Recognizing Hurtful Dismissiveness

When we're dismissive towards others, they can experience pain. Retaliation, bad decisions, depressed performance, and broken relationships can follow. Dismissing others might feel satisfying, but it's expensive to the organization. If it's a repeated pattern of behavior, it's a performance issue.

Some offenders intend to throw their targets off balance, to inflict pain, or to gain advantage in debate. Others are unintentionally dismissive, but the results can be serious nonetheless.

Targets of dismissiveness usually cannot control the behavior of offenders, but they can learn to remain centered. There is a 3-R recipe for dealing with hurtful dismissiveness: Recognize the offense, Reframe the offense, and Reaffirm your own humanity.

Recognition begins with becoming familiar with the words offenders use. Because most of the examples below do have legitimate uses, both style of delivery and context determine whether they're being used offensively. For instance, "Forget it," in response to an apology can mean, "Apology accepted." But in response to a request for an explanation, it can be a dismissive rejection.

Here's a little catalog of dismissive remarks. Add more as you encounter them.

• Never mind.
• Don't worry about it.
• Talk to me later (or sometime).
• Sorry, gotta go.
• Not your (my) concern (affair, problem, worry).
• Stay focused.
• Not now. Maybe later.
• Ask me later.
• Let's not.
• Send me mail on that.
• It's complicated.
• You're overreacting.
• Welcome to the nineties.
• Let's not be panicky.
• Aren't you clever.
• Could be.
• Who knows? Or cares?
• [Interrupting] Yeah, yeah, I get it.
• Here we go again.
• Not again.
• Oh, that. Let's move on.
• There you go (she goes, he goes, they go) again.
• <laughs><changes subject>
• Stop the presses.
• Hold your horses.
• I hear you. (repeatedly)
• I take your point. (repeatedly)
• Yeah, I heard that.
• Yeah, I heard that yesterday (last week, last month).
• Everyone knows that.
• That's not news.
• I don't think it's quite that bad (serious).
• Get over it.
• You're making (way) too much of it.
• That's just the way she is (he is, they are).
• That's life.
• Get used to it.
• Only joking.
• Cool your jets.
• Chill.
• Take it easy.
• Take five.
• Give it a rest.
• Hold on there, Targets of dismissiveness usually
  cannot control the behavior
  of offenders, but they can
  learn to remain centeredchief (pal).
• Big deal.
• I've (we've, you've, they've, he's, she's) done worse.
• You just can't leave it alone, can you?
• Nothing I (we, you) can do about that.
• Why does that matter?
• What's the difference?
• It doesn't really matter.
• Either way.
• Next!
• Sucks to be you.
• Don't be so sensitive.
• Take a number.

Next time we'll explore techniques for reframing dismissive remarks.  Next in this series  Top    Next Issue

Are you fed up with tense, explosive meetings? Are you or a colleague the target of a bully? Destructive conflict can ruin organizations. But if we believe that all conflict is destructive, and that we can somehow eliminate conflict, or that conflict is an enemy of productivity, then we're in conflict with Conflict itself. Read 101 Tips for Managing Conflict to learn how to make peace with conflict and make it an organizational asset. Order Now!

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Rumors about organizational intentions or expectations can depress productivity. Even when they're factually false, rumors can be so powerful that they sometimes produce the results they predict. How can we manage organizational rumors?

Reframing Hurtful Dismissiveness

Targets of dismissive remarks often feel that their concerns are being judged as unimportant, which can be painful when their concerns are real. But there is an alternative to pain. It requires a little skill and discipline, but it can work.

How to Listen to Someone Who's Dead Wrong

Sometimes we must listen attentively to someone with whom we strongly disagree. The urge to interrupt can be overpowering. How can we maintain enough self-control to really listen?

Logical Presentation Can Be Ineffective

Although logic and reasoning are useful tools for problem solving and decision making, they're less useful for exchanging ideas among collaborators. Effectiveness in presenting one's own views to others requires more clarity than logic.

Obscuring Ignorance

Some people are uncomfortable revealing that they have limited understanding of topics related to the issues at hand. They can't allow themselves to ask, "Pardon me, what does X mean?" Here are a few of the techniques they use to obscure their ignorance.

See also Effective Communication at Work and Conflict Management for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming September 27: On Working Breaks in Meetings

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And on October 4: Self-Importance and Conversational Narcissism at Work: I

Conversational narcissism is a set of behaviors that participants use to focus the exchange on their own self-interest rather than the shared objective. This post emphasizes the role of these behaviors in advancing a narcissist's sense of self-importance. Available here and by RSS on October 4.

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