The Aggravating Message

When you clench your fist

I am sure many of you have received the email, slack message, text, or voicemail that leaves you completely harried after. The message that you can barely get through without cursing. Your hands become claws clutching your phone, wanting to shatter the screen, your brows are all scrunched up in impotent anger, and your lips are pressed so hard against each other that your teeth start to hurt a bit. Yeap, it's a message from your boss indirectly (or sometimes directly) questioning your capabilities. You know, messages like

"I asked for this two weeks ago. How many times do you want me to repeat it?"

"I asked you to do it like this. Why didn't you listen to me?"

"These timelines don't work for me."

"It is clear that Bob is not performing. What are you doing about it?"

"Why are you not doing anything about it?"

The more you read the message, the more your rage builds, and at some point, you are infuriated enough to want to punch a hole in the wall. Father time comes to your help applying a timely salve to your exasperation. Your rage subsides to a dull throb, but your day is now utterly ruined. Doubly ruined if it is a weekend. You walk around angry at everything and pull a dark, ominous cloud crackling with negative energy over your head for the rest of the day that will zap anyone who comes close to it.

I have spent a lot of my brain cycles analyzing the phenomenon of "The Aggravating Message." Both my own reactions to those messages, how to respond to those, and also the writer's motivations with the writer in most cases the boss. This post is an essay about this very common downer every manager has to deal with from time to time. 

The Heat

The first thing to do is 'pause.' There is no need to reply that instant. If your boss really wanted an immediate response, they would have called you. I can almost guarantee that if you decide to reply to it in the heat of the moment, you will send something that you will regret later. Anger and frustration grow exponentially when you feed them. 

Take a deep breath, put your phone down, and take a quick walk outside. I can assure you that your boss doesn't want an immediate response, or in some cases, they probably don't want a response at all. Your immediate goal should be to get your heart rate down to what it was before you read that message. Unclench your fist.

After you get your heart rate back to normal, go about your day for the next few hours if it is a work day or longer if it is a weekend. By then, your prefrontal cortex (the rational part of your brain) should have taken over and you are now ready to tackle your response. I usually start by rubber-ducking with a friend, peer, or mentor before I reply to anything. This usually allows me to get past my blind spots or any residual anger from the first message.  

One of the biggest epiphanies I have had after responding to thousands of angry work messages over the years is that often, the emotional tone is lost in short-form text-based communication like slack messages and texts. There is a distinct possibility that the sender didn't even intend to make you feel bad with an aggressive/passive-aggressive text message. This is another reason not to respond to an angry text message in the heat of the moment. 

OK, now your heart rate has come down, you have talked to a few people about how to respond to the message, and you have mentally prepared yourself to craft a response.

The Response

The very first thing I do is establish if there is a real ask in the message. E.g, take this message-

"These timelines don't work for me."

There is a distinct ask here. Your boss wants to know if the timelines can be pulled in, so your response should highlight why the project got delayed, what is the team doing about it, and what additional leadership help (resources, scope) can pull in the timelines.

Contrast that message with this one-

"I asked for this two weeks ago, how many times do you want me to repeat it?"

There is no real ask here. This is your boss taking out their frustrations on you. 

My basic rule of thumb is, if there is no real ask from your manager, you will have to get on a call with them to hash things out. If there is a real ask, the only situations where responding in text is appropriate is execution-related questions like project delays. Anything else, like personnel issues or anything else, I recommend having that conversation live. 

If you are responding to project delays, stick with the formula I wrote in my previous posts. Explain the delay, what you have learned from it, what you are doing about it, and what additional help (resources, scope change, etc.) can enable your team to move faster.

When you write your response, keep all emotions out of it. Just state the facts, ask for help (if needed), and extend an invitation to discuss live, that's it. If your boss is unhappy with the response, you will hear from them, but if the message was just a cheap shot to release their frustrations, you won't. In this situation, no news is good news. In your next 1:1, don't forget to bring up your response to make sure your manager is good with your responses.

The Live Conversation

If there is a tangible non-project related ask from your manager, for e.g.,

"It is clear that Bob is not performing. What are you doing about it?"

Or if there is no real ask from your manager, for e.g., 

"I asked for this two weeks ago, how many times do you want me to repeat it?"

You have to get on a call with your manager to hash things out. Essentially, anything that veers into a gray area with a gray answer necessitates a live conversation.

