Baited then switched: what to do? Grin and Bear it?

So, okay, you've been baited into a meeting under a pretense, then, BAM! they switcheroo'd on you. Now you in this ... 'meeting'? do I call it a 'meeting,' when really it's an inquisition. So, you're in this thing, and your back is against the wall.

What do you do?

Here's what you don't do.

What I did: I played along, played nice, and survived the 'meeting' with this or that platitude, as required.

That's the default, right? "Let me just survive this and get the hell out of here."

No.

Why survive a meeting? Why lick the boots of the bossman (and, in my case: bosswoman), cower, and snivel?

For a job? Really? Because you really need this job? Really?

Let me tell you about this job.

It's a job. You do your work, it's part of your life.

You are investing your life into your job.

You only have this life, and then: you are going to die.

And, you're not doing yourself any favors, sniveling and scraping, and you're also not doing your boss any favors, right? You know that, right?

If your boss is being a little tyrant, then that's all they are: little, and a tyrant. So why, even, are you there, if all you are is a yes-man?

I am four years into my second chance. I had two heart attacks – the second one almost killed me – each day, now, is a gift from God Almighty. Am I going to waste this gift in servitude?

I'm an expert in my field. I have 25 years of experience working with some good managers and some bad ones, but they are all human beings, like me (maybe). I don't need to kowtow to my boss. I need to work for my boss to get the job done.

And the job won't get done if I check out as a yes-man. And the job won't get done when the boss is a little tyrant, demanding everybody be afraid of him or her. How can you get your job done if you check out? How can your team get the job done if you're spending time playing mind-games, trying to make people agree with everything that falls out of your mouth?

You can't. They can't. Nobody can.

Try this.

If you don't agree with something, say that. If you get gamed, say that.

"Look, I'm not ready to discuss this now at this meeting. Can we set up another meeting to discuss this?"

That's all you need to do. If they start to wander into mind-games, you call them on it, and say you won't play, because you're here to get work done.

Aren't they?

You do it the right way, they'll appreciate the correction. You do it the wrong way, or the wrong person is your boss, you've made an enemy, and you lost your job.

No big deal. Count yourself blessed to have an enemy who is a little tyrant. Count yourself blessed that you got fired from a job that going to is pure hell. You got out of hell. Get a different job that's better!

But if you don't speak up, it's your fault that your job sucks. And if you do speak up, and your job does get better, then:

Then: your job is better. Not just for you, but for everybody on your team. Because of you.

Think about that before you decide to grin and bear it again.

Think about that.

Bait-and-Switch Meetings

This is the second 'Bait-and-switch'-meeting I've gone to, and I don't appreciate it. If, at the beginning of the meeting, you say: "Oh, and besides X, I also want to talk about you, and your Y," then you've just committed a bait-and-switch. The meeting's agenda is the meeting's agenda, and if you have different things you want to talk about, you set up a different meeting. 

Now, you may say: "Well, I didn't tell you, because I wanted your honest opinion." Three things here: 

1. You're saying I'm dishonest otherwise? 
2. You came prepared, but you're not giving me the courtesy of coming prepared? 
3. and who has the power in this conversation. Are you caught off guard? 

Let me ask you: if your management team called you in for a meeting to talk about administrative stuff, and then they turned it around and asked: "I hear your team is having personality issues, why are you screwing up?" How would you feel? Imposed upon. Look at it as feedback. If you're given feedback, unprepared, and it's hard-hitting, you're reeling from the blow, and don't have the frame of mind to absorb that feedback, much less respond to it with a level head. 

Bait-and-switch meetings are bad, and they come from cowardice. What they do is this: they destroy trust. I now no longer trust going into a meeting that the published agenda is not the actual one, and now I don't want to say anything anymore. You may 'win' your bait-and-switch, by throwing the recipient off-guard and asserting your position of authority, but you lose, big-time: you have now lost the participation of me, up-to-now, a contributing member of the team.

Keep up the good work.

My Friend, Mike, Died

 My friend, Mike Malovic, far left in the picture, just died. Cancer.

Mike was a good man. I moved to the Washington, D.C. area in 1992 and met Mike soon after at the St. Michael's choir. We were both military, so we connected in that way, and he asked me if I kept my options open for business opportunities. I did. So we talked, and I joined his organization in Amway.

Now, I'm sorry if you had a bad Amway-experience, or, more likely: you heard that your mother's second cousin's friend-from-work-sister's girfriend "lost all her money in Amway and had to go live in Topeka, Kansas with her mom."

But my experience with Amway wasn't like that, and nor was Mike's, and here's why.

Mike cared. Mike cared for his family, and he knew he wasn't going to make it in the Washington DC-area off a sergeant's salary, and he knew he definitely wasn't going to make it off a sergeant's pension. So he looked at starting a business. He started a few, was successful in a few, but they still couldn't provide. He put the same amount of work into Amway that he put into his job and his other businesses, and Amway worked for him. So he shared that message of success with others, including me.

And here's the thing. Amway didn't work for me, because I didn't work Amway like Mike did. I played at it, tried it out, but I didn't work it like a full-time job, like Mike did, so I didn't become an Amway millionaire. But here's what I did get out of Amway: respect for people who worked at it, or at their businesses, respect for my Country, respect for my God, and my lovely wife. Pinky, Mike's wife, introduced me to Diane: "You know, Doug, Diane's really smart and sweet. You should talk to her. Like: now."

So, yeah: I'm not an Amway millionaire, like Mike may be, but here's the thing about Mike.

Mike cares.

Mike is a man who cares about you more than he cares about himself. He always has a word of encouragement, he always asks after you and your family, he always looks you in the eye when he shakes your hand, and he always treated me as a friend, whether I made him rich in Amway, or whether I didn't.

Because I didn't make him rich in Amway.

But.

I made him rich in life.

Mike is a very private, quiet person, and, for him, talking with people is hard, and tiring, and scary.

But here's something I learned from Mike, too.

You can live your life lonely, and alone, or you can talk with other people, and they can hurt you, yes, but they can change you in how you see the world as they see the world, and they can care, and they can hope, and they can dream, and they can enrich your life when they share that care, that hope, and those dreams with you.

That's what I learned from Mike. Introversion isn't an excuse. It wasn't for him, and, because of his example, it isn't for me. I learned my life is better when I make somebody's life better.

Today.

I learned that God put me on this Earth, today, to make somebody else's life better, and I ask myself, everyday: "Who did I make smile today?" and I better have an answer, today, by God, because I bet you anything, God will ask me the same question when I am called to task, like Mike was called to task.

Today.

My last visit with Mike breaks my heart, because I came prepared. I read up on him. I was going to ask him all about his life and adventures. "Sure," he said, "I was born in England, but I moved to the States when I was one year old. How is your dad? Is he okay?"

And from there, the conversation went, him asking about this or that, and commenting on how proud he was of me to work with the Air Force, to have my girls raised so polite and proper, to ...

It breaks my heart, that, to his dying breath, he didn't want to talk about himself, at all, he wanted to talk about me, and how I was faring in this world. Mike, he was done with this world, and ready for the next.

Mike, I know you're an Army man, but from this Coast Guardsman, I wish you, dear friend: fair winds and following seas.

God bless you, and keep you in His care.