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March 1, 2010

Protect Yourself from Toxic Colleagues

By Blaine Loomer

The Roosters

Roosters want to crow a lot about themselves; they also like to roost on the fence to avoid making decisions.

The Rooster suffers from egomania. This affects his ability to make decisions. If a Rooster makes a poor choice, it’s a huge bruise to his ego. At some point, he may have to admit he was wrong. Fear of imperfection keeps the Rooster on the fence. He rarely, if ever, makes a decision. If he’s lucky, someone else will make it. If he waits long enough, the decision will make itself. Either way, the Rooster’s passive approach allows him to maintain deniability.

The Rooster is quick to assign blame. He seems to be more concerned with finding out who is responsible for the problem than actually trying to fix it or find its cause (not that he could fix anything anyway; that would involve actually making a decision). The Rooster prefers to ignore problems, hoping they will go away.

How to protect yourself?  Either force the Rooster to make a decision, or tear down the decision fence and watch him run around aimlessly. Whichever choice you make, you will need a lot of patience.

The Funeral Directors

These are those folks who live on negative energy and are motivated by crisis. Drama drives their days. Although they usually have ample time to complete their assigned tasks, they procrastinate or otherwise delay progress until there is a crisis and something “just has to be done.” Any task you give them will eventually become the “end of the world” until it is accomplished.

How to protect yourself? When you work with a Funeral Director, pad the schedule. Make sure that the deadline you assign is earlier than the actual deadline. This will ensure that their crisis does not become yours.