How to deal with cagey humans 🐅
How to deal with cagey humans 🐅
No need to feed the animals.
A nice workplace requires nice humans.
Whether we're talking about counterparts, clients/customers, consultants, and/or our humans-in-charge….
It's really, REALLY hard to get nice work done if they're being cagey.
What do we mean by cagey? Trust, you'll know it when you see it 👇
Jane is an executive at a company. She's working with another team on a project, and her counterpart seems to slow-walk - everything? Despite her reminders, she's been left off call invites, not shared on documents, and not added to channels where decisions are made. She's debating whether to escalate to her manager or if it's all in her head. 🤔
Jane is a freelancer or consultant for a startup. She needs to collab with another freelancer on a deliverable. On calls, the other person is all smiles and promises - but then won't share files or updates without a LOT of chasing. She wonders whether she should tell the client or if she's just dealing with a supremely disorganised person. 😫
Jane runs a small business and has hired someone to help her design a new logo and graphic. She finishes the project and gets the final files - but she can't edit them. They say to receive an editable file, she has to pay extra. She isn't sure if this is standard behavior or if she should insist on it. 😬
Jane works for a services firm. Someone on her team knows all the right people but won't freely share contact details with her clients or make intros, effectively stating, "this is my relationship, and I'm not giving it away." She doesn't want to step on their toes but worries their client will miss out. 🫣
In each of these situations, Jane is dealing with a cagey human.
They aren't open, they don't share, or they charge extra (in time or effort or emotional energy) to share.
Whether intentionally or unintentionally, that counterpart is turning what should be a relay race into a ropes course. Less team game, more direct competition.
So what do you do with humans who just don't seem keen to be on your team? Even though that's, you know, the job?
🙏 Start with what you can control - your mindset.
Three things to remember when you just can’t believe they left you off the invite AGAIN:
Truth 1: This is trained into us and takes a lot of work to undo.
We all have done it. And most of the time, we aren’t doing it consciously. We’ve been taught to see the world as a “red ocean” of competition and threats, including and especially when it comes to people. If someone isn’t sharing or cooperating, it’s very possible they see you as a threat to their job or livelihood. We can’t control them or the environment they’re in. Similarly, we can’t control if the workplace we’re in is a scarcity-driven, competitive and cagey place, but we can choose not to contribute to it wherever possible.
Truth 2: No one wins a scarcity game.
It’s weird that we’ve been socialized to be so defensive when it doesn’t pay off at all. It really doesn’t. Mainly because we’re all paid to get work done. So if it comes out in the end that we kept a project, a deliverable, or a goal from advancing because we didn’t want to share files - that will be completely on us. And yeah, it will be obvious to everyone involved.
But also, at what cost? The amount of emotional energy you have to put on yourself to see everyone you work with as the enemy, plus the locked down Google Drive settings you must maintain for your files, plus the stress of responding to messages and calls without anything helpful – the cost to your mental health just isn’t worth whatever you’re protecting. I don’t know what mental state you’d be in after a full work week by acting like that, but I can’t imagine it’s a super positive and healthy one.
Truth 3: People know.
Trust me, they KNOW. Insecure humans are the loudest, and it will be obvious to your boss, manager, client, customer, colleague, work wife, etc., that they have something to hide or that they feel they have something to prove by locking you out.
Then, move on to what you can influence: Your work and workplace.
What you can do in your work:
Keep your files open to the entire team as a default. The best way to do this without throwing up security issues is by having a folder viewable to everyone within your organization. Before sharing new files, ensure everyone you’re sending it to is added as a viewer or editor.
Keep your communications on projects to groups, channels and email chains with as many people as possible. Fight the impulse to side channel and DM in response - continue to show up with the information you have for as many people as possible. And in these open forums, don’t be afraid to note where you’re still waiting on something to be shared from someone else. How to do this without starting any drama? Ask someone to read your message for you - do they see it as transparency, or are you tattling on them? If the latter, rework until the defensiveness is out of it.
Share information in multiple forms. When you share a file, put in the file what it is / what it is used for / what the next steps are. Put that same background in the email or message you send it with. Make it possible for anyone to work with you and your work without needing to DM you for more information. This shows your commitment to the entire team and is the opposite of keeping the “last piece of the puzzle” off the table for yourself.
How you can show up in your workplace:
In your words, actions, file-sharing, calls, emails, DMs, etc., - show up as someone undeniably in support of what’s best for the team. Continue asking to join calls. Continue file-sharing. Continue suggesting ways to help. Continue actually doing the things you suggest to help. Keep trying, and do whatever you can to support the objectives/goals/vision/dream/bottom line of the person paying you, regardless of how the OTHER people they’ve hired act.
To wrap up the advice as best we can:
You don’t have to be in a cage! That’s great news, and you can help your workplace have less of them, too, by setting a good example.
But if that doesn’t feel doable, at a minimum, try not to feed the animals. At the end of the day, they are in charge of how they show up at work, and you really, really, really don't have to join them.
Mmmmk, but what if the cagey human is me 🫠 I'm working on it, but I have a hard time not seeing teammates as threats.
I get it because I've been there. Recently! One of the services my firm offers is writing. Since we work with a lot of tech companies, this is writing that reflects a deep understanding of bleeding-edge tech, adds something new to the industry conversation, and prioritizes what the intended reader cares about. I've been unfazed about ChatGPT and AI copy generation because it can’t deliver this level of craftsmanship and reflection.
I'm EXCITED about AI copy generation because it will make low-impact writing even easier. Not just for experienced writers like us, either. We work with so many people who hate writing social posts, find it hard to write emails, don't have English as a first language, etc., etc. How great that we can all have a little copywriter assistant.
But still, when two clients in two weeks came back with comments on highly crafted work with a variation of, "Here's what ChatGPT gave me," my immediate reaction was, "Uh, wait, are you saying this is better than what we did?" I consider myself a secure and confident person who is very convinced of her skillset. And it still shook me!
So what do you do when, despite your mindset work and work work, you feel like a cagey human?
You can remember your training.
By this, we mean:
Give your brain a minute to remember how to get out of the cage.
Visualize a world where the person you’re working with isn’t out to get you.
Instead, trust they want to work with you in the best way possible for both of you.
In my case, I came back to the messages later to take a look at what ChatGPT had created. That's when I realized the question wasn't, at all, whether it was better than we were. It was whether it could add anything of value - could it be another player on our team?
And to that, I could say yes. It is an amazing tool for prompts and breaking writer's block. Especially for non-writers (and even writer-writers), having something to edit is so much easier than staring at a blank page. I wrote back with this, and guess what? We have not been replaced with a ChatGPT subscription. We now coach our clients to use AI as a prompt tool to get ideas out of their heads, as a first draft generator for writers' block days, and overall - as an assistant to sharing human insight and experience. And, of course, we're always happy to be its contextual, insightful, human editor.
So if you think you’re the cagey one, I invite you to try to hold “openness” tryouts in your brain this week. Openness turns into opportunity, and I think the results will surprise and encourage you.
Go play ball!
Rachel
PS. What would have happened if I'd responded, "This is garbage," or "Ok, go ahead and use this next time," or plain just DIDN'T respond? That's me, turning a misunderstanding into straight-up malice. A one-way street to a not-nice workplace, I'll tell you THAT. We will discuss this in a few weeks - subscribe not to miss it!
Links We Love
📚 Blue Ocean Strategy (book): A great read if you’re a business owner or entrepreneur who really wants to quit the competition game. 💜