2.6 Taming the cross-functional bully

Aarti joined Bell Technologies, a fast-growing startup as a Group PM to lead customer experience. In her role, she had to deal with Karan, a tough stakeholder. Karan used to challenge Aarti by constantly questioning her approach, priorities, and decisions. Aarti initially took everything at face value and kept answering his questions, defending her points in meetings, and fighting for her ideas. But over time, it got her super tired. She casually mentioned this problem to a colleague. The colleague pointed to Karan’s aggressive tone, body language, subtle personal remarks in meetings. The mails from him were from time to time a bit rash and blamed Aarti. Also, his pointers were as much as finding fault on non-priorities, items not relevant in the near future, and some trivial issues with the PRD as genuine concerns. 

After this conversation, Aarti recognized that she is being bullied by Karan rather than being challenged. 

Being a mature person, she took this directly with Karan in a 1-1 setting. During the discussion, she a) quoted a few occasions and b) explained how she felt (disappointment with Karan) c) what she expects him going forward (he needs to change both the content and the expression). Karan listened cautiously but felt a little shaken. He told that he would think about his behavior and make amendments if deemed fit. 

But nothing changed after the candid conversation. Karan continued his old ways and even got a bit more aggressive. 

As a next step, Aarti documented the instances and shared them with her boss. She also shared the document with Karan’s boss who happened to be one of the founders of the company. Though both tried to be empathetic, they downplayed the situation. The founders believed that being an aggressive culture is the reason the company is successful in the first place. They wanted that to continue without realizing that aggression needs to be only outside – fighting competition and winning customer trust – and not inside amongst teams. They believed in survival of the fittest. 

Aarti was frustrated with this response and started to wonder if it makes any sense to continue to stay in this kind of environment. She consulted with her mentor on what kind of companies to target. Her mentor told – ‘Aarti, while the decision to move on is your own, I just want you to remember one thing. In a long career, you are going to face bullies multiple times. The incidences might even increase as you grow in your career. It is in your interest to learn how to not allow bullies to interfere with your mental state and career progress”. 

Aarti thought about it and realized that the mentor is right. She decided to give it one more try. This time she will take it head-on. Whenever Karan asked valid questions in the meetings, she answered the ones she had answers to and promised to get back on those where she did not have an answer to. But whenever Karan tried to deviate away from the agenda and bring up things just to attack her, she first told him politely that these are out of context for the discussion. But Karan being a bully wouldn’t give up easily. He kept insisting on answering his questions. Aarti stood firm and just kept repeating the same statements again and again just like a broken record (e.g. ‘Repeating the statement “This is out of scope for this discussion”) every time Karan came with different variations of ideas to trap her. 

Being a newbie in handling bullies, she was not sure if her approach was right. So she checked in with other stakeholders during casual conversations if her handling of Karan was right. Some of them praised her for standing up to Karan while a few acted as if they didn’t notice anything. She took these feedback as a positive sign of her own actions. She told herself that someday as a seasoned leader, she didn’t need to seek validation for her responses to bullying from others. 

Over emails & chats, she again started politely. But when Karan tried to push his way through, she made concluding remarks and categorically stopped further discussion. She stopped responding to him further as she stated in the thread closure remark. 

Karan tried this a few times with Aarti and finally gave up since it became harder to intimidate Aarti. He now moved on trying to find his next target within the company. 

Takeaways: 

1. The first step in handling bullies is to become aware that you are being bullied. People with “being too nice” syndrome are more susceptible to being ignorant of getting bullied. In doubt, consult peers to ascertain if a heated instance is a genuine discussion or an unwarranted aggression. Bullies usually breach boundaries and/or get personal. 

2. Bullying nature comes in general from a deep sense of insecurity or from very high self-esteem (i.e. always wanting to prove that I am better than others – which again stems from insecurity). This is why bullies pick their target (unconsciously) who they think will not fight back and they can show themselves that they can have an upper hand. Bullies back off when they see that the target is calm, unintimidated and, capable of hitting back. 

Dealing with bullies: 

Bullies can be dealt with in 3 sequential steps – 

Step 1: The first step towards handling the bully is to talk to them candidly and in person. During the discussion 

1. Tell what you are unhappy about without getting personal (e.g. Using ‘I felt frustrated when you did this’ rather than ‘you always do this’)
2. Why are you unhappy?
3. What is the solution that you are suggesting/looking for? 

More than half of them back off after this conversation. Some bullies are simply unaware of the damages it causes to others and a conversation helps. 

Step 2: Document the instances and share them with your manager and ensure that it is passed on to the bully’s manager. This step works very well in companies with good cultures. The bully is provided appropriate advice/warning to mend his/her ways. 

Step 3: In a rare scenario, where both step 1 and 2 doesn’t work, you have to stand for yourself. You have to get assertive, draw boundaries and not let the bully breach the same. The following techniques can be used – 

1. Clarity – Everytime you have to communicate with a bully, be fully clear on the context of the communication. This will help you stay focussed and not get swayed away from distractions that the bully creates. 
2. Vigilant about boundary breaches – Watch out for boundary breaches – verbal, body language, getting personal, doing or talking things out of context  
3. Broken record technique – Give a firm and clear message on what you want (e.g. ‘No more interruptions when I talk’, ‘This is unimportant’, ‘This is out of context for this meeting’ ). Keep repeating the same message like a broken record if the other party tries to trick you through or persuade you in different ways. 

Open Questions: What if I get nervous or panic at the sight or hearing the voice of the bully? What if I am generally tempted to give in to others (‘being too nice’ syndrome) or can’t see myself contradict (or hurt) the other person? 

Assertiveness is a separate topic in itself and needs multiple posts. Watch out for the same as I will cover them in my future posts.