Well Managed

What To Do (and What NOT To Do!) When One of Your Employees Starts Crying (part 4)

Here are parts one, two and three of this series.

There are three levels of crying intensity. Here they are, in increasing order of severity:

1. Tears and runny nose
2. Constricted throat, making it difficult to speak
3. Sobbing

Let's look at each of these levels one at a time:

 

Dealing with Level 1 is straightforward: Hand the employee a box of tissues and give her reassurance each time she apologizes. Usually you’ll get two or three apologies before she realizes everything’s okay and then you just carry on with the meeting. You don’t have to wait for the tears to stop, in fact you shouldn’t. She’d much rather focus on the issue at hand than on the fact that she’s crying. One very smart, very competent woman told me that when she cries at work she wants to tell her boss,

“Don’t worry about it. I’m not that upset, I’m just crying. Let’s keep going with the meeting.”

Some time ago I had a young manager come to my office to tell me about a serious personal situation that was going to affect her work. As she talked, tears started running down her cheeks. She expressed embarrassment; I reassured her. She apologized; I again reassured her. She then carried on as though nothing was happening. I thought she handled the situation maturely and professionally. It actually increased my already high opinion of her. She showed good composure in difficult circumstances.

 

Level 2 is more complicated because it’s hard to converse with someone who’s having difficulty speaking. If the employee is choked up and can’t talk, what you want to do is take the pressure off her. Don’t just sit and stare at her. It helps to talk while she tries to collect herself. One thing that has worked well for me is to tell a story that is relevant but not upsetting. There’s almost always something in my background as a manager that comes to mind. There’s something about chatting a bit without asking the employee any questions that gives her some space to get herself under control. At some point the employee will usually make a comment in response to some aspect of the story and if her voice is normal and unconstricted you know you’re out of the woods and can pick up where you left off.

 

I've only had employees reach Level 3 – outright sobbing – a few times and it was always about a personal issue as opposed to a performance issue. What I ended up doing was giving the employee a big hug, after getting her permission to do so, and that really seemed to help a lot. I realize this is probably contrary to what your HR director would advise, but in those instances it was clearly the right thing to do as a human being and as a manager and in each case it seemed to do the employee a world of good. A good hug is wonderful medicine and one of the nicest things people can do for each other. It’s a shame hugging has become so disfavored, which, of course is the result of some really lousy managers using hugging as an excuse for groping.

 

Whether it’s a good idea for you to give a crying employee a hug depends entirely on your ability to judge whether it will seem like a comfort or an imposition to the employee. If you’re not confident of your ability to make that judgment call, don’t do it. Plus, only do it if you are comfortable doing so, if hugging comes naturally to you. If you feel awkward giving a hug, your employee will definitely feel awkward getting it.

Well, that’s it for the “99 Tears” series of posts. One of my goals for this blog is to give new managers the kind of information I wish someone had given me years ago. I hope these tips prove useful for you (though not too often!).

What To Do (and What NOT To Do!) When One of Your Employees Starts Crying (part 3)

Here are parts one and two of this series.

When one of your employees starts crying in your office, bear in mind that it shouldn’t upset you or throw you off track. If you have any preconceptions or prejudices that cause you to emotionally overreact to crying, get over them or learn to see past them. Crying is simply an involuntary biological reaction. There’s no reason for you to back down and become placating, nor is there any reason for you to become angry or exasperated.

It will only make the situation worse if you allow yourself to be flustered in any way. Be patient, be understanding, and keep your composure.

Knowing how to handle this situation is part of your job as a manager. It’s a professional skill you need to acquire just like you need to learn how to analyze performance data and prepare a budget. It’s also an opportunity to be a good person, to treat another human being with compassion and respect.

The main thing is to maintain the baseline demeanor you had before the crying started. For example:

• If you were disciplining the employee, maintain the same basic sense of firmness and seriousness. (This assumes you weren’t being cruel. There’s never a place for cruelty in management. If you made the employee cry by being cruel, shame on you. Apologize for doing it and learn to deliver discipline appropriately.)
• If you were discussing a workplace conflict in which the employee was involved, remain interested but neutral.
• If the employee had come to you with a personal issue, remain compassionate and professional.

