KMOX Radio → on Redirecting Negative Behavior

it is 9 35 and Charlie Brennan Debbie Monterey we’ve been talking about people being so quick to flare people getting angry and flying off the handle we thought it was a perfect time to bring in our next guest Judy Ryan she is the owner of Life work systems she’s a consultant trainers so keep that in mind thanks for being with us thank you now we started out talking about conflict but you point out something very important um let’s talk about a workplace situation where even if you’re not outwardly say arguing or fighting with your co-workers there’s always going to be that person who irritates people because they take credit for things that they didn’t actually do or they don’t do anything and they you know act all big shot and people get annoyed with that so how do you keep that from becoming a conflict yeah it’s actually there are many forms of misbehavior not just conflict one of the one that you’re describing is that person that you feel like who died made you God you know and you just want to take them down but there’s also the misbehavior of people that are underperforming not following through and commitments there’s the misbehavior of people that are just kind of sucking energy out of you out of wanting attention and sort of demanding attention so there’s lots of forms that misbehavior takes and sometimes not always easily recognized so what do you do in that situation because often people would think well I have to tell the boss or the boss will won’t do anything what do you do well most people um whenever I ask these questions I’ll say to them what do you think say and do when people annoy and irritate you when they make you angry when they hurt you and when they make you feel put down or they make you feel worried about them all those different negative feelings and most of the time the answer is I either think negative things or I’m saying negative things to them or I’m saying negative things about them so the problem is that most people don’t know how to handle it without either being punishing or without being permissive and just sort of ignoring and so the the redirecting that I do is helping people have an alternative that’s neither of those so in the workplace for example one of the things that helps if you have somebody that you’re thinking oh my gosh this person comes in they think they know it all they’re always taking credit for everything the first thing to know is that even though they don’t look discouraged they actually are they look arrogant they look hold they look callous but they actually are discouraged in very significant ways and so what’s helpful about that particular pattern which is one of five is that you are able to recognize what’s the belief going on in that person so I don’t inadvertently collaborate with that negative belief that they have and make them worse which is what most of us do give me an example of what you might say to somebody who is negative in the workplace or anywhere to redirect okay well I’ll just give you an example of a particular pattern called the goal of Revenge uh the goal of revenge is a pattern when a person actually is in pain and they don’t believe it’s okay to be supported in that and so they’re doing things that are very shocking and hurtful so I’ll give you an example even a personal one I I have a daughter that lives a couple doors down and I went to her house one day and walked in and I said guess what I lost three pounds today you know and she said why are you always bragging about how much weight you lost you know well in redirect when somebody says something that’s shocking and hurtful the first reaction is to defend ourselves personally right and there was this part of me that I could feel that shock and hurt and I caught myself and I said wow that must really suck when I do that you know that must feel terrible and then the person will often do what’s called upping the ante they’ll get worse first and so she said well yeah it’s like you know you’re always bragging or you always think that you’re better than I am at Weight Loss or you know something worse and so you say gosh that’s just terrible so instead of taking it personal you get curious and you get you try to reconnect with that person wow I didn’t realize I was doing that that must really hurt and then what will happen is that person in the goal of Revenge if you stay with that close connection they will start to express their own pain well yeah I’m going to this event this week and I haven’t lost my baby fat and I can’t fit into my outfit and all the people there are so gorgeous and all of a sudden you know she’s crying and and I’m saying oh honey you know and then she goes I don’t know why I said that stuff about you you don’t brag you’re not you know you’re not you know it’s not about the issue it was about that state of discouragement and so when you know how to redirect you don’t get caught in the limiting belief the person’s in the fearful state that they’re in and you’re actually able to take that situation and turn it so that they don’t hold on to whatever it is that’s caught advising them to act in that way to begin with so now that’s with someone you love and you care about your daughter for example yes so you’re going to invest the time and maybe empathize as part of your redirect but what if it’s a stranger you don’t want to invest the time into learning about why he or she is negative towards you let’s say uh you’re a waitress I’m your uh customer and you say uh may I take your order and I say you know we’ve been waiting here for five minutes right right so let’s say they’re doing say they come across in some way that feels shocking or hurtful or provocative if you know how to redirect them you’re going to first know that their behavior is never about you because if they’re if their behave if even if that incident were true that they had to wait and they were running late they wouldn’t say it in that disharmonious way if there wasn’t something else going on for them so it’s not that they might not be giving you accurate information but the way they’re doing it is um a clue that they’re in a state of discouragement so when you know that and that’s the trick it’s you having to be self-aware enough to know wow I just felt a very strong emotional reaction so that I don’t actually get sucked into that discouraged state with them so if somebody said that to me what I would say is um it sounds like you’re angry with me are you angry with me and the person will usually start expressing a little bit more anger and you say well tell me more and help me to understand exactly what you what you’ve been going through here and by the time you help them to kind of release that pain they’ve calmed down and