Waiting for Someone Else to Grow Up
Why waiting for a difficult coworker to change keeps you anxious.
Workplaces are funny places, a coming together of all manner of different people, each, in theory, united in a common cause. Many companies invest considerable resources in team building and creating cohesion. But the fact remains you’ve thrown a group of otherwise disparate humans together who are forced to interact, converse, create and spend a considerable part of their week in close proximity, whether physically or virtually.
You’ll inevitably find yourself struggling with a particular coworker, especially if they are a manager or in a senior role. They can set the temperature for the whole group. Or maybe there’s a colleague who you just don’t think pulls their weight, leaving others to pick up the pieces.
I’ve found myself replaying conversations in the car on the way home, reassuring myself that I was in the right after a frustrating interaction, and sometimes castigating myself for not handling the situation better. But underneath that lies a belief that if only the other person could get their shit together, my life would be infinitely easier.
Kathleen Smith, a therapist and faculty member at the Bowen Center for the Study of the Family, recently published a piece whose title pretty much sums up how I should actually behave: “No One Has to Grow Up for You to Calm Down”.
Her thinking draws on Bowen family systems theory, which treats anxiety as something that circulates through a group rather than sitting neatly within individuals, and, in an earlier essay, she was blunt about what our favourite coping habits actually achieve.
“From the top of the stadium, we see how our reactions to challenges are more about managing our own anxiety than helping others.”
We avoid confronting the actual source of our discomfort, instead, we write long emails that over-explain a decision. Worse, we vent to a friendly colleague, thereby transferring our resentment to them. Getting it off our chest might give a sense of relief, but in reality, nothing will change, which is why we rinse and repeat, and risk the unhappiness compounding,
What has taken me a long time to realise is that my happiness is my problem. If my calm depends on others behaving the way I think they should, then I have handed them control of my psychological welfare. This translates into your home life just as easily. Some men like to laugh “happy wife, happy life” - keep everyone in the house happy, and you will be happy. Maybe their way of ensuring that is to portray themselves - rightly or wrongly - as the ‘dependable one’. It’s the same reflex as if they were at work.
Bowen theory has a name for the alternative, differentiation of self. Stay connected to the anxious people around you; don’t soak up their anxiety; don’t wait for them to change - it’s not your place to force that change, and nothing good will come of you imposing yourself on another.
Smith poses two questions to ask yourself:
“How do I want to be responsible for myself right now?”
“How do I want to be responsible to others?”
Notice that neither question mentions anyone else; this is about you, and the behaviours that you can control - your own.
You regularly read about hostile and poisonous workplaces in the news, and occasionally, the most awful outcomes for victims. I am absolutely not suggesting that in a workplace you need to grin and bear it when you are suffering real harm. Removing yourself is the best option, but I also understand that it is not always achievable.
There is also nuance. A junior employee suffering at the hands of a poor-quality boss (think of all those horrible hazing practices in trades workplaces) is surviving a situation they didn’t design or sign up for. And may lack the maturity to properly respond.
I’m probably choosing to focus more narrowly on the two questions above. Your steadiness is yours to build, and waiting for another adult to mature first is often a long wait.
I’ve founded/co-founded/led and worked in businesses for pushing 30 years, so more often or not I’ve been the boss in these scenarios. I’d like to think I was steady to be around, but I know in my heart that absolutely is not true. I’ve let the emotion and stress build and allowed that to manifest in poor behaviour - which includes throwing a phone across the office. That was a very long time ago; I’d never in a month of Sundays allow that abrogation of emotional control to emerge today.
I’d urge those of you who have someone at work who really pisses you off to adopt the small practice of catching yourself when you think, “I’d be fine if they’d just…,” and noticing that you have outsourced your calm and happiness to someone you don’t like. It’s a contradiction that needs to be called out. Nothing about this prevents you from naming problems, setting boundaries or disagreeing out loud. It just means you do those things without waiting for anyone else to grow up first.