9 Strategies to Protect Yourself from Toxic People and Energy Vampires

OVERVIEW

"When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time” —Maya Angelou

Toxic behavior in the workplace is like an infectious disease - it spreads and infiltrates teams and relationships. Without the understanding, skills and tools applied intentionally, toxicity will continue to spread eventually impairing the organization and burning out the leaders and staff.

In some organizations, toxicity has a seemingly intractable hold on the culture - its rampant. In other organizations it is more covert, but no less debilitating to the organization and the people.

People who would not normally exhibit toxic behavior begin reacting to the toxicity of others in ways that are negative and harmful to productivity and relationships. This is the beginning of a downward spiral. Toxicity feeding off toxicity. Good people will leave the team and organization.

Toxicity and energy vampires at work won't go away if they are ignored. They will fester. Specific and intentional action is the only way to counter toxicity. There are skills and tactics that will work once the underlying behaviors are identified and understood.

Only by learning how to identify toxic behavior in the workplace, how to get rid of energy vampires and developing a specific plan to confront and incapacitate them, will the workplace become safe and harmonious.

WHY SHOULD YOU ATTEND

• Having to deal with toxic people and energy vampires at work is overwhelming and frustrating.
• The non-sensical conversations, ad hominem attacks, misrepresentations, deception, lack of taking responsibility for their actions, defensiveness, back-stabbing, condescension, and sarcasm is exhausting.
• You'd like to just get the job done, without feeling like you're going into battle. You avoid them as much as possible, find reasons for not working with them, maybe even miss meetings they will be attending, anything to not have to interact with them - but there's no way around it, sometimes you just have to work with them.
• Toxic people can show up anywhere in your work or personal life – they can be customers, vendors, staff, colleagues or managers. Toxic people have specific behaviors which require specific strategies for dealing them - they are much different from the strategies and tactics for dealing with people who are merely difficult.
• Learning to distinguish the truly toxic from the difficult and having a range of tools and techniques readily available will give you a major advantage in getting desired outcomes.
• Toxic people can also be very destructive to relationships – one of the first rules of dealing with toxic people is to learn to protect yourself.
• In this engaging and practical webinar you will learn key strategies, tactics and skills of blocking energy vampires and protecting your emotional and psychological well being, without acquiescing, getting walked on, controlled or dominated, while also getting the job done, efficiently and effectively.

AREAS COVERED

• The drivers of toxic behavior – why they do what they do
• To recognize toxicity and vampiring (i.e. sapping the energy from the people around them) before it’s too late
• The 19 Toxic Tactics deployed by energy vampires at work
• How to decline invitations to participate in the toxicity
• The protection matrix – how to use situational analysis to defeat toxicity
• 5 strategies to extricate yourself from a toxic situation
• How to stay centered and present when faced with toxicity
• How to protect your energy from energy vampires
• A key to relieving your own frustration
• How to get work done, have effective communications and not let them control your life

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Energy vampiring (people who suck all the energy out of other people) and toxicity typically start out very subtle and nuanced. When left unchecked, the behaviors will metabolize into all aspects of interactions, eventually impacting everyone even close to the situation. Once a pattern has been established dealing with the discord can seem intractable.

There is hope - the key to protecting yourself and the organizational, team or groups culture, is to recognize early on before the pattern becomes established, and take specific and intentional counter measures against toxic behavior in the workplace.

WHO WILL BENEFIT

• HR Professionals
• People Managers
• Leaders
• Directors
• Managers
• Supervisors
• Business Owners,
• Business Consultants
• Department Managers
• Senior Leaders
• Staff at all levels
• Anyone who interacts with other people