Having Trouble Getting Along with Someone at Work? Try using the "Alice" Technique!
iNancy Elder Care with Nancy Karen Culp RN. As a Registered Nurse with almost 38 years of nursing experience I bring to you a series of articles & guides to help navigate thru the workplace setting. Over the years I have been thru the School of Hard Knocks so to speak and I'm still learning! Experiencing a wide range of work settings, situations and challenges along the way has allowed me to share what I have learned or that which those around me have learned. This information is presented to give you support and advice. Here is my unique perspective of the experiences I have had along the way for your benefit!
THE STORY OF ALICE
This is the story of my experience with a co-worker named Alice. I have told it many times in my training sessions as a viable technique for changing someone you don't like into someone you do! Sound amazing? This is a real story and I really worked with Alice in a surgical recovery room years ago. And I didn't like her at all...
Let me set the stage. The recovery room job was Monday to Friday, 10 am to 6 pm. Not having to work weekends it was a dream job for a nurse just a few years out of nursing school. There was just one problem, Alice. Alice was the head nurse and something about her just rubbed me the wrong way. Actually many things bothered me about Alice! The way she interacted with me left me feeling adequate and frustrated. I just started my new job in the recovery room and I definitely liked my schedule, no weekends, start time of 10 am and I wanted to stay but I just couldn't see working with Alice every day. There were only 3 of us nurses in the recovery room and so we were together in the same room all day long!
Alice started her shift at 8 am and was supposed to go home by 4 but she would often stay longer to "help me out" which only further irritated me. I felt I didn't need any help, I did after all have 4+ years of experience under my cap two years of which were spent in the Intensive Care Unit. I wasn't a new kid on the block! Now in hindsight I wonder if she got overtime but regardless that was the situation. Every day seemed to get worse, I was seriously thinking about transferring to another job with-in the hospital but that would mean loosing the coveted weekends off schedule.
Whenever I get into a challenging situation I look in my library of self-help books for an answer and I found one! The excerpt said that if you are having trouble getting along with somebody, take out a sheet of paper and make a list of all the positive things about them you can think of. The book went on to explain that when you get to at least 30 items something totally amazing would happen... Magical in fact. It said that the person would change before your very eyes.
So I decided to try it out on Alice, what did I have to lose? (What can I say, I was young and didn't get it yet!) I remember taking out this little notebook and sitting at the nurses station ready to write my list of things that were wonderful about Alice. I wanted to make this happen quick... I didn't like how I felt walking into work in the morning. The problem was I couldn't think of anything positive! As a matter of fact I couldn't think of anything for that entire day and most of the next day demonstrating just how entrenched my feelings were. How negative my mindset was.
I clearly remember the first few things I put on the list. I saw that Alice was really very good at her job and she in turn taught me well. One of the trickiest things to learn about as far as recovery room goes is determining when the patient is ready to have the breathing tube removed from their throat. If you remove it too soon their neck muscles will not be able to handle swallowing their oral secretions and they will begin to cough and choke. It's embarrassing to call the anesthesiologist to put the tube back in if you've taken it out to soon. Alice was very thorough about teaching me when it's time to remove the tube. That was the first thing I wrote down. "Alice did a very good job in teaching me what signs to look for when it's time to extubate the patient (remove the breathing tube)." Then as I sat there and watched her work I saw that she always left the patient care areas well supplied, neat and orderly and that was the second item on the list. And so it went over the next few days. When I exceeded 30 items it happened. Alice changed right before my eyes. It was magical!
Alice and I went on to have a good working relationship for the next 2 years. During the time we were together I got married and she bought me the most beautiful travel alarm clock. It has abalone shell adhered to the face of the clock. I often show it to my trainees when I share the Alice story with them. When I look at the travel clock today I am reminded of the magnificence we all have inside ourselves if we just take the time to look for it!
So you get it now. It's not really mystical; it is a very real way to change your state of mind about someone thereby removing the stress you experience when interacting with that person. The Alice technique can also be used for situations you find yourself in as well. For example, perhaps you are having negative feelings about an event or situation like where you are currently living but you may not be able to just pack up and move. In order to reduce the stress and unhappiness you are experiencing, make your list and see your perspective change for the better.
It's like looking at the glass half full instead of half empty. It is a practical exercise in flipping your thought process about someone or something from negative to positive!
KEYS TO MAKING IT WORK FOR YOU
Don't try a shortcut like making the list in your head. It's important that you write the list – its part of what makes this work. Seeing your thoughts written on paper utilizes more than one of your senses and helps to magnify the effect. For example writing out your goals is critical to achieving them. For example, only 20% of people write their goals down, of those that do, 80% of them actually achieve their goals. So, writing your Alice list down is important. No shortcuts here...
Pick a person that's meaningful in your life. One time I was doing this exercise in a nurse aide training class and one of my students just couldn't think of anything positive. When I inquired as to who this person was it was someone that they knew as an acquaintance with a shady reputation. There was no real reason to use this technique! She should have instead run like the wind away from this person... Upon further discussion, she disliked her sister-in-law. Perfect I said, let's work on that!
