How to Coach Yourself and Others Essential Knowledge For Coaching | Page 162

Many years ago I once told a friend I could no longer continue
to have him in my life because he was deeply into software
piracy, and I just didn’t want that kind of influence in my life.
 Confront the person about his/her behavior directly. Raise
your standards for what you’re willing to accept in your life,
and enforce them. This strategy is my personal favorite, but
some people aren’t comfortable with it. The advantage of this
approach is that you stop playing games, and you find out
exactly where you stand with the other person. This is what I’d
use if I had a difficult boss or coworker — I’d just lay
everything out on the table with that person, explain why
certain things were no longer tolerable for me, and detail what
I wanted to see happen. Now the other person may decline
your “demands,” but then at least you know where you stand
and can decide based on that. Paint a line, and if the other
person crosses it, you now know the abuse is willful.
 Use behavioral conditioning on the other person. I know of
a team that did this with their verbally abusive boss. They
conditioned their boss to be encouraging and supportive.
Going to their boss and confronting him just didn’t work, so
they got together and worked out a behavioral conditioning
strategy. They stopped rewarding his negative behavior and
began rewarding his positive behavior. Whenever he was
abusive, he would either be ignored, or his employee(s) would
say, “Are you intending to manipulate me through verbal
abuse?” They would constantly point out to their boss when he
was being abusive. But whenever he was the least bit
encouraging, like if he said, “good work” or “thank you,” t