Chapter 20 Assertiveness Works at Work Too

Worthy are the labors which give us a sign other than age to show that we have lived.

— Leon Batista Alberti (1424)

“Do the right thing,” says Gretchen Bataille, former president of the University of North Texas, “even if it causes you grief at the time.” Dr. Bataille served as chair of the Iowa Civil Rights Commission in the late 1970s and found herself at the center of controversy as an advocate for equal opportunity for girls in school basketball programs. Her efforts cost her the commission spot — the governor did not reappoint her — but were instrumental in long-term changes that opened doors for girls seeking to play in a full-scale basketball program and thus qualify for college scholarships. “Although unpopular at the time, our actions made [the] future possible,” she observes (quoted in Roark 2007).

Most of us are not in a position of influence comparable to Dr. Bataille’s, but we can agree that being assertive on the job can be difficult at best. Fear of reprisals from supervisors or coworkers, even fear of losing the job itself, are formidable obstacles.

In recent years, there has been a lot of press about difficult relationships between employees and employers. Stories of whistle-blowers, Supreme Court decisions limiting employee rights, employee petitions for flextime and part-time assignments to accommodate family needs, parental leave for both men and women, on-the-job safety and protection for hazardous occupations, shrinking health and retirement benefits, job stress, work-family integration, racial and gender discrimination in hiring and wages…the list goes on. Does assertive behavior have a role in any of this?

There are, in fact, countless ways to express yourself assertively at work. Realistically, we recognize that the obstacles can be major, but we have seen many successes, so once again, we encourage you to assess the potential for making things better in your own work life. In this chapter, we’ll explore several dimensions of on-the-job assertiveness and offer some examples to help you see how assertiveness can “work” for you.

Assertiveness in the Workplace

Let’s start with a few general ideas about how you can practice assertion on the job:

Put off procrastination.
Improve your decision-making skills.
Negotiate more effectively.
Deal with angry customers, bosses, coworkers, and other difficult people assertively.
Learn to say no so you’ll not lose yourself. (Most organizations will take all you’ll give and expect more. If coworkers know you can say no, they won’t be reluctant to ask you because they know they won’t be “imposing.”)
Be persistent: plant a seed and nurture it.
Be patient. Assertiveness is not necessarily being in a hurry.
Speak up about health and safety issues in the workplace. You may risk your job, but that beats risking a limb or a life.
Improve your time management by taking more control of yourself and your schedule.
Stay well informed. Read everything you can about your field — innovations in manufacturing, marketing, or service delivery. If someone in your department is caught by surprise with a new idea, make sure it isn’t you!
Be assertive about goal setting on the job. Realistic goals, assertively pursued, are more likely achieved.

There are, of course, those who would make it difficult for you to express yourself openly on the job. (No news there!) Such obstacles may come in the form of manipulation (ignore these), unreasonable requests (simply point out the unreasonableness), and reasonable requests (that you may not be able to handle and you will thus need to say so).

Sometimes performance anxiety becomes a problem in the workplace. Overcoming anxiety was the original reason for assertiveness training and is still an important application of the process. Making public presentations, for example, is reportedly the number one fear of Americans. That fear can be “desensitized” by taking gradual steps toward expressing yourself to others, beginning with one or two friendly folks and working up to a larger group of colleagues or strangers.

Problem solving, negotiation, and conflict resolution on the job can be aided through creating an atmosphere that allows — even encourages — constructive disagreement. As different ideas are expressed, it becomes possible to work out compromises that build the strengths of everyone’s contributions. Solutions that are the result of a number of people brainstorming are often winners; letting all thoughts come out without censorship or critique stimulates creative juices.

We’ve arranged the balance of this chapter in its natural sequence, from the process of job and career search, through landing a job, working well with others, to being a supervisor. The chapter concludes with some questions about your priorities and a potpourri of work situations for your own assertiveness practice. It may help to read all of the material, or you may prefer to turn directly to that aspect of job-related assertiveness that fits your current interests and needs.

Job Search

When we graduated from college (back in “olden times”), jobs were plentiful for anyone with a degree. Things have changed a lot. Although government statistics suggest that unemployment is down at the time of this writing, jobs can still be tough to get in many fields, with or without a college education. Widespread layoffs have resulted as large corporations outsource jobs abroad, merge, or downsize. Smaller firms, the source of most jobs, are finding it difficult or impossible to stay afloat among the giants. Competition among job hunters can be fierce, particularly for those who are looking for work after a couple of decades of experience in a shrinking field.