The key to a successful live meeting after a scathing text message is time. Specifically, it's passing. It doesn't matter how hot-headed a person is. If you give time a chance, it will smooth over most surface anger. I recommend letting at least half a day go before asking for a live meeting.

Here is a neat psychological trick to remember before getting on the call. Humans love to go hunting for confirmation. If you start the conversation by acknowledging that your manager's issue is a real issue worth solving, you have a decent shot at walking away unscathed. If you start the conversation by questioning your boss's point of view, you won't get far. 

I know this is counter to what all the management books scream at you. They want you to dive into conflict, stand for your point of view, disagree, etc. I am not saying you shouldn't do all that. If you START the conversation with a confirmation, you are inviting your manager to lean into the conversation versus becoming defensive.

The previous two paragraphs are the main takeaways of this post. Even if you end up not reading the rest, it is alright, but I would love it if you do. Moving on. 

In the live meeting, stay pleasant, stay empathetic, don't get defensive, and start by giving your manager the benefit of the doubt. Managers are expected to absorb a lot of crap, and the higher you go, the bigger the serving. I always assume my manager is as stressed, if not more, than me. So, if I managed to do something that made them lash out, I start with the assumption that I did something wrong. There is a small chance that your manager is a sociopath who doesn't deserve your grace, but those are rare.

If you are pleasant, empathetic, and self-critical, that conversation will go great. In fact, ALL conversations will go great when you are egoless. Your goal in the meeting is to get your manager to share their true intentions. And to get to their true intentions, you have to ask probing questions but not show an ounce of defensiveness or rudeness.

For e.g, if your manager is concerned about the performance of an individual, start off by asking for evidence instead of trying to defend the employee. You can eventually get to that in a FUTURE conversation, but your goal in the first meeting is to dig for facts. Use the 5 why technique to get to the real issue and find time for a follow-up conversation. Once you have established the evidence your manager has, use the next meeting to either provide counter-evidence or a plan to fix the specific issue your manager has an issue with. For specific steps, check out this post.

If your manager's concern is around something you are doing wrong. For e.g, 

"I asked for this two weeks ago. How many times do you want me to repeat it?"

In this case, you have dropped the ball one too many times, and now your manager is annoyed. If you were simply unaware that you were dropping the ball, apologize, promise to do better, and do better next time. 

However, if you were knowingly dropping the ball like I do once in a while (or maybe often, you all will never know!), there is usually only one explanation. There are far more important things you are focusing on. At Amazon, this phrase was commonly used inside management circles.

You will always have a thousand different things to do. Prioritize ten of those and do three.

In the live meeting, walk your manager through your priority list and ask their help to knock one of those things off your plate in order to accommodate the thing you were dropping on the floor. Usually, this is when your manager will back off or work with you to figure out who else can take it on or get that item done in some other way. The key to making this all work is being self-critical all the way. If you get defensive, it will never work. 

It also might be the case that the real issue your manager is dealing with is hidden beneath the surface. Being a manager can often be lonely. The higher you climb, the lonelier it becomes. It is not just loneliness, it is also the stress that increases as you ascend corporate america. It is like climbing Mt Everest without an oxygen mask or a guide surrounded by an all-encompassing, lifeless landscape. Capitalism, yay!

I consider myself a fairly empathetic person. In all my work relationships, I try to connect with my peers and reports in a way that encourages them to share their true intentions with me. Often, the key to getting your colleagues to become vulnerable with you is for you to start first. All my work relationships, including relationships with bosses that have been tempered by mutual vulnerability have been the most successful. Most of the rest fall apart over time. 

In instances where I have a really solid relationship with my manager, I can navigate the case of the scathing message fairly easily. I start off by accepting responsibility and a promise to do better, but my real goal is to get them to talk about the invisible hand that pulled the trigger that sent the scathing message. I ask them questions like, "How are you doing?", "How are you feeling?", "What is top of mind for you?" etc. The minute the true reason that caused their outburst comes out, consider you and your manager to be good. 

However, keep in mind that creating a relationship based on empathy and vulnerability takes time and effort. And there will be instances where you are never able to create a relationship with your manager. I have been in those situations, and I hate to say it, but it never ended well.

A quick recap of takeaways from this section

• Practice doing the "pause" when you get hit sideways by a scathing message from your manager.

• Figure out if there is a real ask from your manager or not

• Project-related questions can delivered via text. Everything else requires a live conversation

• If you dropped the ball, fess up and ask your manager to help prioritize

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