How to deal with morons

They can't all be as perfect as you

Wouldn’t life just be better if we didn’t have to deal with morons? Certainly work; to a lesser extent life in general. I don’t know what it is about an office environment that brings out certain characteristics in people – arrogance, selfishness, an apparent complete failure to notice if someone else is talking, claiming credit for other people’s endeavours…

If you’re struggling with a moron right now, the disappointing truth is that they are almost certainly not a moron, they’re just different to you. Don’t worry, I’m not about to tell you how we’re all wonderful in our own way, la la la, but almost every moron I’ve encountered has just been different from me. And not just because I’m not a moron.

Understanding someone’s else’s characteristics, preferences, tendencies, how they learn and what motivates them provides the key to encountering fewer morons in your life and therefore, enduring less stress. You’ll get more done and grow as a person (ugh).

The American comedian George Carlin said “have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?”

This is an example of False Consensus Effect – we think that we’re normal and therefore that whatever we do (or think, or believe) is normal. By extension, everyone else not behaving or thinking like us is (or could be) a moron. If I do something wrong, there’s a good reason for it. If my chosen person does the same thing wrong, it’s their fault.

“Is this person annoying, or am I just easily annoyed?” (Gurwinder Bhogal on X)

I’m easily annoyed. I think as I get older I’m probably annoyed by more things, but I’ve also gradually become better at dealing with annoyance in a constructive way. So I seem less grumpy but I might still be a seething mass of rage on the inside. I’m sure that’s super-healthy.

There’s a trope in poker which says that if you can’t identify who the mug is around the table, it’s probably you – similarly, if you don’t routinely encounter morons in your life, it may be that you are in fact the moron. It might also be that you are calm, tolerant and wise and are able to accept everyone’s differences and find ways to engage constructively with all of them – I hope it’s the latter.

So how to deal with the moron in your life?

You would think that the easiest way to deal with a moron is to avoid them, if that’s possible. Unfortunately it’s also the least effective, particularly if you are in the same environment on a regular basis (like at the desk next to yours, talking loudly, making inappropriate jokes and microwaving leftover fish curry at lunchtime).

The highly quotable Naval Ravikant says: “The first rule of handling conflict is: Don’t hang around with people who constantly engage in conflict.” But then management guru Robert Lencioni defines avoiding conflict as one of the five key dysfunctions that stops teams from functioning effectively.

The second least effective strategy is to ignore them. If your tolerance, patience and ability to block our noise are such that you can convince yourself the moron isn’t there, then that’s commendable, but this will do your stress levels no good in the long term, and it still doesn’t resolve the core problem (note – ignoring the moron is not the same as understanding and accepting the moron).

“You can’t hate someone and understand them” – Alex Hormozi

In order to deal effectively with a moron, we have to better understand them. The first step is to recognize that, if you’re really that much better than them (and you must be, right, otherwise you wouldn’t consider them a moron), you will need to be the one to take the high road and actually tackle the situation or interactions that are causing you stress. The moron themselves may well be encountering stress themselves, but that will reveal itself in due course. By taking responsibility, you’re taking the first key step to resolving your problem for good.

What is it that this person does, thinks or says that makes you categorise them as a moron? Be specific, because when it comes to tackling this you will need to know exactly what you’re talking about. If it’s a behavioural tendency, have examples. If it’s something specific that you witnessed or experienced, focus on what the negative outcome was – did it make someone feel excluded, or reduce the positive impact of a particular meeting or interaction? Or did you just find it a bit annoying?

Once you understand why you think someone is a moron, you can start to engage constructively with them.

I had a boss once that used to make me feel insecure and incompetent in almost every engagement I had with him. In order to protect his identity I’ll call him Genghiz. He was a highly intelligent person but took every possible opportunity to show how much more intelligent he was than everyone else in the room. So no-one felt empowered, everyone lacked confidence and no one took any risks or challenged him, because they were afraid of the trouble they would get into (or how inferior they would be made to feel) if they got something wrong – or not even wrong, just did something differently to how the boss would have done it. As some had found to their cost, challenging or confronting him just made it worse.