Looking for a job can be a full-time job in itself. Many people seem to expect to put out a few applications, make a few calls, have an interview or two, and land the job of their dreams. Unfortunately, that is a dream. Finding the work you want takes work — and assertiveness can be one of your most useful tools.

In his best-selling book What Color Is Your Parachute? Richard N. Bolles presents a comprehensive plan for “job seekers and career changers.” His counsel is as good as you’ll find anywhere and applies the concepts of assertiveness with a broad brush. Bolles’s innovative and practical ideas will help you learn about your own career desires and needs, locate opportunities, make contact with employers, handle interviews, and land the job you want.

Here are some of Bolles’s recommendations for an assertive approach to careers:

Plan your career and your job search with a clear goal in mind: decide what you want to do, where you want to do it, and for whom.
Seek out activities you enjoy: you’ll go after them with more enthusiasm, do them better, and be satisfied longer.
Claim the highest level of skill you legitimately can: you are more likely to find a job, and the job can be more uniquely tailored to you.
Find and meet the employer you want to work for: show the person who has the power to hire you just how you can help fill the needs of that organization.

Interviewing

Even if you have followed Bolles’s advice and created your own job, you’ll likely go through some traditional interviews along the way.

Now at last an employer has offered you an opportunity to meet and discuss an opening! You’ve worked hard for this chance to tell what you can do, and you are really looking forward to it. You are pretty anxious too. After all, getting the job depends largely upon how well you present yourself in that short meeting.

Assertiveness can help. We suggest you take it as it comes:

Before the Interview

Follow the principles we’ve described in this book to develop your own ability to present yourself well.
Prepare yourself to deal with anxiety by practicing cognitive restructuring and relaxation (chapters 10 and 11). Everybody has some preinterview jitters; don’t let them be a major obstacle for you.
Write down and memorize three or four key strengths you want the interviewer to remember about you; be sure to relate them specifically to the job in question.
Practice interviewing with a friend or counselor. If you can, use a video camera and recorder to capture a sample of your own style. Watch the video and let that feedback help you become even more effective. Pay attention to the nonverbal components of behavior we described in chapter 8.
Do your homework. Find out all you can about the company from its website, product catalogue, employee friends, and public relations and human resources offices.

At the Interview

Approach the interviewer with a friendly but not-too -well-rehearsed style.
Remember that most employers would rather hire someone with a strong desire to work and to contribute to the organization than a “star” who may try to outshine the current staff.
Try to relax , enjoy yourself, and get acquainted.
Let the interviewer know you’ve done your homework , have prepared for the interview, and have learned something about the company.
Ask good questions about the working environment, staff morale, advancement, employer expectations, and future directions for the firm.
Avoid asking obvious questions you should have answered for yourself in your advance preparation (company product line, details about retirement and health benefits, and so on).
Leave the interviewer with a sample of your work or some other device that will cause him or her to remember you and your talents. (Don’t assume a standard résumé or application will do this job for you.)

After the Interview

Drop a note to the interviewer , expressing your appreciation for the meeting, calling attention to any important facts about you, and mentioning details that may have been missed in the interview.
Spend some time assessing and critiquing your own performance, so you’ll be ready to do even better next time.
Continue to contact other employers and to arrange other interviews until you land the job you want!
After you accept the job , dedicate yourself to doing it well, but don’t cut off the contacts you’ve established with other employers. You never know.

Can the “New Kid on the Block” Be Assertive?

When you do get that new job, it is important to start out by listening a lot. You’ll need to find out as much as possible about the rules of the workplace, the attitudes and opinions of your supervisors and colleagues, the safety factors of the job, the expectations of your role and how it fits into the larger scheme of things, and much more.

But listening alone probably will not be enough to give you all the information you’ll need. As you begin to learn your way around a new place of employment, it will be important to ask questions as well. And that’s where assertiveness comes in once again.

Remember to maintain balance . You want to seem interested in the job, to show the boss and others that you are conscientious. At the same time, you don’t want to be a constant nag, demanding more and more information — much of which may not even be relevant to your own work.

We suggest the following guidelines:

Be prepared. Don’t expect your boss or coworkers to fill the gaps in your own preparation for the job (unless you are clearly in a training program).
Ask your supervisor and coworkers the questions you must have answers to in order to do the job.
Don’t be too quick to ask , since you may be told when the subject comes up in turn.
Make notes of other items that occur to you, then ask them when the subject comes up.
Ask your boss about asking questions. Does she or he prefer that you ask immediately, or in a regular conference, or when?
When you do ask questions, be assertive. Don’t beat around the bush, don’t start out defensively (“This may be a dumb question…”), try to focus your question on the specifics, and use good eye contact, voice, and timing.
Avoid suggesting changes until you are well acquainted with the operation.
Avoid the temptation to describe “how we did it at Acme Widget” (or wherever you worked before) unless you’re asked. Better to let it be your own idea — or let it go all together.

