All organizations have their share of jerks. What can be difficult to accept is that we’ve all been that jerk at one time or another. Even more difficult to comprehend is that jerk behavior can have a negative impact on a company’s bottom line. However, speaking as a jerk, we are not necessarily bad people. Often why and how we fall into “jerk mode” can have to do with miscommunications and missteps that trigger our defenses. This article offers a Signs of Defensiveness list to help you recognize them, as well as a table to calculate the loss in time and revenue when jerks behavior is left unchecked.
Written by Celeste Blackman, International consultant for organizational development, Human Element and Radical Collaboration trainer.
Creating a Jerk-Free Zone [pdf, English]
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