I don't agree with everything in this article about employee, but How do you deal with a co-worker who has a god complex?
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Breaking news, not everyone is in operations. Collaboration isn't especially irrelevant for my performance metrics. It's also pretty hard to project annoying behaviors across the country. I mean, some people try, but if it's not strictly work related it can be ignored.
@3dhh+1t1A344D God complex types and collaboration do not belong in the same sentence. God complex types interpret collaboration as a "team" effort in their way, to their benefit.
God complex types show up in agile scrum planning. They tend to grab the simple tasks first. In the group they will make their simple tasks quit complex and fear the group into giving their tasks a huge overrated number of points. After all remember they are God.
Was this written by the old COSMIC team?
@3ahs+1t1A344D, for operations teams, collaboration is a core metric of performance evaluation, you cannot ignore your teammate. What do you do, a door greeter?
@2jlw+1t1A344D ... "Most God complex types are repulsed by extreme disinterest.". So true... Don't know why this has been downvoted. 1) ignore them as @wgt+1t1A344D. 2) If you can't ignore them because they are your boss then start documenting everything.
- Most God complex types are very age/race biased. My God-Boss openly stated in meetings that I was too old to work there. Procure emails from others documenting this. I went to my 2 up with this and they switched me to work under another manager.
- Most God-complex types love their Indians. If peers or above they are the first to give them "congrats" on linkedin and such. If below they are the first to laud their performance as superior to yours.
- If you are "quietly quitting" you can use this in your best interest. Learn the art of not giving a sh....t about your position. Concede that the only way is out... not up. I was on non-speaking terms, with the God-Complex type in my last job at WF. God-Complex = toxic()
That's true. Thankfully I have a very limited number of peers and we are not collocated. I consider this kind of thing to be a career objective. It wasn't always that way in my early years. The people I do have to coordinate with tend to be great, and in that regard I'm very fortunate. I can ignore everyone outside that functional circle.
We all need to be careful that WE are not the jerk the OP mentions. You would be surprised.
@2jlw+1t1A344D, if some jerks happen to be your teammates, you are required to work with them everyday. I don't know what you do every day, but in many LOBs, close team collaborations are part of the core job requirements!
Ignore and avoid them, mostly. Focusing on my own work helps. What other people are doing, unless it directly impacts my work--don't really care. Most God complex types are repulsed by extreme disinterest. It's like when you're telling what you think is a great story and the audience is yawning and then saying "yeah, anyway..." as if you said nothing. They'll find someone else to torment with their nonsense pretty quickly.
There are so many people around you have to deal with in day to day life and avoidance is impossible. few think they are better because they can speak 3 languages. some think they are better because they can speak their native language fluently or even have a better car than you. Being up front and catering to different communication styles can help, but some people are just oblivious.
One of my colleagues is a very nasty middle-aged woman. She is emotionally unstable, unpredictable and always very angry. I try to stay away from this woman but she calls me, emails me and IMs me every day to argue with me about nothing. I asked my other colleagues about this woman, and they said she argues with them too. When I mentioned this to my manager, he says she is always so sweet to him and he doesn't believe she is a bad person. I think the management is being kind to this woman because she is retiring soon. But meanwhile, I have to put up with this crazy psycho on a daily basis.
Thankfully I don't work directly with any of the ELT. They are all employees who think they're some deity's gift to us.
I’m working with one of these now. Just build firm boundaries around their micromanaging especially if they seem really OCD because you’ll never be able to do it to their satisfaction. Also don’t let them put you in the middle of whatever power drama they want to stir up.
They live in denial. You have to find a way to pop their bubble. Collective action by those around them helps sometimes.
Yeah ignore.
For challenging co-workers in general, I create distance from them (won't attend all of their meetings or respond to their messages). If avoidance is not possible given a situation, I will at least delay my responses to avoid giving them the satisfaction that they can call upon my attention at will.
Ignore them. Deflect. Work around them.