On today’s episode of No Bullshit with Alex Willis, you’ll take a look at common ways anger shows up in the workplace. Alex will dispel common myths about anger, and teach you how to manage anger when conflict arises in the workplace. It’s not as easy as punching your pillow!
How do you manage your anger as a leader when things go wrong? How do you pull it together in such a way that corrects the behavior that you're trying to change?
On today’s episode of No Bullshit with Alex Willis, you’ll take a look at common ways anger shows up in the workplace. Alex will dispel common myths about anger, and teach you how to manage anger when conflict arises in the workplace. It’s not as easy as punching your pillow!
In our second segment, The Level, Alex shows you a few skills to deal with anger. Oftentimes, anger leaves us fearful, frustrated, and hyper-focused on negative feelings, but Alex’s tips will help you zoom out and see the bigger picture.
Tune into our next segment, The Foundation, where you’ll be guided through common thought patterns that happen when we’re angry. Instead of focusing on imaginary circumstances, Alex shows you how to cool your “hot thoughts” and start a dialogue that feels good for everyone.
Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts as well as the YouTube channel to watch full video episodes and be notified as soon as the next episode is live.
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[00:00:00] Alex Willis: Hey, my friends. Welcome back to episode eight, the level We are really jumping into this really, really interesting topic that most of my leaders at construction struggle with called anger management. How do you do it? How do you do it? So, In our previous segment, the takeoff, we talked about having the right mindset to manage anger.
[00:00:27] Alex Willis: So we talked about the right mindset. We talked about anger and health issues, as well as how it breaks teams down. And so if you haven't heard that, go back and check that out so you can get caught up. I encourage you to check that out before you dive into this segment here. Now, as we jump into the level, we wanna really dive into this thing called having the right skillset set.
[00:00:45] Alex Willis: To manage anger. So it's one way to think about anger, but the next one is, okay, now when I have the right mindset to handle anger, now I have to have the right skills. What? What are skills? And I'm gonna be honest with you, these are things that no one teaches us in school. We're like, what the hell are they teaching us in school?
[00:01:01] Alex Willis: They teach you certain things, but they don't teach you how to manage and how to have the right skills to handle anger, right? So, so what are those skills? Well, the first thing is this. Number one, you must separate the trigger from the cause. Ah, you gotta separate the trigger from the cause and understand this, my friends, that, that the trigger is something inside of you, right?
[00:01:24] Alex Willis: The cause is something else. So, so understand the person, the person, the person that has brought a highlight to your anger. It's just a trick. They've triggered something inside of you like, Hey, why am I pissed off right now? Right. They're not the real cause of things now. Now, in order to do a great job, you have to dig deep to say, well, why am I triggered in?
[00:01:49] Alex Willis: What's the real cause of my anger going on inside of me right now? Right? So when you can separate the trigger, From the cause. You don't just go off on the person because you realize that the person really and truthfully just a trigger highlighting something on the inside of you to help you out with what's going on right now.
[00:02:09] Alex Willis: The next thing is having the right skillset. You have to kind of pivot after you separate the trigger from the cause to understand what we like to call the four real sources of anger, the four real sources of anger. Now the four real sources of anger. Oftentimes I will go as far to say 85% of the time.
[00:02:28] Alex Willis: Your anger comes from one of four places. My friends, one of four places usually fear, shame, guilt, or sadness. Most anger comes from one of those four places. Fear, guilt, shame or sadness. Right? I know you're challenging me on this, and you're like, whatever. What is that? Doesn't make sense. Well pause within for a second.
[00:02:52] Alex Willis: Let's do a hypothetical scenario, right? Let's go back to what we talked about in segment one. A lazy worker who, who shows up late to work doesn't do a great job. Let's talk about that. Let's use that as, as an example, as a general foreman, when I see a gentleman Wireman showing up late to work, really not doing a great job with the pace of work, well, what happens?
[00:03:15] Alex Willis: Well, I'm, I'm triggered. I'm triggered. Right? You're triggered with that. But if you can separate it and say, Hey, wait a minute, this person just highlighted something in me. What's the real source? And then when you can go to step two for having the right skill set and say, well, what's the real source of my anger?
[00:03:29] Alex Willis: And you think about those four, of those four, my friends who are tuning into us right now. Of the four, which of the four do you think are really driving the general foreman or the superintendent? Fear, guilt, shame or sadness. Lazy worker who's slow. Who's late what, to the four? Well, I challenge you to think about this.
