Setting Boundaries - With Ourselves and Others

In the currently popular TV reality programmes about toddler taming have you noticed how often problems are remedied by parents learning how to set and hold boundaries? Well hello . . !?

There are similarities within many workplaces, including some of which we have direct knowledge. Risky and very expensive crises have arisen from unwisely improvisational or hands-off approaches to directing performance.

When under-performance finally became too serious not to intervene, managers' remedial initiatives created stress and conflict; team members cried foul and made accusations of controlling, intimidating or bullying behaviour. That's when we were called in.

Managers, especially senior managers, are often caught in a bind. Wanting to encourage independence and growth they take a laisez-faire approach to setting and holding boundaries with others. When this results in a conflict between their needs and the desires of those who report to them, they become anxious because (a) they have not habituated sound boundary-holding and conflict-resolution practices and consequently cannot apply them when they are most necessary; and (b) an imbedded belief system about needing to be liked and approved of provokes their fight-flight response and immobilises them.

The two conditions combine and compound the difficulty. As with out-of-control toddlers, the continuum of available behaviours is likely to involve on the one extreme smile-and-ignore-it and on the other, come-down-on-them-like-a-ton-of-bricks.

There's another reason for managers taking a hands-off approach, leaving others unsupervised and insufficiently supported (and it's linked to the need to be liked); they may believe they will be left with more time for more (or more important) work:

Stretch yourself thin, stress yourself out, work longer hours (than is sensible), take on more responsibility (than is sensible), and make your job harder (than is sensible). These are the basic rules of the Overwork-As-An-End-In-Itself game. It is linked with the old illusion that if we just work hard enough and long enough, we will finally be found valuable, finally be found loveable, and finally find security. (Gordon MacKenzie, "Orbiting the Giant Hairball", Viking Books, 1996)

This is a big topic but the challenges don't all need to be remedied at once or immediately. Making some simple commonsense practices common practice will make a very significant improvement.

Start here

1. Discover how much your belief systems establish irresolvable inner conflicts which produce stress. Mostly they'll be episodic rather than chronic and with study, support and training they can be weakened and gradually replaced with more empowering beliefs. Here are come common disabling beliefs:

The only standard worth judging myself against is perfection. If it's worth doing at all, it should be done perfectly.

Conflict involves drama, risk and danger.

My happiness depends on what other people think of me.

My integrity lies in other people's hands.

And here's one, wonderfully empowering belief: I can be hurt by nothing but my thoughts.

For more on this topic, see Attitudinal Agriculture and Heard and Be Heard.

2. Methodical performance development through systematic coaching is a fundamental duty of leaders and supervisors (rare in actual practice) and one that helps deal with performance challenges early and constructively: take time to become a great coach within the next 12-18 months. It's one of those Non Urgent, Very Important activities which ought to be part of the Main Thing you keep the Main Thing. It will help keep you decrease the incidence of Very Important, Very Urgent activities (emergencies and crises). For further information about this, see Manage Priorities, Not Time.

3. Become better able to give the lead in relationships you manage by following a sound relationships-management process and by improving your feedback, problem-solving, limit-setting and conflict resolution practices. See Relationships Management.

4. Set and hold boundaries with yourself. In the words of Jim Collins (see below), you may need to develop greater discipline in order to "unplug all sorts of extraneous junk" from your working life. He suggests you create a "stop doing" list:

"Do you have a 'to do' list? Do you also have a 'stop doing' list? Most of us lead busy but undisciplined lives. We have ever-expanding "to do" lists, trying to build momentum by doing, doing, doing and doing more. And it rarely works. Those who built the good-to-great companies, however, made as much use of 'stop doing' lists as 'to do' lists. They displayed a remarkable discipline to unplug all sorts of extraneous junk . . . much of this book is about creating a culture of discipline. It all starts with disciplined people." (Jim Collins, Good to Great . . . Harper Collins, 2001.)

5. Edward Hallowell suggests that distractibility, inner frenzy and impatience are now epidemic in organisations and that those who experience these conditions "have difficulty staying organized, setting priorities, and managing time". Is this you? Learn to plan and manage more methodically: start with your inner self (see Attitudinal Agriculture) and then work on your priority-management practices (see Thriving!) Find out exactly how and where you are Imperiling the lives of frogs.

6. Maintain a "stop doing" list:

"I exercise my choice to say 'no' to a request, without feeling the need to justify my decision. I put boundaries in place so I can control the way I perform on a daily basis: e.g., delegate work, take regular breaks, works set hours, don't work weekend, etc." (Sally Anderson, EncourageMentors.)

"I don't do back-to-back meetings. I don't miss lunch. I don't go a month without a session with my mentor or a massage, as a way of keeping an appointment with myself." (Tom Watkins, EncourageMentors.)

© Copyright 2002 - 2007 Tom Watkins Group. All rights reserved.

EncourageMentors services include consulting, coaching, mentoring, personal tuition, facilitation, guidebooks, appraisal and feedback tools, free initial assessments: in person or online.

Select and contact a Mentor if you'd like to discuss these ideas or want support to make progress with your own issues.

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