如何摆脱办公室政治

    “争执会令聪明人看起来很愚蠢。”——丹尼尔•戈尔曼，《情商》一书作者

    还记得终于找到一份有前途的工作时，你是怎样的满怀期望吗？你有许多好点子迫不及待想要提出来，你对解决问题成竹在胸，你认为自己总是与众不同的。在应对新职业的诸多挑战同时，也充满了结识新朋友的可能性。

    然而，世事无常。你遭遇了办公室政治。这种持续的冲突与权力斗争在现代公司内无处不在。拉帮结伙、公开冲突的原始冲动、饮水机旁的窃窃私语、最后演变成公然的争吵和人身攻击……真是令人既震惊，又痛苦、失望。于是，你不得不将自己的梦想放到次要位置，先去解决“我在这种环境中如何生存”这一问题。

    我回忆起曾经工作过的一家跨国公司。当时能够去纽约参加公司的全球年会，让我非常兴奋。各种演示结束之后，同事们在休息时间聚在一起，聊着其他同事的闲话。我知道了关于公司创始人的许多令人吃惊的事情……或者至少听到了人们声称绝对真实的“故事”。突然我开始怀疑……我真的适合这样的场景吗？我真的想在这种地方浪费宝贵的时间吗？

    多年来，我遇到过无数类似的情况：正常情况下聪明冷静、才华横溢的人不再专注于为公司做贡献，而是将大多数精力用于和上司、同事与客户的持续冲突。他们没有专注于业务，而是忙于内斗。如果你也有同感，说明你已身陷其中了。下面五种方法，可以帮助你应对冲突，专注于自己的事业：

    1. 不要传播流言蜚语。对于谈论别人的闲话，你要做到不闻不问。不参与，不听，不传播。向你说这些话的人都有自己的动机，而且这些都是二手信息。只要没有亲身经历，你便不能分辨这些话的真假。每一个故事都可能有不同的版本。

    2. 学会同理心。你接触的每一个人都有人类的需求和情感。他们尽一切努力在他们的环境中生存下去。不要去评判、评价、批评或攻击他人，你应该培养对他们的世界、挑战和处境的好奇心。你要假定他们是无辜的。你或许不可能同意他们对每一件事情的看法。但你应该记住，他们是你的商业合作伙伴，而合作是公司成功的关键。不要评判他人，编造他人的故事，而是要去观察对方，对对方的感受感兴趣。渴望了解他们的真正需求。只要学会了同理心，你就会发现他们的需求其实与你的需求非常类似。我们真的有如此大的区别吗？多关注他们情感背后的需求，少关注他们的情绪。情绪是肤浅的。需求才是普遍的，有效的。

    3. 掌握情感密语。我们都会有情绪和情感。但大多数人都忘了，我们的情感是对需求的响应。我们之所以感觉“糟糕”，是因为我们的某些人类需求未得到满足。我们之所以感觉“良好”，是因为某些需求得到了满足。所以，当你看到有人在生气、沮丧、悲伤、烦躁时，这些情绪在告诉你什么？它在告诉你，他们的某些深层次需求没有得到满足。这时，你可以有一个选择：将他们的情感表达判断为“错误的、不恰当的、自私的或愚蠢的”，或者你会留意到，这个人的某些合理需求没有得到满足。你可以帮助他们满足需求，而不是评判他们是“错误的”，这样你不仅可以帮助他们，也能给你带来改变。

    假如你在开车的时候，红色警示灯突然亮了起来。它告诉你汽车需要加油，或者散热器需要加水。这时候，你需要做的就是停下来，提供引擎所需要的东西，然后继续驾驶。但许多人会有不同的反应。他们不是去解决需求，而是拔出电线，关掉警示灯。如今，这些人都住到了傻瓜的天堂。因为真正的需求没有得到解决，而是被故意忽视。引擎自然会爆炸。

    当人们在面临冲突时，他们的情感会表露出来，如果你仔细观察，我们可以将“警示灯”（他们的情感）作为一个提醒，表明他们某些更深层次的需求没有得到满足。我们不能犯前文所述的错误，而是要努力挖掘出他们的深层需求。我们对评判他人没有兴趣，我们感兴趣的是如何帮助他们满足深层次需求。这才是同理心的本质，也是情商的精髓所在。

    那么，所谓的情感“密语”到底是什么？即理解情感就像一根指针，指向了某种需求，如安全、承认、确定性、爱、幸福、生存、创造性、成就、认可、乐趣等。这些需求是普遍存在的，我们每一个人都有同样的需求。当需求得不到满足时，人们便会爆发某种情感——提醒我们，某些方面有所缺失。忽视、评判甚至反对这些情感，“引擎”将会爆炸，冲突是最终结果。你是否足够聪明，能够透过表面，满足真正的需求？或者，你是否依然只是去判断、评价、批评他人，认为别人是错误的？

    “Conflict makes intelligent people look stupid.” ——Daniel Goleman, author of “Emotional Intelligence.”