[00:03:51] Alex Willis: I like to say a couple of them. Number number one, fear. Fear, fear's driving the leader in this situation. Why? Well, fear of not getting the job done. Fear of falling behind pace on the schedule. Fear of looking weak in front of other workers. Fear of being taken advantage of and people seeing this one worker show up late and do half-ass work and then everyone else doing it.
[00:04:14] Alex Willis: So all of a sudden now fear is driving me, right? This behavior that the person did trigger me, the fear side of me is driving me right? As a result of that, I will say the other is shame. You know, the fear of being shamed in front of other workers as well. Right? Now, once you have separated the trigger from the calls, Right.
[00:04:35] Alex Willis: Once you have dove deep within yourself to look at those four areas of anger, say, which of the four is really driving me right now? The next one, step three, to have the right skill set is to really communicate assertively what's going on with you. Hear me out, not with them, with you. Let's practice really quickly.
[00:04:53] Alex Willis: So in that same situation that we're talking about right now, it will be me going to this person and saying, Hey listen, I'm fearful. Ah. I'm fearful that if you continually show up late and work at the pace that you're working, we are going to fall behind production schedule and it's going to affect a lot of jobs as well as myself and the crew and the rest of us.
[00:05:18] Alex Willis: If you continue doing what you're doing. This scares me and, and I wanna make sure this doesn't happen now. Understand. That's a different conversation my friends, than going and just chewing this person's ass out and say, what the hell's going on? Why are you doing this? Screw you. Hey, listen. People tend to tune out when you do that.
[00:05:36] Alex Willis: You have to remember each of you tuning in right now, you are head coaches. Head coaches, and what's the job of a head coach? Al Davis said it best in the eighties. Win baby win, right? So you have to approach your players in a different way, a different tone, different format. Now it's important for you to understand that, and so when you can begin to put it on, you say, listen, I'm fearful that I'm going to lose the rest of the team.
[00:05:58] Alex Willis: If they see this, I'm fearful that we're gonna fall behind the project. If you continue to do this kind of behavior, all of a sudden that opens up for great engagement and communication. The first way, just chewing someone's ass out. Shuts down communication. The more we do that, the less we get what we really want, which truth be told, we want better behavior.
[00:06:22] Alex Willis: We want that person to show up on time. We want that person to be motivated to work well. You don't get that with option one, with option two, separating the trigger from the cause, discovering the real source of anger, and then communicating it assertively, man, you get amazing results right now. The last thing you have to understand to have the right skillset.
[00:06:41] Alex Willis: Sometime that conversation still may not go well. So what do you do? Well, you have to learn anger and stress reduction techniques, right? Such as walking away. Such as saying, Hey, listen, let's table this conversation. Let's come back at a later date such as breathing. Uh, because you may not deal with it right in the moment, such as saying, Hey, listen, I need to pause.
[00:07:03] Alex Willis: I need to go back and think and really begin to spend some time with yourself so that you can make sure that you do have a better understanding of the situation. By doing those four things, my friends, you can have a better skillset and really begin to manage anger really, really well. Now it comes down to number one, knowing the skill to do it, but knowing something a little deeper.
[00:07:26] Alex Willis: And we like to call these knowing your anger, ABCs, right? Knowing your anger, ABCs. And so what are your anger ABCs? Well, the A stands for understanding your anger Triggers. What triggers you? What triggers you? If we're being honest, for most people it's only one to three things that kind of trigger you, that piss you off, right?
[00:07:45] Alex Willis: If you have a hundred things, you may need to really go to counseling to get anger management. Let's be honest, you got, you may have more issues than we can solve on this show today. Right if you have a hundred or more, but for most people, you can kinda identify, you know, three things that kind of piss you off.
[00:08:01] Alex Willis: If I'm just playing around today, and we're putting Alex on, on center stage here for me, number one is disrespect. Oh. Especially from a kid. Oh, oh man, that shit drives me insane. Right? And I'll tell you why a little later, but disrespect is something that drives me insane. The lack of effort. Oh, oh man, dude, whew.
[00:08:21] Alex Willis: That can take me through the roof. The lack of effort, right? Someone half-ass in it, man, that just drives me through the roof tho. Those are two major, major anger triggers for me. So knowing that helps me get ahead of that curve. Of anger helps me get ahead of the curve of anger. So, so when we talk about getting in front of the fight or flight, me knowing that helps me say, whoa, whoa, pump your brakes, Alex, the person has highlighted this in you.
