Below is a brief summary of the content in the video. Please take a moment to review it before moving on to the questions. If you are going through this with a group, consider reading it aloud together.

Employees Have the Power to Stop the Crazy Cycle Too

In the first session, we were introduced to the Crazy Cycle: When employees feel uncared for, they tend to react in ways that feel disrespectful to managers. When managers feel disrespected, they tend to react in ways that feel uncaring to employees.

However, while it is certainly true that in the workplace the boss or manager holds the authority in the manager/employee relationship, the employee possesses an equal amount of power in the ability to get off or stay off of the Crazy Cycle.

When managers make decisions that fail to benefit their workers, employees feel undervalued and tend to act disrespectfully toward their bosses. This hurt employee can be an honorable and loving person, but when he or she appears disrespectful to management, that is a mistake. Instead, the employee can choose to respect management, and in doing so can stop the Crazy Cycle or even stop it from spinning in the first place!

Can You Relate?

With his business not being immune to the latest economic downturn, Jamie, the manager, knows that he needs to cut his budget by 20 percent. However, out of personal care for his employees, he refuses to cut wages and instead only makes cuts in other places. But his employee, Casey, only notices that he and the other employees are not getting raises this year. Over lunch one day, Casey tells his manager, “I think you are using the economy as an excuse to not give raises when you actually can. If we don’t get the 10 percent raise we deserve, there will be problems.”

An employee can be an honorable and loving person but appear disrespectful to management. In this scenario, Casey was no doubt guilty of what could be called gestures of contempt. His face turned sour with disgust, his eyes darkened with anger, perhaps he sighed aloud to express his annoyance. And of course, his ill-informed response and threat to his manager was straight out of Disrespect 101.

To avoid showing disrespect and to get off of the Crazy Cycle, one must guard against an attitude that appears less than respectful. Even though one’s heart is in the right place, your threats or even silly comments such as “Your department can’t function without me!” will not be received well, nor will your gestures of contempt.

The Bottom Line

‍Management needs to feel that employees respect them. So what can employees do as individuals?

3 Things Employees Can Implement Immediately

Decode: Ask yourself, “Is my manager appearing uncaring because earlier I appeared disrespectful? Are we on the Crazy Cycle because I started it?”

But you mustn’t stop there, by simply recognizing that you started the Crazy Cycle by appearing disrespectful. You need to swallow your pride and apologize. When you humbly express to your manager that you are sorry for coming across in a disrespectful manner, you can halt the conflict right then and there.

Demonstrate: Ask yourself, “Do I demonstrate an attitude of respect even when I have to follow tough requirements?”

Some of us believe that if we whine enough and demonstrate a disrespectful attitude toward our seemingly uncaring manager, that we will motivate him or her to change behavior. But the sighs, eye rolls, and complaints will never motivate management to be more caring. Even when management does not, in your opinion, deserve your respect, you must abstain from anything other than a respectful attitude if you wish to get off the Crazy Cycle.

Deposit: Ask yourself, “Am I making deposits of respect so that when I make a withdrawal that feels disrespectful (i.e., questioning a decision), the manager gives me the benefit of the doubt?”

If you are regularly making these deposits of respect with your manager, there will later come moments when your respect for him or her will allow you to say something like, “With all due respect, may I play devil’s advocate here and share why I don’t think this is the best of ideas right now?” Your manager who has felt your respect all this time is much more likely to caringly hear you out and possibly even adhere to your idea.