On-the-Job Relationships

Getting along with others at work is essentially a process of making a place for yourself in the work group. At home, the family has little choice but to accept you. In school, although acceptance of your peers can be a tough burden, you’re the one without choice: you have to be there.

The job, for most of us, does offer some choices. Unlike family or school ties, one can quit, although the price for doing so may be high. Getting along becomes a matter of deciding to make a place for yourself. And that means developing a relationship of mutual respect with your coworkers.

Here are some ideas that may help:

Stay honest; avoid game playing.
Count to ten before you sound off in anger.
Listen to what the other person has to say — even if you disagree.
Ask yourself, “How would I feel in this person’s shoes?”
Express your opinions , but remember they are opinions. Others will have different ideas.
Consider: is it more important to be a “star” or to get the job done? One of the most famous motivational lines ever — often quoted but first credited to President Harry S. Truman — goes like this: “It’s amazing what can be accomplished if no one cares who gets the credit.”
Be assertive when it matters.
Accept responsibility for your mistakes — and credit for your successes.

A couple of practice situations for you to think about:

A coworker has been taking company supplies home for personal use. She knows you are aware of this and expects you to say nothing.
The woman at the next desk loves to chew gum — loudly. You find the noise annoying and distracting.
A senior colleague has made repeated sexual comments and suggestions and frequently finds opportunities to touch you inappropriately.
A couple of your coworkers spend lots of company time gossiping and chitchatting about their gardens and their children. You see their productivity suffering.

Dealing with Supervisors

Some bosses act as though they would have been happier in an earlier era, when all employees were virtual slaves. For the most part, however, the workplace has become quite civilized — even humanized. Supervisors still oversee, but they generally follow modern law and custom — and their own good sense — in treating their workers with respect.

Nevertheless, there are inevitable situations in which it is necessary, as an employee, to express an idea, opinion, or objection firmly in the face of opposition from the boss.

Be prepared for criticism. Don’t get caught in the trap of coming down on yourself every time you are criticized on the job. You may be wrong, but the way to deal with the situation is to correct the problem, not to kick yourself. Help your boss to make criticism specific , so you can make the adjustments needed to improve.

Assertive efforts to clarify the boss’s expectations and criticisms will help clear the air and will enable you to become more effective. If instead you act like a “victim” — mumbling to yourself or backbiting — you’ll make no progress and will likely make a powerful enemy along the way.

Try to identify patterns in your boss’s critiques. If you think you discover one, ask assertively if that is what the boss wants (“You’d rather have all the supporting data presented with my recommendations, wouldn’t you?”). If you clear up any possible misunderstanding in this direct way, you’ll save time — and similar criticism — in the future.

Timing may be the most important component of your on-the-job assertiveness, especially with the boss. If you confront a supervisor in front of others or when the boss is very preoccupied with another problem, you aren’t likely to gain a favorable audience. Instead, plan — and schedule, if necessary — your feedback to the boss so that you can be alone and relatively uninterrupted.

It bears repeating: do your homework! These days, with the almost-infinite amount of information on virtually every possible subject that’s available online, there’s no excuse for “incomplete staff work.” When you approach the boss, don’t offer only complaints. Be ready to present — and defend with facts — specific recommendations for any changes you think would improve things.

Here are a few other examples of situations with supervisors for practice:

You want to offer an innovative suggestion for simplifying a routine procedure.
Your boss is making unreasonable demands on your time, without offering additional compensation.
You believe you are being unfairly criticized for the quality of your work.
You know more about the job than your boss does, yet she wants you to do it her way.
Your boss is asking you to do jobs that you believe are his responsibility.
Your boss expects you to prepare “phony” expense accounts.
You’ve been asked — at 4:45 — to stay this evening and prepare a report for tomorrow’s board meeting. You have plans for the evening.

Supervising Assertively

Now you’ve done it! You’ve been so effective with your on-the-job assertion (along with some pretty good work!) that you’ve been promoted. Now you’re the boss. New responsibilities, new opportunities…new headaches!

How do the principles of assertiveness apply in the supervisory role? Can you get the job done, treat your staff with respect, and exercise appropriate authority — all at once?