[00:08:50] Alex Willis: So, hey, how do we handle? So number one, knowing your anger trigger helps. Number two is the B, which is the belief. Belief. Ooh, that's important. So number one, know your anger triggers. Number two, the belief. What belief does that trigger make you think about? Right. Because understand this, all of us, my friends, tell ourselves stories.
[00:09:12] Alex Willis: Yes, we do. We tell ourselves stories based on people's actions, based on what we see. We interpret that and we tell ourselves stories now. So, so let's go back to Alex's example. My example. So if I say number one is disrespect, right? Disrespect. And so what belief do I have? Well, especially when kids do it, to me, it's a sense of entitlement.
[00:09:32] Alex Willis: Them thinking they know it's, it's them trying to. Show up an adult, right? In those situations. And so that just drives me insane. If you go to my second example of lack of effort, to me it just says that a person's sorry. It says that that person doesn't, uh, care about their work, doesn't care about me, doesn't care about the team, when truth be told.
[00:09:52] Alex Willis: None of those may be true. Those are all beliefs that I have assigned and attached to my anger triggers, right? So it's important for me to slow down a little bit because the see are consequences. So, so understanding your anger triggers, what beliefs are you telling yourself about it? And if you follow those beliefs, my friends, what consequences do you have?
[00:10:14] Alex Willis: Right? So for me, the consequence is often making wrong assumptions about people. Wrong assumptions about individuals simply because I view them through my lens. I haven't given them the chance to talk, to open up, to share what may be going on in their world, right? So understand knowing your anger triggers helps you a ton in mastering your interactions with people.
[00:10:38] Alex Willis: So how do you do it? How do you do it well, as we land the plane on this segment? There's a couple things I want you to understand. You have to ask yourself questions. You gotta talk to yourself. Yeah, we all do it. Trust me. We all talk to ourselves, and those who do it well can master this thing called anger.
[00:10:53] Alex Willis: Couple questions I have in my show notes. Number one, ask yourself this, will this really matter tomorrow, next week, or next tomorrow, right? Whatever the situation is. Will it matter tomorrow? Will it matter next week? Will it matter next month? If I'm asking you, and we're being honest, there are some things I can ask that happened to you five years ago to say, Hey listen, is that still important?
[00:11:13] Alex Willis: And most people say you can't even remember what it was, right? So asking that question can help. The second thing is there that you can ask yourself, is there another way to look at this particular event? Is there another way to see it? Can I frame it up differently? Right? By doing that allows you to really begin to analyze it.
[00:11:29] Alex Willis: The next question is, what's the worst thing that can happen? By asking that question, you can begin to play out those scenarios in your mind and really begin to calm yourself down and walk yourself off the ledge so it doesn't hurt that bad because you begin to look at all the possibilities there.
[00:11:44] Alex Willis: Right? The next one is, Hey, am I thinking about this in the right lens or in the right line or viewpoint, right? Am I thinking about it? Right? And then last but not least, how important is it to give a, a reaction to this? Because let's be honest, my friends, A lot of things, especially things that don't matter tomorrow, don't matter next week, next month.
[00:12:02] Alex Willis: Some things you can save your energy and not even give a response to it. So, so understanding, asking those questions helps a ton with that, right? So those are the right skill sets. To make sure you manage this thing called anger, and if you can do that really, really well, you can get ahead of it, and you can do a phenomenal job of keeping your team together, creating open dialogue to be able to talk to that person one-on-one.
[00:12:26] Alex Willis: Do a phenomenal job of correcting the behavior. That you want to win as a head coach right now, in the next segment, we're going to really begin to talk about the foundation of our thinking and our thoughts, uh, and talk about these things called hot thoughts. Hot thoughts, how all of us have hot thoughts and how at times it blows us up.
[00:12:45] Alex Willis: Because we take those hot thoughts, we begin to do all kind of crazy things as a result of it moving our emotions, and it makes us act out of character. So you wanna tune into the foundation. You don't wanna miss it, my friends, as we really begin to dive into what you can do personally to really begin to set the foundation to manage this thing called aim.
[00:13:04] Alex Willis: I'll see you in the next segment. So I wanna thank you again for tuning in to No Bullshit with Alex Willis, the number one source for leadership development in the construction industry. Make sure you subscribe wherever you get your podcast. And please, please, please, please, please don't forget to hit play on that next segment.