OMG Digital Magazine Issue 253 6th April 2017 COMPLETE | Page 6
OMG Digital Magazine | 253 | Thursday 6th April 2017 • PAGE 6
SoulFood
My sixteen-year-old daughter said this to me one day to
remind me I didn’t need to give her a lecture on doing her
homework. She was absolutely right. My talking would
serve only to annoy her and to reduce the likelihood
of her doing what I wanted her to do. Since then I’ve
been giving this habit changer to clients like Matt who
have a tendency to give long-winded lectures that are
demotivating and completely unnecessary. I have sat
in meetings where Matt pontificated in generalizations
about the problems with “people’s” behavior for ten
minutes, repeating the same points over and over.
No one else dared say a word. They just sat there with
their heads down, waiting for the tirade to be over. I
call it the “wolf and sheep dynamic.” The wolf growls
and shows his teeth and the sheep freeze, hoping if
they stay still they won’t get eaten. It accomplishes
nothing whatsoever, except to alienate people and
increase team turnover. When I spoke with him about
it, Matt truly believed such monologues would improve
his team’s performance. I helped him see that he was
pushing people’s buttons unnecessarily. He used this
habit changer to edit his lecturing tendency and instead
to think, “What do I want people to do?” then simply
suggest or request that, rather than beat them over the
head with it.
It’s so easy to get upset or angry at someone and
conclude he’s a nasty person who’s just out to challenge
or harm you, isn’t it? When someone acts in a way
you don’t like, it’s only human to make assumptions
about his intentions and motivations. We say, “It’s only
human,” because the human brain is structured to take
in information, draw conclusions from that information
based on our previous history, and then act on the
basis of those assumptions, a process that is largely
unconscious. Experts describe it this way: We push the
present through a filter based on the past in order to
predict the future. Unfortunately, these conclusions get
in the way of creating and maintaining healthy work and
family relationships—because they are often wrong.
True, people can be unkind, inconsiderate, oblivious,
or downright mean, but it’s rarely intentional. Most
5 MANTRAS FOR
DEALING WITH
DIFFICULT PEOPLE AND
TENSE SITUATIONS
By M.J. Ryan
folks are too focused on themselves to intentionally
try to provoke you. But because of the filter your brain
has created from its previous history, it can be easy
to believe they’re doing it on purpose. Instead, try
defaulting to the opposite assumption. Many people
I’ve given this phrase to have turned all kinds of relation-
ship challenges around simply by presuming good-
will on the other person’s part. Even if someone does
indeed have a nasty intention, which in my experience
is relatively rare, the more we presume goodwill, the
better the encounter goes.
Do you find yourself in conflicts with others a lot? In
situations where you are absolutely sure you are right
and the other person is wrong—and you have no
trouble saying so? Whenever I work with people like
this, I notice that they end up in ping-pong arguments,
tossing the ball of “I’m right”/”No, I’m right” back and
forth, getting absolutely nowhere. It creates a stalemate
unless one person has more power and pulls rank—”I’m
the boss so we’ll do it my way”—which may end the
tug-of-war but doesn’t help create buy-in or goodwill.
I always suggest in these situations that my clients
learn how to argue for the other person’s side. Recently
I came across the method social psychologist Anatol
Rapoport suggested for creating a successful critical
commentary. It’s a great recipe for dealing with conflict.
Rapoport believed that first you should reexpress
the other person’s position so well that they feel truly
understood. Then you should list any points on which
you agree and anything you have learned from what
they said. Only then do you offer your perspective. Folks
who use this habit changer to remind them to follow
Rapoport’s process are amazed to find that it moves
them past conflict gridlock to much more collaborative
possibilities.
I was working with two friends who owned a business
together. After years of harmonious partnership, they
were having a lot of disagreements and requested that
I mediate a conversation. To begin, I asked them what
their highest intention was for the meeting. Both said
some version of “To do what’s best for our business and
to preserve our friendship.” I wrote it down on a flip
chart so that they could see it, and we began to work.
When the conversation would get heated or one person
would get offended by what the other said, I would
point to the paper to remind them of their intention.
It helped them remember they both wanted the same
thing for the business; they just disagreed about how
to go about it. After that day, I worked on and off with
them for about a year, and they used this habit changer
throughout the process to recall in difficult moments
what truly mattered to them both. Ultimately they
decided to end their partnership, with one person
buying out the other. But because they remembered
their highest intention, they did it in such a respectful
way that they remained friends.
In any challenging situation, when you get clear on your
highest intention, it will help you call upon your best
self to enact that intention. Maybe not always, maybe
not perfectly, but more times than not!
This is one I give all the time to clients who speak
without thinking about the effect what they are saying
will have on their listeners. Folks like this tend to
consider themselves “straig ht shooters” and “honest,”
which is undoubtedly true. The problem is that not
thinking about the effect of words can also cause a lot
of unnecessary conflict. This habit changer helps them
remember that while their intention in what they are
saying may be positive, the way it’s landing on the other
person might not have the effect they’re looking for.
It helps them to think about the impact as well as the
intention of what they say. My clients also find it useful
when communication with someone has broken down
and an apology is necessary—because an apology is
most effective when you express regret for the impact
you caused and explain what your intention was.
What’s great about this slogan is that it also works in
the reverse situation—when you’re at the receiving end
of a message that might sting. Separating the impact
on you from the speaker’s intention can help you go
beyond your reaction to uncover the purpose he or she
was aiming for. When you find the positive intention—
He was just trying to improve our process, even though
it came across as devaluing what I’ve been doing for
the past month—it can help keep you open to working
together in as positive a way as possible.