    Remember what it was like to finally get a promising job, all your hopes and expectations? All the great ideas you were going to bring, the problems you knew you could solve, the difference you were going to make. And all the potential partnerships that would develop as you faced the many challenges of your new career.

    And then, something happened. You discovered office politics. The ongoing conflicts and power struggles that permeate modern organizations. The factions. The cliques. The raw emotions of open conflict. The furtive conversations at the water cooler. The open shouting and name calling when tempers flared and conflicts came out into the open. How shocking, how painful, how disappointing. And your dreams began to take a backseat to the question “How am I going to survive in this environment?”

    I recall a global organization I once worked for and how excited I was to attend their global annual meeting in New York, The Big Apple. After all the presentations, colleagues would meet up during the breaks and gossip about other colleagues. I learned amazing things about the company’s founder….or at least I heard ‘stories’ that people claimed to be true. Suddenly I began to wonder…do I really fit into this picture? Is this the kind of place I want to spend me precious time?

    And, over the years, I experienced uncountable situations where normally calm, talented and intelligent people lost their focus on contributing and expended most of their energy on their ongoing conflicts with bosses, other colleagues and customers. Instead of engaging in business, they were busy engaging in warfare. If any of this resonates with you, you have come to the right place. Here are five proven methods to help you deal with conflict and keep your focus on your business:

    1. Don’t Gossip.When you hear things about other people, put cotton in your ears. Don’t get involved, don’t listen and don’t repeat what you heard. What you are hearing comes from people who have an agenda, and it is second-hand information. If you didn’t experience what they report personally, you don’t know if it is true or not. There are always two sides to every story.

    2. Learn to Empathize.Everyone you will ever meet is a human being with human needs and human feelings. They are doing the best they know how to survive in their environment. Instead of judging, evaluating, criticizing or attacking….become curious about their world, their challenges, their situation. Give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you don’t agree with them on everything. But remember, they are your partners in a business and partnerships are key to business success. Instead of judging them and making up stories about them, just observe them and take an interest in what they are feeling. Take an interest in what they really need in the situation. With empathy you will discover that their needs are actually very similar to your own. Are we really so different? Pay more attention to the needs that underlie their feelings, and less attention to their content. Content is superficial. Needs are universal and valid.

    3. Learn the Secret Language of Feelings.We all have emotions and feelings. But most people have forgotten that our feelings are a response to our needs. When we feel “bad” it is because some human need is not being met. When we feel “good” it is because some need is being satisfied. So when you see people that are angry, frustrated, sad, upset…what does it tell you? It tells you that some deep need is going unmet. You have a choice: you can judge their expression of their feelings as being “wrong, inappropriate, selfish, stupid, or whatever,” or, you can simply notice that this is a person who has some legitimate need that isn’t being met. If you can focus on helping them get their needs met, instead of judging them ‘wrong’ then you can make a difference for them, and for you.

    Imagine that you are driving in your car and the red warning light comes on. It is just telling you that the engine needs oil or the radiator needs water. So all you need to do is stop and provide what the engine needs and you can keep driving. But many people have a different response. Instead of addressing the need…they pull out the wire so that the warning light goes off. And now, they are living in a Fool’s Paradise. Because the real need is not being addressed, it is being willfully ignored. And of course, the engine is going to blow up.

    So when people are in conflict, their feelings surface and if we are paying attention we take the ‘warning light’ (their feelings) as an indication that some deeper need isn’t being met. Instead of making the ‘warning light’ wrong, we become interested in what is going on at a deeper level. We aren’t interested in judging them, we are interested in helping them meet the deeper need. That is the nature of empathy and it is the essence of Emotional Intelligence, also known as “EQ.”

    So what is the ‘secret language’ of feelings? It is the understanding that feelings are just pointers, pointing so some need for safety, acknowledgement, certainty, love, happiness, survival, creativity, achievement, acceptance, fun, etc. These needs are universal, they live in all of us. And when they are not met, feelings arise…feelings that alert us that something is missing. Ignore them, judge them, fight against them…the ‘engine’ is going to blow up and conflict is the result. Are you wise enough to look beneath the surface and address the real need? Or will you continue to just judge, evaluate, criticize and generally make people wrong?