Managing Anger in the Workplace

3.   Blocked Goals

All purposeful action involves the pursuit of goals. Our most basic human goals have to do with survival: protecting ourselves and our territory. But goals range in scope from great to small, whether the goal is mastering a technical skill or walking from your kitchen table to the living-room couch. We go about living by accomplishing one goal after another, from the most basic to the most extravagant. That’s why most people become extremely frustrated when the pursuit of their goals is blocked in some way. The most common source of blocked goals is another person or group in pursuit of different goals.

In the workplace, goal-setting is at its most formal and the accomplishment of goals is explicitly and singularly valued. ...