10 Practical tips to channel your Anger at colleagues

Introduction

We all have colleagues who annoy us and some hugely annoy us. Here I am going to give you 10 tips to channel your anger in the right direction.

The person who always pushes himself to the forefront in the meeting but keeps quiet when something extra needs to be done. The colleague who never shows up on time. Or the colleague who always has something to complain about and who is a negative disruptor in the team. The colleague who is always late submitting data. How do you deal with them? You can pout about it, go off at that person or avoid ever meeting him again. But will that solve the issue?

There are better ways of dealing with your anger as you will see below. And what if you really hate your colleagues and/or chef? Be your own boss! Check out the perfect way out as I point out in the last paragraphs of this article.

Here are the 10 practical tips to channel anger at your colleagues.

1. Do crazy exercises

Do a crazy exercise in a work meeting. You divide the people into two teams and have each team come up with wrong reactions to an annoying (imaginary) colleague. The team that came up with the most wrong responses, or the most wrong ideas, wins. Use your imagination to come up with more ideas.

2. Giving feedback

Practice with a colleague is a good way of giving feedback according to the following 4-phase model: Event, Feeling, Consequence, and Desired outcome. 

You describe the Event as if you had observed it through a camera, subsequently the Feeling you and the other colleagues get from it, the Consequence, and the Desired outcome. Make giving feedback a habit, not an exception. In the beginning, practice on colleagues with whom you have a good relationship. If that goes well, you take an annoying colleague for your feedback.

3. Look at the positives

Even in the case of a very annoying colleague, there will also be some positive sides. So, start looking for these positives. What do you like about your colleague, what is the exception to his annoying behavior? Compliment your colleague for what you do like. I know this might not be easy, but remember it all is to ultimately help yourself to a better working atmosphere.

4. Step back and make excuses

You have exploded, had a very wrong reaction, happens to everyone from time to time. Take the cold out of the air by making excuses about your loss of control and discuss what is bothering you according to the 4-phase model. Don’t blame yourself for having erupted and see the good side of it: it’s a lot of hogwash.

5. Discussing the issue

Don’t make a very big thing of someone else’s shortcomings. Don’t wait for someone else to do something completely wrong so that you can justifiably express your anger. Discuss it at a good time (not when you have an appointment and have to leave the company).

6. Yoga or meditation

Learn to relax. Anger only increases stress hormones, so learn breathing exercises and practice them regularly. Check some Yoga books and poses, it teaches you to breathe well and therefore relax better. The same for meditation, but an extra for clearing your brain from all thoughts. Difficult at first, a bit easier, and very effective in the end. One or two times a day for 15 minutes only should suffice.

7. Learn from the annoying colleague

What can you learn from the colleague you are most allergic to? Suppose you are a hard worker yourself and you are annoyed by a colleague who already calls in sick when he feels a cold coming on. What can you take away from that? Take better care of yourself? Define borders?

A better understanding of such a colleague might give you new insights and might contribute to a solution.

8. Stay in control

In what kind of situations, events, or meetings are you in control of your emotions? Is this when you are singing one of your favorite songs, deep-sea diving, skiing? Think of a situation where you manage very well to control yourself and bring that situation right in your head if you are in danger of losing control.

Then focus on your breathing, or on a certain piece of music in your head, or on the tasty food you are eating. I bet you often are going to think: what am I really worried about? I only cheat myself with that. Focus on something else that makes you happy.

9. Do you hold a grudge?

Do you hold the anger for a long time and are you still busy with the colleague at night? Grab a sketchbook and make cartoons. In the first, you put yourself with your colleague, in the second what you would like to do to him, in the third the result and in the fourth how you feel. Have you taken enough distance? 

Then make a drawing with a speech bubble that contains the feedback and the reaction of the colleague. Continue until you feel you are done with it. A variant of this is: putting all negative thoughts about your colleague on paper and tearing that paper into very small pieces or burning it in the sink.

10. Look deeper into the colleague’s behavior

Suppose you are your colleague and just as annoying. Describe ten benefits of your behavior, if you can. Why is it so hard to change that behavior? Describe the obstacles. What do you need in the role of your colleague to let go of the behavior? This is a very interesting one, as it will certainly give you new insights plus a basis to work further on.

Pick a tip from the list above and try it out. Monitor the consequences and you may come up with other and even more effective ways to tackle something. Good luck!

Conclusions

Working with colleagues will always remain a challenge, there will be good times and there will be bad times.

It is inevitable that issues between people will arise. It is the way you handle these that will decide your degree of happiness at the workplace.

You have been given 10 awesome tips on how to channel your anger and I hope they will help you when necessary.

I understand that the workplace is not for everybody, especially with annoying colleagues. There is a perfect way out and I am going to explain to you what to do.

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