Читать книгу Taming the Abrasive Manager - Laura Crawshaw - Страница 16

The guns? I encountered the guns in the course of my counseling work. The typical scenario consisted of a call from an employee for a same-day appointment because he (they were always men) ‘‘needed to talk to someone right away.’’ We took these quiet, urgent calls seriously, reshuffling our schedules for such sudden requests. I would find myself seated across from the client, who was usually withdrawn and obviously embarrassed to be sitting in a counselor’s office. My questions of ‘‘How can I help you? Could you tell me what’s going on?’’ would elicit a halting story of suffering. The suffering was inflicted by the employee’s boss, whose behavior could take many forms, such as tyrannical control or public humiliation of the employee. The variations never failed to amaze me, but the common theme was of abrasive behavior that had pushed the employee to the point of . . . what? To find the answer, I uttered the psychotherapist’s classic question:

 Counselor: And how does this make you feel?

 Employee: Like getting back at him.

 Counselor: Have you thought of how you would do that?

 Employee: Yeah. [An embarrassed silence.] With a gun.

 Counselor: Do you have a gun?

 Employee: Uh . . . yeah . . . out in my truck. That’s why I called you.

The same pain that cut through me as a child when confronted with suffering now sliced through my adult soul. This man was suffering—tormented by his impulses to silence his tormentor, shamed by his loss of control, and humiliated by his need to seek external restraint for his retaliatory impulses. He had reached the point where he saw his gun as his only remaining defense against his boss’s aggression. He was one of many, and as the arsenal in our office safe increased, I wondered how this could be happening. Having experienced good parents and good bosses, I was mystified—why would bosses brutalize their employees, and how could companies tolerate this infliction of suffering? What were the dynamics of aggression and defense that created such profound anguish? These questions set this boss whisperer on a journey to understand these unmanageable managers and learn how to tame their abrasive aggression.