I’m sure you’ve all had an experience, where you’re chatting with someone and they surprise you with a totally inappropriate question or comment designed to cut you down and make you feel small. Or the sort of experience where you’re in a room full of people and you realize that there are certain social rules that you’re being judged on, and people are looking down on you because you’re not meeting their social standards or following their social rules. And we’ve all encountered those dreaded power games and political manoeuvres going on in the workplace. Either these sorts of experiences are basically universal, or I attract people struggling with these dynamics, because just about everyone I’ve ever coached (including myself!) has felt frustrated and conflicted about how to deal with other people’s judgments, negativity, power games, aggression or blocking behavior at some point.