Can I excuse myself from team building event?

[InAPickle12345]

Hi, looking for advice, legal or practical, on whether I can ask to be excused from a team building event?

Long story short, I work in a team of 8, there were incidents this year and 2 of the team, who work on the same area of the business together, really showed their true colours. They've shown themselves to be conniving, self serving, pushy, defensive when confronted, rude and to top it off they're both really shit at their jobs, not performing and damaging the brand reputation. These incidents have caused a split down the team, we've never received an apology for their behaviour and we avoid working with them on anything where possible. I also took the brunt of this behaviour numerous times.

The CEO is organising a team building event for early next year. A full day of emotional intelligence bullshit and learning how to 'speak each others language'. I really don't want to do this. It will make me incredibly uncomfortable and anxious and I just want to come in and do my job.

Can I ask to be excused from this? I will very likely be the only one.

I think you are right to go.
You can't complain frequently to your boss about fellow employees and them remove yourself from the forum designed to help deal with the issues.
If you are regularly complaining you will be making yourself part of the problem for your boss, fairly or unfairly.

The more I read the more I think your boss is on a hiding to nothing as you appear to have closed your mind and will not give one inch. He would be better to just start managing out the people who he thinks are the least adaptable or capable to work as a complete team of 8 diverse personalities, perhaps after this workshop it will be clearer to him who those people are.

Haha, I see where you're going with that but I respectfully disagree with you insinuating that I am the problem here.

The actions of 2 people upset a whole team, I personally was treated very poorly in front of colleagues and customers and received no apology. I am within my rights to be upset and not want to engage with people who treat me with disrespect any more than is absolutely necessary. Would you suggest I forgive and move on without a sincere apology? Surely this is just encouraging their behaviour?

I do hope you're right that he will begin to manage out those that can't work as part of a team or who are not performing because it is very clear who that is.

Well. Having boundaries and standards are both laudable. Yours are very, very firm. Unflinching even.

You say your company is obsessed/set on a one team mentality - why is this and why are you so determined to disregard/push back on this?

Having spent loads of time and £££ on professional development doesn't make us the finished article. Or right all the time.

Should you expect an apology? Well yes in an idea works where all is fair and the winners get the rewards. But this is work. In a team.

A question for you - why haven't you had an apology? You don't sound much like you'd accept one.

Yes some people are arseholes. Of course they are. Sometimes it's not just the people we are pointing at.

You know where I'm going with this as you've got high emotional intelligence...

My advice - suck it up, be the bigger person. That does not mean you are a pushover.

That your boss i(who you admire) is arranging team building when you so strongly believe that the problem is two specific people might, just might be a clue that it's not how they view it.

@Shannith when it comes to being respectful in the workplace, my boundaries are definitely unwavering.

I suppose because the one team mentality is the ideal? One team achieving goals is probably most efficient, but there's more than one way to skin a cat.

I definitely don't think I'm the finished article. But I know I don't need my workplace to teach me self awareness.

I would still expect an apology in a team. I would have accepted an apology at the time, as would the rest of the team. But now, 5 months later, I don't think I would accept one no.

Thanks for the dig insinuating that I'm an arsehole. I'm really not though

I believe my boss is organising this as it's not easy to get rid of permanent staff members so he's trying to make the best of a bad situation.

Thank you for your advice and I have realised through this thread that I will just have to suck it up. I might even get to a point where I can be fake happy about it and seem like I'm really in favour of it, we'll see.

It's was a bit disingenuous of me to insinuate that. I was aiming for gently poking fun. Sorry.

My point was that as self aware and emotionally intelligent as I am - I've looked back on similar situations with space and time and thought yes by all reasonable measures I wasn't the arsehole, but perhaps I could have behaved in a way that got a better outcome for all concerned. Which is king of the definition of self awareness/emotions intelligence.

Maybe the team building will clear the air. Maybe there will be a a big punch up.

Perhaps the conversation to have with your boss is not I don't want to go (which you've decided against anyway) but what are you trying to achieve? And how could I help?

What would good look like at the end of the team day. What could I do to facilitate this?

You may vehemently disagree with him. He may have a point. It may be somewhere in between. You many have a useful discussion about your different interpretations of the situation and solutions. Whatever, it might be better and less of a shit day out of the office if you start from there.

Such an approach should open up some space to discuss with him in a neutral way that it's possibly but too late after the horse has bolted/sticking plaster over a fracture.

Your boss is trying to fix something. Something that's not working for the business/against the overall objective/strategy/kpis/whatever.

As a senior manager, taking a load of people who've had long term clashes and issues on a team building day is probably not massively high on his list of things I love about my job. If you knew his reasoning and could use the day to help him achieve east he wants to achieve you might have to grit your teeth less and fake it less.

I'm not being factious when I say you might learn something. You might if you approach it in a curious way rather than this is bollocks way.

@InAPickle12345 massive squishes on this it sounds like my idea of hell but I’d go in with an open mind and a notebook to doodle in or plan ways I’d discreetly kill colleagues.

Whilst you say your ceo is lovely I do feel he’s a bit of a ‘nice guy’ who’s avoiding addressing the real issues in the work place and just throwing bandaids at it. Him expecting you all to pretend all is well after that treatment in such a small team and no meaningful solution is ludicrous.

@Shannith Don't worry, it's fine, I took it in the lighthearted way it was intended.... because I'm soooo emotionally intelligent! 😂

I do really appreciate you and PPs time and advice. (As I mentioned, I suffer with anxiety and I've really been over thinking this today because I'm just home doing house jobs with no child).

All your points are of course valid, but it can be tough at times to be the bigger person when the other person is a full of shit arsehole and absolutely in the wrong.