There are many theories of management and hundreds of good ideas about how to supervise others. While this is not the place for a comprehensive survey, the following guidelines blend our concept of assertiveness with some of the best:

Build your assertive managerial style on the foundation of good on-the-job relationships described earlier in this chapter: honesty, responsibility, cooperation, teamwork, mutual respect.
Listen — and pay attention — to what your people have to say.
Roll up your own sleeves and work with your staff.
Walk around — and find out firsthand what is needed.
Remember that we’re all equal on the human-to-human level.
Make your instructions clear and direct.
Accept the responsibilities of leadership , including decision making.
Criticize fairly , focusing on the performance, not the person. (Take another look at the discussion of criticism in chapter 19.)
Praise often , focusing on the performance, not the person.
Consider that a manager must both lead the staff and provide necessary support .
Include the following resources in your supervision “toolkit”: team-building skills, clear communication of your expectations, employee motivation strategies, encouragement of assertiveness in your staff, and clear performance standards.

Here are a few supervisory situations for practice — and to help you keep things in perspective:

One of your employees has made a thoughtful proposal for a new work procedure. You recognize the idea as one the general manager would probably veto because of its start-up costs.
A supervisor of your rank from another department comes into your area and wants to borrow some equipment. Company policy prohibits such transfers.
You are confronted by a young trainee who refuses to follow your directions.
An employee under your supervision is not working up to your standards. You wish to improve his performance.
Performance reviews are due next week. You must critique a longtime colleague whose work is weak in several areas.
As a new crew chief at an assembly plant, you are responsible for the work of several men old enough to be your father. At least one of the men believes his ways are right and refuses to accept your authority.
A longtime employee in your department has been coming to work late nearly every day this week, with no explanation.
You recognize that one of your workers is an alcoholic, but she won’t admit it or seek treatment.

Keeping Your Priorities Straight

Work can be really seductive. If you enjoy what you do and if you are good at it, you’ll probably be advancing in salary and responsibility frequently. As a result, you’ll feel motivated to take on even more, and the cycle will go on.

That sort of involvement with your work can play havoc with your personal life — if you let it get out of hand. More and more, you’ll take work home, stay late at the office, go in on weekends, and take business trips. You could wind up with little time left for yourself or your family.

Can you be assertive with yourself? Can you elect to pass up career advancement opportunities in favor of more time for home and family? What are your priorities? It’s easy to say , “My family comes first.” It’s harder to act accordingly.

Others won’t settle for less than “having it all.” Career, family, community, self — all are juggled like oranges, at least for a while. The stresses of the real world seldom allow us to maintain that precarious balance for long.

Being assertive with yourself means clarifying your personal priorities, recognizing you cannot do everything — at least not all the time — making appropriate choices, and saying no when you’ve reached your limits. Keep your own goals in mind. (Refer to your journal as you need to. Still keeping a journal, aren’t you?)

Test yourself with a few related situations. What’s really important to you?

You’ve been offered an important promotion with your present firm. Actually, you’d been thinking of leaving, but the outside job you want is not yet available.
You spend more and more evenings and weekends working on job reports. Your family is beginning to complain that you have no time for them. You think you have an opportunity for a major promotion if you keep up the pace.
You want to continue your successful career, but you know that your only step up in the company will require going back to school for additional course work in business — maybe an MBA. Such a step will require postponing plans to have children, which you and your spouse want very much.

More On-the-Job Situations for Practice

Use the step-by-step process in chapter 13 as a guide to build your skills and practice handling the following work-related situations:

Your boss suddenly turns cool toward you but offers no explanation. You want to ask what’s going on.
Although you have been in your job longer than anyone in your department, you are a part-time worker. Nevertheless, you are often called upon to train others or answer questions as if you were a supervisor. You are paid less and have no real authority.
You’ve had several job interviews recently but keep finding yourself acting in a very passive way. The interviewers seem disappointed that you do not “sell” yourself.
A manager in another department — very powerful in the company — has been making not-so-subtle sexual advances toward you.
After you’ve spent many hours on a special report, your boss’s supervisor is highly critical of your results.
You’ve been asked to handle a job that is clearly outside your responsibility and beyond your competence. You think it may be a “test” of how well you know your own limits.
You’d like to start working from home — telecommuting — at least a couple of days a week. Your boss has been resistant to the idea, but you have kids and it’s hard to get good child care every day. You do much of your work on a computer anyway.

Even if you are not working regularly now, chances are you will be sooner or later. Give some thought to the issues raised in this chapter. Use your journal to keep track of your own on-the-job assertiveness and how you can improve it. You’ll be more effective in your work and more highly respected by your peers and supervisors, and you will enjoy yourself more!