Will this benefit me? Sometimes the situation cannot be changed. Perhaps you are working someone or a group of people that are just plain malicious. Then you have to ask yourself the question "Is this job important enough for me to stay and work things out or is it time for me to move on?" If the answer is yes, that you need to stay for very important reasons like financial reward, ideal work location or you just truly enjoy what you are doing and it's your dream job then you need to stay and work it out. If not, then consider it may be time to move on. Some working environments are defiantly better than others.
OTHER VIABLE INTERVENTIONS TO GETTING ALONG WITH OTHERS
Here are other options available to you for changing your relationship with others:
GET TO KNOW WHERE YOUR BOSS IS COMING FROM
Often employees don't realize that it is very important to know all you can about the people UP your chain of command. For that supervisor, manager or administrative person you interact with frequently YOU need to be the one to understand and learn how to successfully communicate with that person. For example, one boss I had was more interested in how changes would affect patient quality of care and quality of life rather than the bottom line. I'm not saying he had disregard for finances but he was more of a people kind of person. So in my approaches I would accentuate the positives regarding how the change I was suggesting would affect the patient. I expounded on that aspect and if he felt it was truly a valuable change, it worked!
MAKE IT YOUR PRIORITY TO UNDERSTAND OTHERS
In orientation class for new employees I ask them what was the most difficult aspect of a previous job:
Of course it's always unanimous - the people! In light of this I encourage them to commit to dedicating time and effort to understanding personalities, work to improve their communication skills and practice the skills it takes to be a good team player. This sets the tone and puts them in the drivers' seat for stepping up and taking responsibility for getting along with others...
The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people. Theodore Roosevelt.
THE STORY OF ALICE
This is the story of my experience with a co-worker named Alice. I have told it many times in my training sessions as a viable technique for changing someone you don't like into someone you do! Sound amazing? This is a real story and I really worked with Alice in a surgical recovery room years ago. And I didn't like her at all...
Let me set the stage. The recovery room job was Monday to Friday, 10 am to 6 pm. Not having to work weekends it was a dream job for a nurse just a few years out of nursing school. There was just one problem, Alice. Alice was the head nurse and something about her just rubbed me the wrong way. Actually many things bothered me about Alice! The way she interacted with me left me feeling adequate and frustrated. I just started my new job in the recovery room and I definitely liked my schedule, no weekends, start time of 10 am and I wanted to stay but I just couldn't see working with Alice every day. There were only 3 of us nurses in the recovery room and so we were together in the same room all day long!
Alice started her shift at 8 am and was supposed to go home by 4 but she would often stay longer to "help me out" which only further irritated me. I felt I didn't need any help, I did after all have 4+ years of experience under my cap two years of which were spent in the Intensive Care Unit. I wasn't a new kid on the block! Now in hindsight I wonder if she got overtime but regardless that was the situation. Every day seemed to get worse, I was seriously thinking about transferring to another job with-in the hospital but that would mean loosing the coveted weekends off schedule.
Whenever I get into a challenging situation I look in my library of self-help books for an answer and I found one! The excerpt said that if you are having trouble getting along with somebody, take out a sheet of paper and make a list of all the positive things about them you can think of. The book went on to explain that when you get to at least 30 items something totally amazing would happen... Magical in fact. It said that the person would change before your very eyes.
So I decided to try it out on Alice, what did I have to lose? (What can I say, I was young and didn't get it yet!) I remember taking out this little notebook and sitting at the nurses station ready to write my list of things that were wonderful about Alice. I wanted to make this happen quick... I didn't like how I felt walking into work in the morning. The problem was I couldn't think of anything positive! As a matter of fact I couldn't think of anything for that entire day and most of the next day demonstrating just how entrenched my feelings were. How negative my mindset was.
I clearly remember the first few things I put on the list. I saw that Alice was really very good at her job and she in turn taught me well. One of the trickiest things to learn about as far as recovery room goes is determining when the patient is ready to have the breathing tube removed from their throat. If you remove it too soon their neck muscles will not be able to handle swallowing their oral secretions and they will begin to cough and choke. It's embarrassing to call the anesthesiologist to put the tube back in if you've taken it out to soon. Alice was very thorough about teaching me when it's time to remove the tube. That was the first thing I wrote down. "Alice did a very good job in teaching me what signs to look for when it's time to extubate the patient (remove the breathing tube)." Then as I sat there and watched her work I saw that she always left the patient care areas well supplied, neat and orderly and that was the second item on the list. And so it went over the next few days. When I exceeded 30 items it happened. Alice changed right before my eyes. It was magical!
Alice and I went on to have a good working relationship for the next 2 years. During the time we were together I got married and she bought me the most beautiful travel alarm clock. It has abalone shell adhered to the face of the clock. I often show it to my trainees when I share the Alice story with them. When I look at the travel clock today I am reminded of the magnificence we all have inside ourselves if we just take the time to look for it!