But you and PPs advice has helped me start to reframe this in my mind a bit. I will ask my CEO what the objective of this day is and it might help with the anxiety around the day as well. It might be an opportunity as well to just give these 2 more rope to hang them selves. They're quite conniving though so doubtful they would let themselves down in a forum like this.

@TheCatterall I think daydreams about murder and Bullshit Bingo will be the way to go with this one 😂

And you have my CEO nailed. He is so busy himself, he works incredibly hard, and he's such a lovely guy that he probably doesn't have the time or the will to address the real issues. It's a shame but it is what it is I suppose and it's my choice to stay or not.

I don't think you understand. I also get it. But this is a team of people, and whether warranted or not, two of them are isolated from the other 6. And avoiding the issue isn't going to fix that. If the OP is correct then the CEO is simply avoiding the issue. Or the CEO is trying to fix the issue. One of the two. But staying on because it suits the OP then refusing to participate is not the right approach. Participate. Leave. Put in a grievance. But doing none of those things is making the OP part of the problem. You are saying the same as I am - be bloody vocal. I would be too. The OP is, however, not being vocal at all - they are simply refusing to participate without having the courage of their convictions, so looking for an excuse to not address the problem. Leaving, one presumes, 5 other people who are not going to complain and will participate; plus two others who I assume won't complain and will participate. So who is the odd one out here and who looks to be the one who is a problem?

@InAPickle12345 you could have some fun with it - refocus the anxiety.

Plan A - help and understand boss and let's face it, look good in the process (because it is the right thing to do)
Plan B - as above but with a tiny Machiavellian side plot of letting the others quietly dig their own grave

I've always shot for A and the devil in me had a side interest in B.

Good luck!

@InAPickle12345

I don't need to spend a day trying to learn why these people are stuck up arseholes

But they need to spend a day learning how to work with others.

@Neriah

So who is the odd one out here and who looks to be the one who is a problem?

This assumes that it is the OP that is the problem, when two people have done things to isolated themselves.

If these two people want to be accepted back into the group then it is them that need to change.
One of the worst things that can happen in this situation is that the two that caused the issue get away with it and everyone else has to change to meet their desires.

I just didn't go to mine. Told my boss I wasn't going. She said it was mandatory, nothing happened.

Are you in a union, ask them for advice?
You might be able to request a reasonable adjustment on health grounds under the Equality act, might be worth exploring
Or if your role is changing it might not be considered as critical that you attend?

OP, I found this an interesting thread to read as I have worked and volunteered in numerous teams during the course of my longish life to date, and nearly all of them have been fractious and divided to some extent. I have, by definition i supposed, always believed that I was on the side of the good/the right. Yet really, how likely is this?

That doesn't mean i was always or ever wrong/bad, either. Just that in many interpersonal issues, right and wrong are subjective.

I do know that carrying so much anger must be hurting you. Work out whether these people have actually done something abusive to you. If so, anger could be justified and important to help you heal. If they have just behaved in a way you aren't keen on because they are different people to you, use the day to make your peace with that and let this corrosive anger and resentment go, for the sake of your peace.

Good luck.

You seem to have taken what happened very personally. Honestly if you can't engage in the team building I'd find another job. The CEO clearly wants everyone on this team to be on the team. He doesn't share your view that what happened was particularly egregious. Entrenching into a "wronged party" mentality is going to make it an awful atmosphere for everyone. Just move on.

This

I would still expect an apology in a team. I would have accepted an apology at the time, as would the rest of the team. But now, 5 months later, I don't think I would accept one no.

So how do you imagine the conflict would ever be resolved?

You keep saying you would have accepted an apology. But your boss spoke to them at the time and clearly did not make an apology the sanction. Some people are apologisers, and some are not, IME.

I think the thing to do if you do go is to not give anything about yourself away, it could be ammunition to be used against you or it might make you feel upset by raising past feelings. You will almost certainly be asked for comments, make them third person or passive tense. So, for instance, if you are asked "How did you feel about X?", say "I think most people would feel uncomfortable/that the situation wasn't an expected level of professionalism". Any suggestion for how you could change yourself, don't be defensive, say "Well, that's something to consider/that's something for all of us to think about I suppose". If asked to give an example of past behaviour say "I'm not sure that I can think of anything specific at the moment". Basically grey rock so that you are there in person and making some response but internally holding yourself aloof. Don't feel that you have to please the organiser by baring your soul, you're already fairly sure that's it's going to make fuck all difference no matter what you say or do, so just let it play out like a really boring tv show.

Essentially there were work processes broken numerous times, and when called out on it, they got defensive and combative. Escalated to the CEO who spoke with them numerous times, has said a while ago that there are things going on in the background that he can't discuss, presumably because it is HR related but I don't have oversight on this. I don't know if my CEO ever asked them to apologise, he may well have done but it hasn't happened.

In terms of performance, numbers don't lie so it's not me thinking they're not performing, this is a fact.

This isn't just a clash of personalities, this is misconduct and non performance.

In terms of how you resolve this conflict, I don't know. It's so far gone now I don't know if it can be resolved fully. We could just move on and accept we are not one team anymore but this forced attempt at resolution just makes me so uncomfortable and disingenuous.

I understand those saying to just move on and find another job. But I like my job, the rest of my team, our customers and the benefits are not easy to walk away from. And part of me doesn't see why I should walk away when I was not the one that caused these issues.

Thank you, this is good advice and will help with coping strategies for the day. I just want to be able to get through this and be allowed to just get on with my work.

They really do need to learn to work with others, but it annoys me that this comes at the expense of my comfort and anxiety levels.