Your goal is to help the employee move past the tears. You want to refocus the meeting on the underlying issue and  pick up where you left off with the same demeanor you had before the crying started.

The employee will almost always feel uncomfortable about crying. This can range from feeling mildly embarrassed to feeling absolutely mortified and humiliated. They’ll often apologize over and over again, or express how horrified they are to find themselves crying in front of the boss.

Why does the employee feel bad about crying? There are several reasons.

• In our culture, we’re generally uncomfortable with crying in front of anyone except our closest friends and relations.
• We’re especially uncomfortable about crying in the workplace because it’s seen as “unprofessional.”
• If you can’t stop yourself from crying, you’re not in control of your own actions, and that is inherently disturbing.
• For employees who want to get promoted, they’re afraid you’ll see them as being unqualified for leadership positions.

The crying creates a bad dynamic because:

1. The employee was already feeling bad about whatever caused her to start crying in the first place, and
2. Now she also feels bad about crying in front of her boss.

Your job at this point is to remove the second issue, to help her stop feeling bad about crying. There are two reasons for doing this.

• You’re a good boss and you care about your employees. You should always seize opportunities to help your employees feel less sad and more happy. No act of compassion is ever wasted, and every moment of kindness makes our world a better place.
• You need to get the meeting back on track. The “I-feel-bad-about-crying” issue is an unnecessary and unproductive distraction. The sooner you can make the crying a non-issue, the sooner both of you can refocus on the real issue you were discussing in the first place.

The way you do this is pretty simple: just keep giving the employee reassurance until she stops apologizing for crying. At the same time, through your tone of voice, body language, and facial expression, demonstrate that you’re not getting angry, flustered, impatient, etc. In other words, serve as a role model for the message, “It’s okay that you’re crying, nothing’s changed, we can be comfortable with this situation.”

Be patient. Every time the employee apologizes or expresses a sense of shame, give another message of assurance. Here are some examples of useful messages:

• “It’s fine”
• “Please don’t worry about it”
• “Take your time”
• “It’s perfectly natural, we’re talking about a sensitive matter”

Don’t make the employee feel pressured or rushed because that will just make it harder for her to get her emotions under control.

In the next and final post in this series, we'll talk about three levels of crying and how to handle each one.

Here is part four of this series.

What To Do (and What NOT To Do!) When One of Your Employees Starts Crying (part 2)

Here is part one of this series.

In this post, we’re going to talk about one of the most important things NOT to do when an employee cries:

Don’t let crying, in itself, affect your thinking. Don’t let it change your opinion of the employee, don’t let it alter your judgment about the situation being discussed, and don’t let it affect your decision-making.

Remember, in this series of posts we’re talking about the simplest workplace crying scenario: an employee starts crying while talking with you in the privacy of your office or a meeting room. The employee is either upset about a performance problem you’re discussing or about a personal or workplace issue. Trickier situations like uncontrolled crying in an open work area or an employee who cries frequently will be discussed in future posts.

Before going on, we might as well acknowledge that the crying employee is likely to be a woman. In truth, I can’t recall ever having a male employee cry in my office. So in these posts I will refer to the crying employee as “she” and “her” because that’s what my experience has been. I’ve talked to a number of other managers and they confirmed that has been their experience as well, other than isolated instances of male employees getting a bit teary-eyed.

At this point I’d like to provide you with a link to the definitive study defining the differences between men and women when it comes to crying and what causes those differences. But I can’t, because as far as I can tell that study doesn’t exist. It appears this stuff is still pretty much a mystery as far as science is concerned.

However, I think a few basic facts are clear:

• Everyone cries sometimes, but some people cry more easily than others.
• A higher percentage of women cry easily while a higher percentage of men cry rarely.
• To put it another way, some women hardly ever cry and some men cry easily, but on average women tend to cry more easily than men.

