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 issue in this series   Top    Next Issue

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I recently upgraded my email program to a new version that "monitors messages for offensive text." It hasn't worked out well. But the whole affair got me to think about everyday phrases that do tend to set people off. Here's a little catalog.

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What We Don't Know About Each Other

We know a lot about our co-workers, but we don't know everything. And since we don't know what we don't know, we sometimes forget that we don't know it. And then the trouble begins.

Preventing the Hurt of Hurtful Dismissiveness

When we use the hurtfully dismissive remarks of others to make ourselves feel bad, there are techniques for recovering relatively quickly. But we can also learn to respond to these remarks altogether differently. When we do that, recovery is unnecessary.

That Was a Yes-or-No Question: II

When, in the presence of others, someone asks you "a simple yes or no" question, beware. Chances are that you're confronting a trap. Here's Part II of a set of suggestions for dealing with the yes-or-no trap.

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

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming April 30: On Planning in Plan-Hostile Environments: II

When we finally execute plans, we encounter obstacles. So we find workarounds or adjust the plans. But there are times when nothing we try gets us back on track. When this happens for nearly every plan, we might be working in a plan-hostile environment. Available here and by RSS on April 30.

And on May 7: Subject Matter Bullying

Most workplace bullying tactics have analogs in the schoolyard — isolation, physical attacks, name-calling, and rumor-mongering are common examples. Subject matter bullying might be an exception, because it requires expertise in a sophisticated knowledge domain. And that's where trouble begins. Available here and by RSS on May 7.

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