulling their weight. I know what it feels like to be shocked and at a loss when somebody can so consistently lie (at least that’s how it seemed) right to my face about doing something with no follow through. And I know how demoralizing it feels when underneath it all, I feel like I just can’t do anything about it.
The first time my coach really highlighted to me again (a thing that I have learned since kindergarten) that I cannot control what other people do, I felt tears hit the back of my eyes.
“Then how am I supposed to get things done??”
What I didn’t want to feel in that moment was the same helplessness that I was pointing out to Madison.
She didn’t want to feel it because it can feel more powerful to sit in anger and blame, even when it’s wildly unhelpful. Underneath all the anger or blame sit a myriad of different emotions, including hurt, sadness, and yes – helplessness.
Feeling helpless didn’t fit with my identity or how I saw myself. I always saw myself as somebody who could learn, grow, adapt, and figure things out to get stuff done. But something felt harder about that once I started leading people and moving up in the organization. There were so many more factors influencing everything about my job, and the feeling of helplessness and “I just don’t know what else to do” were wearing me out.
Honestly, I think more than feeling like I had a lot of tasks on my plate (which I did), it was this feeling of helplessness that was wearing me out underneath all the anger and frustration.
It Is How It Is… Or Is It?
Madison had started to go down a path of hardening over. “This is just how this is,” started to ring around in her head as a new mantra, a misguided attempt to practice acceptance of a difficult situation. But she could already tell that was changing how she was showing up other places. She wasn’t as compassionate with her team, or with her kids. She was essentially allowing her heart to start to harden over. In the moment, that felt easier than feeling the helplessness underneath it all.
But in sharing my story and my experience, I began to help Madison understand that just because she feels helpless in a moment doesn’t mean she is helpless. But that feeling of helplessness is exactly the kind of thing she can choose to be open about. It unlocked a whole new way of thinking about what it means to communicate honestly with people.
When you’re struggling with feelings of frustration with somebody else, caught in a moment of blaming or playing the victim – congratulations on being human – everybody knows what that feels like. And – I want you to know – beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you can learn how to work through even the most difficult relationship and conversation challenges with people in your life- as long as you’re willing to allow yourself to learn how.
Join our Insider Edge platform for free weekly video content that will guide you and help you on the journey – and if you’re reading this before January 6th – register for my free mini-training on “5 Mistakes that Make work Overwhelming.”
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