I suspect this is largely genetic. It’s similar to the fact that some women are tall and some men are short, but on average women tend to be shorter than men.

The genetic difference is then reinforced with social conditioning. Because boys are given stronger social messages that it’s not okay to cry, by the time they become men they’ve learned how to control the impulse to cry. Plus for most men the impulse is not very strong.

On the other hand, it’s more socially acceptable for girls to cry, so many women enter adulthood without having learned how to control the impulse to cry. Plus, for many women it’s just about impossible for them to control it no matter what they do. It’s simply an involuntary biological response.

However, as a society we don’t see crying as an involuntary biological response, we load all kinds of negative cultural prejudices onto it. These prejudices boil down to this idea:

crying = weakness

Managers who have this belief react to crying employees in one of two ways, both of which are misguided and ineffective.

The first way is for managers to see a crying employee as a pathetic damsel in distress who needs to be babied and rescued. These managers are often so uncomfortable in the presence of a crying employee that they will do or say almost anything to make the employee feel better and stop crying. So basically they cave in. They might give the employee what she wants or take her side in a dispute. Or they might take back the critical comments they were making about the employee’s performance or quality of work, and assure the employee that “everything’s fine, don’t worry.”

The second way is for managers to react with contempt. These managers are also very uncomfortable in the presence of tears and they deal with their own emotional discomfort by judging the employee harshly. They often rule out the employee as a candidate for promotion into management. They also tend to dismiss what the employee tells them, or to assume that the underlying problem is caused by the employee’s own hysterical behavior. 

These are both bad outcomes. In both cases, the manager has overreacted to the crying and as a result has reached a bad decision or an inaccurate conclusion.

One of the recurring themes of this blog is that you can become a better manager by learning to look past prejudices, conventional wisdom, and all the other filters that cloud our ability to perceive situations clearly. If you can learn to see things clearly for what they are, you’ll understand them better and manage more effectively.

So when an employee starts crying in your office, the main thing to keep in mind is that nothing much has changed. Whatever issue you were discussing – a performance issue, a personal issue, a workplace conflict – is still there. It still needs to be addressed and resolved. If you can see crying as an involuntary biological response and remain perfectly comfortable and composed in the presence of the tears, then you’ll be able to compassionately help the employee get past the crying so the two of you can successfully complete your meeting.

We’ll go into greater detail about how to do that in the next post.

Here are parts three and four of this series.

What To Do (and What NOT To Do!) When One of Your Employees Starts Crying (part 1)

Today we’re going to talk about what to do, and what to avoid doing, when one of your employees starts crying. We’ll focus on the simplest scenario: you and the employee are in your office alone, or perhaps with one other manager present. In a future post I’ll cover more advanced situations like uncontrollable sobbing in the middle of an open work area.

The employee might start crying because of what you’re saying, for example if you’re being critical of the employee’s work or are disciplining the employee. Or the employee might be in your office because she needs to talk about an upsetting workplace issue or personal issue. The basic advice provided in this post applies in either case.

You must be prepared in advance by always keeping a box of tissues in your office. This might seem like a minor thing but it’s actually critically important. A box of tissues is an essential tool that every competent manager must possess. If you don’t have one, buy one today. And don’t buy some cheapo ones either, get the top of the line. Nice thick, smooth tissues that you can blow your nose into with confidence. Nothing says “I’m a bad boss” like handing a sobbing employee a crummy box of discount tissues that feel like fine-grit sandpaper and turn into a blob of mush as soon as they get wet.

When the employee starts crying, the first thing you do is get out the box of tissues and place it in front of her. Don’t get flustered or nervous. Take your time, do it slowly. And don’t shove it at her or slam it down in front of her, place it nicely in front of her with a kind look on your face.

This accomplishes several things. First, it gives you a little time to think before you start talking. No matter how many times you face this situation it’s a bit of a surprise and it can throw you a little off-balance. So while you’re getting out the tissues you can start gathering your thoughts about what you’re going to do.

