Improving Effectiveness

On The Road To

Overcoming Overload

Thoughts and Tips on Overcoming Draining People

Draining people sap the energy out of your life. Important and teachable people will remember you for the positive impact you have on their lives.

We each need to take inventory to enhance the impact we have on our important and teachable people. At the same time reducing your exposure to draining people along with increasing the structure of your encounter with them will help protect your life from their draining behaviors

Eve Wise arrived exhausted for her lunch appointment with Adam Smart *.

“Hi, Eve! You look beat. What’s wrong?”

Eve breathed a heavy sigh and began, “Let me tell you. It started with four messages left for me from my rep out west. The guy has been with us for five years and still cannot make simple decisions. Just listening to his stressed and depressed voice makes me cringe.

Then before I could finish my e-mail Janet comes in with her usual list of complaints. For her, every small thing is a big problem. She thinks everyone is incompetent. Granted, she is almost a perfectionist so everyone else is not good enough but I am tired of listening to her constant complaining.

For the last two hours I was stuck in the weekly forecast meeting that is utterly useless. My boss leads this meeting with no agenda, no accountability, and no follow-up. Meetings like this drive me up a wall.

Sorry to dump on you, Adam, but thanks for asking.”

*The names and titles are changed. The experience is based on participants in our Overcoming Overload Workshop.

If you identify with Eve’s frustrations, then you may have some draining people in your life. The following tips may be helpful:

1. Focus on Impact: Most of us will be remembered not by what we do but by the impact we have on the lives of others around us.

2. Inventory the people in your life: Relationships are a valuable asset that we seldom inventory and manage well. While it is hard to pigeonhole people, and while all people are important, people should be treated differently based on your ability to impact their lives and the impact they have on your life.

a. The important people are those to whom you are accountable and those who are critical to the achievement of your goals. Very often these are people who help you define your roles.

b. The teachable people are those who by your influence readily learn from your model and grow as you invest time coaching and developing them.

c. The draining people are those for whom you have some concerns but who are reluctant to accept your influence. As a general rule, you find time spent in their company to be draining and un-motivating.

Please note that as you inventory the people in your life you may find that some may fall in more than one circle. Your boss is important but may sometimes be very draining. Similarly, you may find that your teenage child, while very important, may exhibit very draining traits and behavior.

3. Examine your calendar to ensure that you invest appropriate amounts of time with your important and teachable people. Be sure to pre-plan regular one on one time with your important and teachable people. As you do this you will limit the time available for draining people.

4. Make sure that the important people know that you value the impact they have on your life. Express that as often as you can.

5. Monitor the progress of your teachable people. Celebrate their developments and enjoy their compliments.

6. Increase the structure you employ for the time you spend with your draining people. Have a clearly written agenda for what you want to accomplish and what you are going to discuss. Stick to it and do not allow your draining person to digress from it. If possible, inject a higher level of accountability and consequences to your interactions. For example, you do not meet until certain things have been accomplished or changed behavior has been evidenced.

Results: As Eve began to apply these tips and share them with others some draining people got the message and were converted from their habits. In the process Eve made sure that she was not infected with destructive traits that are often the result of the overloaded world.

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