it’s really not about you that they’re in pain anyway so so you just it’s about recognizing which patterns in playing no knowing how to interact with it I’ll tell you to just switch tables could you take this table I don’t want these people there she’s obviously weighted tables but you know what I would feel very odd if I encountered a stranger someone I didn’t know you know in in public and they’re angry at me and I say wow I you must be really angry tell me about that yeah it happens to me a lot when I’m teaching this redirect because people all the sudden start realizing that they’ve been contributing to the problems with people and so they start getting you know sort of discouraged about that and so when I’m teaching this sometimes people will say well you don’t know the kind of people I have to deal with and they’ll start getting really angry with me and they don’t know me and I don’t know them and I’ll I’ll stop and I’ll say are you angry with me right now and they’ll say well yeah it feels like you’re telling us to do something that you know everything we’ve been doing is wrong you know and I’ll say gosh that must really feel awful right now you know and and what happens is you start to help them move into that place where they just let go of their own discouragement so it’s not about it having to be somebody that you love and care about it’s really about knowing how to be self-aware and self-managing no matter what is coming at you and it’s a it’s a skill that people just have to understand and learn how to do Judy Ryan is our guest and her website is redirecting negativebehavior.com and she’s got seminars on redirecting negative behavior I think one of the things that really just struck me is because I have a loved one who takes everything very personally whatever anybody says it could have absolutely nothing to do with him and suddenly it’s about him and he gets angry and I always say you have to remember it’s usually never about you it’s not about you when somebody says something they’re reacting to something in their own life and it’s usually not about you not if they’re delivering it that way even if the information is accurate like let’s say you parked in somebody’s parking spot and they’re like gosh darn it why did you park in my parking spot that’s so rude you know if they’re delivering the message that way that’s about a state of mind that they’re in and that’s the hard thing for people to realize because they think how could that person be discouraged they don’t look discouraged they just look mean they just look arrogant but the discouragement that they feel is that somewhere in their life they’re not feeling empowered they’re not feeling lovable they’re not feeling connected and they’re not feeling that they can make a contribution in some way and when any of those are missing for them for any of us that’s when we will will act out from a place of discouragement well why don’t we invite some of our listeners to call in and um lay it on the line and you know give us your discouragement if you’re not connected and lovable um actually you can you can role play because everybody listen to this program is pretty well balanced and you know

but uh there might be somebody who can use those theatrical skills call in and just you know give us some trouble and we have never asked for this before but we need to do it so that we can show you how to redirect so we’re going to ask you to give trouble to either Debbie or me or to Our Guest Judy Ryan who is a professional at redirecting this kind of stuff so if you have a situation that you would like some help onto we’ll take those calls too absolutely real world example if there are any in our area I I’d people around here are so decent in every way it’s hard to imagine they would need Judy’s help but they might Judy Ryan is with Lifeworks systems she’s a consultant and a trainer alright folks now the burden’s on you give us a call 436-7900 and really lay into US I mean I mean give it your best three one four four three six seven nine hundred eight hundred nine two five eleven twenty Debbie Monterey and Charlie Brennan on KMOX in studio with us is our guest who’s trying to help us all to redirect negative behavior and let’s face it when you’re not ticked off by the people around you life is much happier Judy Ryan is our guest in redirecting negativebehavior.com is the website if you’d like to enroll in one of the workshops that she’s doing she’s got four coming up this month so you can get signed up for that a lot of us have this bad habit Judy of we keep doing the same thing and it doesn’t work but we keep doing it anyway which is why we thought it’d be good to have you in we do have some callers David joins us right now you were talking before the break about how instead of taking something personally you try to empathize a little with that person to kind of get them their anger worked out David has an interesting uh perspective about that hi David hi so the problem that I see happening is I’m uh interfacing with somebody that’s heard the same show and they come back with I know what you’re doing don’t patronize me well that that’s a very common kind of a situation that happens when you first do redirect a lot of times the person’s Behavior will get worse before it gets better so that’s part of the process but the other thing that can happen is sometimes we don’t know what patterns in play that we’re to redirect for example this is a great example let’s say you’re a boss at work and you’re angry with one of your employees because they haven’t finished a project that person may have not finished that project because they get a lot of attention for not getting it done they may have not finished that project because they’re in the goal of power where they’re in the mindset of no I won’t you can’t make me they may have not finished that project because they want to hurt somebody’s feelings or some one of their co-workers they may have not finished that project because they don’t believe they can do the project or they may not have finished that project because they want to pretend you know they want to act as if I’m more special than other people and this is beneath me so those are the same behavior could have five completely different purposes or our goals behind it so it’s important for people to recognize that what works with one particular moment of misbehavior may not work with another one and so if you get a lot of pushback where the situation escalates chances are you just haven’t identified which mistaken goal they’re in and we tend to treat poor Behavior as though there’s a one-size-fits all it’d be like if you went to a doctor and you said I have a sore throat and he just handed you antibiotics well that’d be great