Second, it’s a polite a way of acknowledging that the employee is crying and it shows that you care. Providing tissues is a very practical way of helping the employee handle a difficult experience.

Third, it demonstrates that you’re a competent, experienced manager who knows how to handle a sensitive situation. This is important because the employee is going to feel really lousy about breaking into tears in front of his boss. She’s likely to be shocked and embarrassed at what is happening. If she can at least feel confident about your ability to handle the situation professionally it will make her feel better. If you get flustered and don’t know what to do it makes things worse for everyone.

Now you can really see why you need to have a box of tissues handy. If you have to say “excuse me” and bolt out of the office to borrow one from someone else then you’re getting things off to a really lousy start and making yourself look like a rookie.

I keep the tissues in a drawer in my desk. I usually meet with employees at the conference table in my office. That way, I can get up from the table, walk over to the desk, get out the box, walk back to the table, sit down, and place the box in front of the employee. This not only gives me time to think, it also gives the employee time to pull herself together. In fact, sometimes that’s all it takes. The employee says “thank you,” the crying is over, and the meeting carries on.

But sometimes the crying is going to last for awhile. We’ll discuss what to do then in the next post in this series.

In the meantime, one final note on how to use tissues effectively: I don’t believe in placing a box of tissues on the table at the beginning of a meeting when you think the employee might end up getting upset and crying. First of all, if the employee doesn’t end up crying I think you end up looking kind of foolish, and it also comes across as sort of an insult to the employee. Second, it sends the message “I’m such a mean boss that I make people cry all the time and now I’m going to make you cry.” So I say: keep the box out of sight until you need it.

Here are parts two, three and four of this series.

When Times are Tough, It’s Time to be King Henry (part 3)

Here are parts one and two of this series.

So how can we as managers use ideas from the St. Crispin’s Day speech to better lead our employees through tough times?

One thing we don’t need to do is make flowery or dramatic speeches. That works fine on stage or in a film but in the real world it’s rarely effective and can easily backfire. In reality, King Henry himself was very plain-spoken which was part of what made him such an effective leader. For example, when it came time to lead his soldiers in their seemingly doomed attack on the French army, he initiated the charge by saying, “Fellas, let’s go!”

So let’s see how we can translate Shakespeare’s brilliant oratory and insights into management techniques that are effective in the 21st Century workplace.

Let’s start by grouping together and discussing three points from the previous post:

• Don’t pretend everything’s fine.
• Don’t wish for things to be easier.
• Be a role model of strength and courage.

The single most effective thing you can do in this area is to develop a taste for tough challenges. If you can teach yourself to tackle difficult times with genuine enthusiasm you won’t be tempted to pretend everything’s fine or wish for things to be easier, and it will be natural for you to serve as a role model of strength and courage.

How exactly do you go about developing a taste for tough challenges? Well, that’s a big enough topic that I’ll cover it in greater detail in a future post. But the main thing is you need to make a conscious decision and commitment to become a person who thrives in difficult situations. It worked for me. At this point in my career, I get a little bored and restless when everything’s running smoothly and I really perk up and feel engaged when a big problem comes along. This was not at all the way I felt fifteen years ago; I’ve deliberately changed the way I respond to difficult situations.

You can also develop the habit of using effective words rather than ineffective words when talking about the tough problem you’re facing. Using ineffective words means either minimizing the problem or catastrophizing the problem. Trying to brush off a big problem with minimizing comments like, “it’s nothing” or “don’t worry about it” will only make your employees more worried because they’ll start to think you’re genuinely clueless about how serious the situation really is. On the other hand, catastrophizing phrases like “this is a disaster” or “we’re totally screwed” will undermine your status as a leader and fuel pessimism and panic.

Here are some examples of how to talk about a big problem using effective language that acknowledges the severity of the situation while instilling confidence:

• “This is a tough one, but we’ve tackled bigger problems than this before and we’ll beat this one, too.”
• “We’re facing a serious situation, but I know I can count on every one of you and we’ll get through it together.”

