Bake a Cake for the Office Troublemaker John Izzo, Ph.D.

Bake a Cake for the Office Troublemaker John Izzo, Ph.D., Excerpted from the book Second Innocence: Rediscovering Joy and Wonder (Berrett-Koehler)

Almost every office of any size has one -- an office trouble-maker. That person whom everyone agrees would not be missed if he or she found another place to work. It may be someone who is negative, a gossip, doesn't do a fair share, badmouths everyone, or is simply out of step.

Although there may be exceptions, most of these people did not start out as the "troublemaker." They were hired because somebody thought they would do a good job and there is a good chance they even did so for a while. But somehow, somewhere along the way, a shift occurred. We lost whatever innocent affection we felt toward this person and they lost whatever love they felt for their work.

How do we recapture that innocence?

A friend who is a nurse said there was a woman in her unit whom everyone disliked. She was negative, didn't pull her weight backstabbed and was, all in all, someone everyone agreed should leave. Some coworkers had tried to give this woman feedback, to no avail.

For months my friend thought about what she could do to get through to this person. Hard as she tried, she could come up with no cogent strategy. One Saturday morning, she woke up and had an inexplicable desire to bake a cake for the troublemaker. She had no idea why this notion had come to her or what balking a cake might accomplish, but the only thing she had ever heard this woman say she liked was chocolate. So that Saturday morning my friend started her day by baking a chocolate cake. After looking up the woman's address in the phone book she took the finished cake to her home.

You can imagine the troublemaker's shock when she opened the door.

"What are you doing here?" the woman asked incredulously.

"Well," my friend said, "it is kind of hard to explain. I know you like chocolate and I woke up this morning wanting to bake you a cake, so I did." She held the cake out like an offering to an angry god.

The woman smiled ever so slightly and said: "Well, would you like to come in?"

My friend met the woman's husband and began to get a sense of where some of the negativity came from. For the next hour they sat at the kitchen table, ate chocolate cake, and talked. They did not talk about the woman's attitude or her behavior toward colleagues; they simply enjoyed small talk and ate cake.

Monday morning the woman arrived at work the same grumpy person she had been the week before -- but with one notable exception: She was nice to my friend. The next day she even brought my friend a coffee to start the day. Over the next few weeks, they slowly became friendly to the point where they were able to have a heart-to-heart conversation about the workplace. Encouraged by the friendship she felt with my friend, the woman slowly started becoming more positive, began asking others for feedback on how she could be a better team member. Eventually she regained the innocent enthusiasm she had when she started her job. It took months, but it did happen.

How do we start again with someone who has wronged us at work? What do we do when everything else we have tried has failed to get through to someone? It seems to me that we must begin with kindness, with the courage to reach out with no expectations at all. It begins when we decide to be the one friend to the friendless, the one person reaching out when everyone else has shut down, the one who will care enough to be innocent again.

A friend who is a manager told me about one of his employees who was "hell on wheels." Tempted to read him the riot act one more time, my friend resisted and instead invited him out for coffee. At the table, he said: "You don't seem very happy to me and it's showing in how you act and feel at work. It must be hard to be so unhappy. What is happening for you? I'm wondering if there's anything I can do to help?" The manager spoke the words with such honest sincerity that the man let down the wall which he had so assiduously built and opened up. He began to speak about how he was feeling at this stage of his career: lost, a failure, disliked by others. For the first time they had an honest, frank open conversation. A miracle did not happen that day, but suddenly it felt as if they were on the same side.

When I was growing up in Staten Island, New York, we lived in a neighborhood filled with immigrants from the Old World: Germans, Italians, Irish, and Poles. Next door to us was a grumpy old Italian man, so mean that he used to threaten us kids with an enormous scythe if an errant baseball found its way into his yard. Nobody was friends with Mr. Morelli and no one got along with him -- with one exception.

Across the street from our house lived a kid we knew to be "mentally retarded." His name was Johnny Beatafeld and he was the butt of many jokes. Maybe because he wasn't very smart, or possibly because he was more innocent then the rest of us, he would go over and talk to Mr. Morelli. He didn't know that no one got along with Mr. Morelli. While the rest of us assumed the old man was unreachable, Johnny innocently walked over to the fence and struck up conversations. They became the best of pals. Even as a young person I wondered what might have happened if a few more of us had just as innocently gone to the fence and started talking.

Got a troublemaker in your office? Have a neighbor with whom no one gets along? Have an employee with whom you have tried everything, all to no avail? Well, how about this: bake a cake, walk over and start a chat, let them know that you care, and ask honestly what is happening for them. Let that innocent part of you -- the part that is not so jaded as to believe you already know the outcome -- go on over and give it a try. Sure, they may not eat the cake, they may not want to chat, but there is something about an innocent act of kindness that even the grumpiest of us can't resist.

And if you happen to be the office troublemaker or the neighborhood curmudgeon, remember it is never too late to change your stripes.

Excerpted from Second Innocence: Rediscovering Joy and Wonder (Berrett-Koehler Publishing, San Francisco, 2004)

Since age 12 John Izzo wanted to "change the world." Now as a modern thinker, change agent, and best-selling author he can proudly look back on 20 years of facilitating deeper conversations about values and work, life, faith, leadership, and success. He spent six years as a parish minister before pursuing the corporate world and advising thousands of leaders, professionals, and front-line colleagues to foster workplaces of excellence, purpose, learning, and renewal. Each year he speaks at more than 100 corporate and association events on improving the quality of work and life. Dr. Izzo is the author of three other books: Awakening Corporate Soul: Four Paths to Unleash the Power of People at Work (Fairwinds Press, 1997), Awakening Corporate Soul: The Workbook for Teams (Fairwinds Press, 1999), and Values Shift: The New Work Ethic and What It Means for Business (Fairwinds Press, 2001). He has traveled the world advising, speaking and doing research on workforce trends, positive corporate cultures, and connecting with like-minded thinkers also creating powerful change. He obtained dual Master's degrees in Theology and Divinity from the University of Chicago, his Ph.D. from Kent State University, and has served on the faculties of two major universities. His opinions, research, and expertise have been widely published and featured in media including Fast Company, CNN, Wisdom Network Canada-AM, ABC World News, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Globe and Mail, and the National Post. Born and raised on the east coast of the United States, Dr. Izzo now lives with his wife and children in the mountains outside Vancouver, Canada. For more information, please visit http://www.writtenvoices.com.