if you had a strep throat but if you had just been at the Cardinal game and screamed your head off that wouldn’t be a good solution and the same with misbehavior you just have a little uh I need to know a little bit more about what’s actually taking place of course the project might not have been done also because the guy was working on another project and the assigned project was so lame and stupid yes yes that’s absolutely true sometimes what we think is misbehaviors not misbehavior indeed okay let’s go to Norman stormin Norman you’re on KMOX yes how you doing uh I agree with everything ‘s talking about redirect I’m retired now but I had incidents Through The Years dealing with people in one dance well boss would be picking on me I’m not going to say he was racing he’s just picking on me off and on over a month two or three times a week and other co-workers noted that and I thought about it I said he’s going through some other emotional situation I didn’t want to say this but I said I said why are you mad at your wife he got real quiet you didn’t have to bring up and he walked away so he had other issues and he wanted to take it out on me right exactly

people engaged offender and whatever because I know they got other issues so you know sense of me [ __ ] like you know I said that’s the lord to bless them forever them they’re going through something else because if you retaliate they might want to hurt you it’s best to just let them go like you said you eat the other issues in their life thanks for the call Norman that sounds pretty wise yeah it you know I think if if uh if people remembered nothing else other than when somebody’s doing something very unharmonious that it means that they’re in a discouraged State and Do no harm that in itself is a as a first step um but what’s even more helpful is if you can begin to understand what’s actually occurring and how can I help to break the negative belief that that person’s in in the moment that they’re misbehaving and when it comes to Road Rage that’s a whole different animal isn’t it right there’s not a whole lot of ability to um interact effectively when you’re talking about people actually um you know in cars you can’t have the conversation stick your head out the window why do you feel so bad I don’t understand your pain what are you angry about no to Norman’s Point let me ask because you you mentioned if you’re a boss and one of your employees is doing something but is it a different process at least a little bit different if you are the employee and there’s something that your boss is doing no the it’s either way it can happen you know I’ve had teenagers in my program that redirect their parents or their teachers so it’s not and it’s not that you necessarily tell somebody oh you’re having a problem with your wife I mean maybe that worked in that case I wouldn’t recommend that what it would be is to recognize this person in the goal of Revenge if that’s the goal that’s in play is a person that’s in pain and that doesn’t believe they deserve support while they are in that pain if you just know that then your goal then you don’t take it personally then you’re all about helping them to release that in whatever way they need to release that and so that that doesn’t continue to be an issue for them or the way they’re going to treat others and so what’s really great about redirect is when you learn how to do it it not only heals the relationship with the other person but it heals parts of ourself that would would do that same behavior so it’s a it’s and the same is true when we don’t use redirect and we use other forms like punishment and harshness and all of that it actually creates more harshness toward ourselves so it’s kind of an interesting uh win-win Joan good morning you’re on with Judy Ryan

I don’t have enough time to uh handle that one anyway or any more phone calls so um let’s go over this once again because this is important the first step when somebody has like a a negative behavior says something to you that might be insulting or rude you respond by the first thing that you do is you have to slow down and notice what emotional reaction you’re having because what emotional reaction I’m having tells me what mistaken goal that person’s in then I know what response to make that’s going to be the most effective it’s just like a doctor that knows the diagnosis and can give the right treatment so if I know how I’m feeling I can know if a person’s in the goal of attention the goal of power the goal of Revenge the goal of inadequacy or the goal of trying to be superior and so each one of those has a specific way that I would then respond so the biggest part is you have to be emotionally intelligent enough to go I’ve got to slow down a good example for this Charlie would be you know when we’re little kids and a dog comes running up to us barking our natural tendency would be to run 1 right but we’re taught to slow down calm our body don’t run and actually do something very counterintuitive like slowly lower your arm out with you know in a fist so that the dog wouldn’t bite your hand and you’re watching for the dog to weigh its tail right that’s an example of redirecting something you created a rapport and you um diffuse that person’s um negative belief like that dog in that case has the negative belief that your enemy that you’re going to be hurting them and so by diffusing that and diffusing it isn’t necessarily the best word but it’s understanding that and being able to shift that dog’s belief you’re able to have an effective you know you can walk away then and know you’re not going to get bitten so that’s a that’s a discipline though we don’t naturally do that we have to be taught so zip it and resist the urge to go oh yeah well yeah don’t do the immediate thing slow down and um it’s very helpful if you can learn what is it what is the feeling that I’m having tell me about what that person’s actually uh what limiting belief that person’s in and don’t expect them to immediately give up the goods No in fact it’s good to know that they’ll usually get a little worse before they get better so you don’t get discouraged it gets worse before they get better but just think of all the bad karma that could be avoided yeah the toxicity levels could go right down oh yes and when you can turn around I mean especially that arrogant person if you can turn them around they can become a huge asset to an organization well if you’d like to learn more I was asking Judy do individuals come to your to your seminars or is it businesses and I guess it’s a whole mix so um there are one two three four of them coming up and if you’d like to get in on these or go to lifeworksystems.com Judy Ryan is our guest thank you so much for sharing your tips thank you