Unless the situation involves an element of tragedy, feel free to inject enthusiasm with comments like, “this is the fun part” or “I really love this kind of thing!” If you truly mean it, this attitude is contagious and can immediately transform the moods of everyone around you. I do this pretty often, because tricky problems get me energized and I tend to share my enthusiasm with those around me. But only say it if that’s the way you truly feel. False enthusiasm rubs everybody  the wrong way.

Now let’s address some of the other points from the previous post:

Focus on what you can do rather than dwelling on the problem. If you and your employees keep your attention focused on the huge problem you’re facing or the grim situation you’re experiencing, you won’t get good results because it tends to make people depressed or angry and diminishes motivation. You need to get them refocused on the positive outcome you’re hoping to achieve and what they can do to help achieve it. Here are two key ideas:

• “We can’t change the past so let’s focus on shaping the future.”
• “There’s no sense worrying or complaining about the things we can’t control so let’s focus on the things we can control.”

Earlier in my career, I was a manager during a very difficult situation and was dealing with quite a bit of negativity from some employees. I made a rule that the first ten minutes of meetings would be set aside to focus on the problem under discussion. We’d discuss what was wrong and people were free to complain and get their gripes off their chests. Then I'd announce that the ‘focus on the problem’ part of the meeting was over and that the rest of the meeting would be focused on solutions. After that if someone tried to start complaining or getting negative I’d jump in and remind him that part of the meeting was over. It was a simple rule and worked quite well.

Everyone pulls together in the face of a tough situation. In tough times, you’ll probably feel a strong impulse to withdraw from those around you. It’s a natural reaction. You might find yourself closing your office door more often or spending less time “out on the floor” with your employees.

It’s important to not only resist this impulse but to reverse it. In difficult times you should actually draw your people closer to you and to each other. Spend extra time with your employees and let them know you’re all in it together, whatever may come. This is your greatest opportunity to forge bonds of mutual loyalty and trust. Facing shared hardship and banding together to overcome them can turn a group of people into a real team.

One great way to do that is to tell stories about those shared experiences, which leads us to our final points…

Achievements will be remembered and it’s okay to turn stories into legends. All cultures are defined in part by their legends or folklore. You can build a strong culture in your organization by turning stories of achievement in the face of great difficulty into legends of your own. Stories like these are often referred to “war stories” for a reason. They have the same mythic and nostalgic quality of stories told among old soldiers of their shared hardships, adventures, misadventures, setbacks, and victories. Even while the difficult circumstances are continuing, you can plant the seed by predicting, “someday we’ll look back on all this and remember how we all got through this together.” Once the crisis has passed or the problem has been overcome, you should reminisce and tell tales about employees’ achievements and experiences. Go ahead and exaggerate a bit, help your employees feel like comrades and heroes for what they endured and accomplished.

Just the other day a group of us were in a meeting trying to figure out how to handle a tough new market. This is a big problem for us right now, and we’re struggling. At the end of the meeting I spontaneously turned to a long-time employee, grinned, and said, “Hey, it's just like the old days, isn’t it.” He got a big smile on his face and said, “It sure is.” There was an immediate warm sense of kinship between us and a surge of enthusiasm.  We were thinking back to a time years earlier when we were all working together to build the division from nothing, which was a lot like flying an airplane while we were still building it. I’ll sometimes instigate a little session of reminiscing about that time with the employees who were there with me. It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t always fun, but we triumphed in the end. Truly, those employees who weren’t there and didn’t go through those difficult days wish they’d been there with us, just as King Henry predicted.

Don’t miss this kind of an opportunity to create a bond of trust and loyalty between you and your employees. When talking about a past time of tribulation, don’t say, “You’re lucky you weren’t there, that sucked!” Instead say, “Man, you should have been there, those were the days; they were tough times but they were great times.” This is the way you can truly turn your staff into “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.”