Genghiz was my direct boss, so avoiding and ignoring were not going to work. I had already found out the hard way how effective tackling the issue head on was. But over time I realised that I had let a parent-child relationship develop. What we needed was to have a more equal relationship. I should say that I never managed to achieve this, and he ended up leaving the organisation as more people saw through him. So objective achieved, kind of, but what I should have done was help him to be more effective; to take more questions and proposals to him for discussion rather than waiting for him to pick holes in what I’d done.

Start by having structured time with them on a regular basis. If you can’t avoid or ignore them then you’re already in their vicinity, so you might as well do it on your terms.

Once you’ve got that, and this is where your teeth will start to grind, we need to understand and capture what might be the positive aspects of the things that are annoying you so much. If they are overbearing, does that make them good at cutting through the nonsense and pin-pointing the real issue? If they are dismissive of others’ abilities, are they in fact the genuine expert, and/or under-employed?

Are there even areas where their tendencies could be a natural and helpful counterbalance to your own tendencies and preferences, or those of the people around you? What could they learn from you, and you from them, whether that’s complementary experience, skills or roles in a team?

If you’re going to tackle your local moron (figuratively, I mean – physically tackling them is hardly ever the right thing to do, immensely satisfying as it might be), then get some talk to your boss or their boss to get some top cover. Top cover has the benefit that you have already taken the high road by trying to understand and engage with them, and it gives you a second opinion on the situation (remember, the moron may be you). Just talking through the situation out loud can help you to resolve it.

I had to deal with a moron recently at work – this was someone I found intensely annoying, and who seemed to be appointing themselves as an expert in literally everything. They never told anyone what they were doing unless it was to claim credit for it, and I knew they were not just winding me up, but my team as well.

So I spoke to my boss and explained to him the conversation I thought I was going to have. Even as I explained this I realised that my intentions were entirely negative – I just wanted to tell this person why I thought they were an arse. I didn’t need him to tell me this, but he now understood more about interactions between two of his team, and I understood my own motivations better.

In the end, I tried to spend more time with the moron and share more about what I was doing. I still find them annoying, but we’re moving in the right direction.

Once you have understood your moron and what to do about them, it may be time to grit your teeth and give them some feedback.

One popular method forgiving feedback is known as a ‘shit sandwich’ – you give some positive feedback, then the negative/constructive feedback that you really want to share, and then top it off with another positive. The theory goes that this softens the blow of the hard message by surrounding it with positivity. What really happens is that the person hears what they want to hear – either they take the positives and conclude that the negative wasn’t that big a deal, or that they see that the negative is coming, and then you’ve wasted two good pieces of positive feedback.

Giving useful feedback that is acted upon is a long game, and they key is to build up a strong enough relationship that you are able to give those tough messages without it derailing that relationship. Part of that is giving those positive reinforcements on a regular basis, without a ‘but…’, and building up a bank of positivity that will withstand the hard talk when you need to have it.

The best feedback is current and relevant, so while you might be tempted to compile a lengthy dossier of malign behaviours that you can beat your moron about the head with, it will be more effective if this is delivered as a direct response to something that just happened. You can then draw on the previous examples if challenged about the immediate feedback.

So, to summarise, here’s how to handle your moron:

1. Take responsibility for dealing with the situation

2. Define the moron (what is it that drives you crazy?)

3. Understand the moron (what are their negatives, and hence positives)

4. Spend more time with them, on your terms

5. Get a second opinion, and some top cover

6. Give the feedback, and the recommended way forward

There are two big caveats to the above – if your local moron is genuinely under-performing, and/or if you are concerned for your safety or that of someone else. in those situations you should still take responsibility for the situation, but you’ll need to enlist professional help – your HR department if it’s a work situation.

So what if it goes wrong, and you actually make things worse by tackling the problem? Well, it’s worth recognising that every problem gets a little worse before it gets better. By bringing this to a head you are bringing it nearer to a conclusion, one way or the other.

Stick with it, make sure you’ve got some help and support, and focus on the reasons why you decided to tackle this in the first place.

Buddha: “Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intention of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned”

Together, we can make the world a happier, healthier place, with fewer morons.