So you get it now. It's not really mystical; it is a very real way to change your state of mind about someone thereby removing the stress you experience when interacting with that person. The Alice technique can also be used for situations you find yourself in as well. For example, perhaps you are having negative feelings about an event or situation like where you are currently living but you may not be able to just pack up and move. In order to reduce the stress and unhappiness you are experiencing, make your list and see your perspective change for the better.
It's like looking at the glass half full instead of half empty. It is a practical exercise in flipping your thought process about someone or something from negative to positive!
KEYS TO MAKING IT WORK FOR YOU
Don't try a shortcut like making the list in your head. It's important that you write the list – its part of what makes this work. Seeing your thoughts written on paper utilizes more than one of your senses and helps to magnify the effect. For example writing out your goals is critical to achieving them. For example, only 20% of people write their goals down, of those that do, 80% of them actually achieve their goals. So, writing your Alice list down is important. No shortcuts here...
Pick a person that's meaningful in your life. One time I was doing this exercise in a nurse aide training class and one of my students just couldn't think of anything positive. When I inquired as to who this person was it was someone that they knew as an acquaintance with a shady reputation. There was no real reason to use this technique! She should have instead run like the wind away from this person... Upon further discussion, she disliked her sister-in-law. Perfect I said, let's work on that!
Will this benefit me? Sometimes the situation cannot be changed. Perhaps you are working someone or a group of people that are just plain malicious. Then you have to ask yourself the question "Is this job important enough for me to stay and work things out or is it time for me to move on?" If the answer is yes, that you need to stay for very important reasons like financial reward, ideal work location or you just truly enjoy what you are doing and it's your dream job then you need to stay and work it out. If not, then consider it may be time to move on. Some working environments are defiantly better than others.
OTHER VIABLE INTERVENTIONS TO GETTING ALONG WITH OTHERS
Here are other options available to you for changing your relationship with others:
- Have a meeting: Arrange to have a meeting with the person you are not getting along with. Ask a trusted supervisor or administrative person who understands the situation to attend the meeting as a mediator. Before this meeting takes place, it is important to clearly understand what your objective is and make a list of important things you want to say. Be ready with examples that illustrate your points. If the other person attempts to divert the conversation you will be prepared to bring it back to the subject at hand if your selected mediator does not take the initiative to do so. THEN when the meeting is over and a new plan of action decided upon, put a bookmark in it and move on (forgive & forget). If another meeting is needed down the road, do the same thing over again.
- Write an intervention letter: I have had much success with letter or e-mail approaches. It is your opportunity to have the other person truly listen to your point of view. They are after all stuck and having to read it right? When writing the letter, realize that the most critical part of the content is to at some point demonstrate that you understand of the other persons point of view. The letter has to come from a place of sincerity. I once wrote one of these letters to an administrative assistant. She was a key person to be able to get along with since she controlled access to the boss I was working under at the time. I was at her mercy for access to him but we just didn't seem to click. It also seemed her opinion held weight with my boss as well and I was suspect as to the messages she was giving him about me. So in the letter I reflected back to her the importance of the role she had and how I saw and understood with an overwhelming responsibility she had and how difficult that must be at times. I had to put myself in her shoes in order to do this. I spent time thinking about what it would feel like to be her. Doing this will give you the sincere content you need to put in your letter. Well, she was most moved by my recognition and understanding of her situation and feelings. And it worked. We were able to communicate seamlessly after that.
- Do some research: Often times the problem is not that you just don't like them but rather the other person has traits of a difficult personality. Micromanager, passive aggressive, taking credit for what they have not done, outbursts of anger etc. This one is easy, just do some Google research and select the approaches that will work for you!
GET TO KNOW WHERE YOUR BOSS IS COMING FROM
Often employees don't realize that it is very important to know all you can about the people UP your chain of command. For that supervisor, manager or administrative person you interact with frequently YOU need to be the one to understand and learn how to successfully communicate with that person. For example, one boss I had was more interested in how changes would affect patient quality of care and quality of life rather than the bottom line. I'm not saying he had disregard for finances but he was more of a people kind of person. So in my approaches I would accentuate the positives regarding how the change I was suggesting would affect the patient. I expounded on that aspect and if he felt it was truly a valuable change, it worked!
MAKE IT YOUR PRIORITY TO UNDERSTAND OTHERS
In orientation class for new employees I ask them what was the most difficult aspect of a previous job:
- Learning the skills of the job like how to make the French Fries?
- OR... was it getting along with the people they worked with?
Of course it's always unanimous - the people! In light of this I encourage them to commit to dedicating time and effort to understanding personalities, work to improve their communication skills and practice the skills it takes to be a good team player. This sets the tone and puts them in the drivers' seat for stepping up and taking responsibility for getting along with others...
The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people. Theodore Roosevelt.
