Sunday, September 18, 2011

Collaborate More, Defend Yourself Less

I have written a lot about moving from an Advocacy (also known as adversarial) type of discussion to a Collaborative type for a long time. Advocacy discussions are the kind we see most often, in which we make claims and defend them, and attack the claims made by the other side. This style is not as productive for many reasons (search on “collaboration” in this blog), and has two key weaknesses:


1. It sets up a “winners and losers” situation that leads to obvious negative impact on teamwork, integrity, listening, and “buy-in” do to the emphasis on winning. People will do surprising things to “win”.

2. It drives us into defenses that tend to drive us away from the reality of the situation and towards a distortion of that reality in order to reduce our anxiety regarding the potential of “losing face” associated with being wrong. It can cause a disconnection in relationships as well, and that makes it useless as a long-term strategy for solution generation.



The defenses to which I refer are classic positions that we all tend to choose from in cases where “winning” is at risk, and disconnect us from the reality of the situation. They protect us from changing our opinion publicly, which is often falsely seen as “unacceptable”. There are seven and they are:

1. Denial – The act of refusing to admit that an opinion that differs from ours is relevant, or conceding its relevance but expressing that the consequences can be postponed until they are moot.

2. Avoidance – Refusing to face a weakness in our argument. We may ignore it, change the subject, or refuse to discuss it.

3. Rationalization – Easily our favorite! Making excuses and explaining away any opinion that threatens to expose our weaknesses.

4. Intellectualization – View this as “rationalization for the well-educated”. The excuses and explanations are just more complex. They still serve the sole purpose of distancing the speaker from any perceived weakness of opinion or of character.

5. Displacement – Redirecting our reaction to being threatened away from a more formidable party to a less formidable one. Instead of standing up to the boss, we go home and yell at the kids.

6. Projection – Rather than deal with our negative emotions, we blame them on other people. Even more common, we simply blame others for our problems.

7. Regression – This is a specific behavior, and may be a pattern for some, in which we revert to childlike behaviors when facing stressful or unhappy situations. “I don’t want to talk about money problems tonight – let’s go out and party!”



These tactics from facing weaknesses in our own positions only postpone our having to deal with the underlying issue. Therefore, they promote wasting time and are only useful in the short-term if at all. Learning to find ways to use a collaborative model as often as possible will help us to neutralize these defenses and move us more quickly into finding solutions that improve teamwork and “buy-in” across stakeholders.


Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Monday, September 5, 2011

The basics of Personal Excellence - part two

This is the final part of a two part article on the basics of Personal Excellence. Quite a lofty title, but I just mean that we are talking about starting from where we are today and getting better. Last week we covered the basics of Goal Setting and Mental Rehearsal, two very important elements. This week, we’ll cover Self-Talk and Arousal Control.


1) Self-Talk

I want to be careful here… ALL the elements I am mentioning here are fundamentally important and all of them need attention, but Self-Talk is the one element that will support the others when all else is going against you. For most of us, our self-talk is a parental voice, one that admonishes and reprimands, even scolds. Our self-talk usually doesn’t contain “attaboy’s” or “attagirl’s” and frequently contains such negatives as “idiot”, “moron”, “loser”, and other harsh terms that do little to encourage. There are two immediately dire consequences of this: a) we cause ourselves to think we can accomplish less than we actually could with a more generous perspective and b) at those times when others disappoint us, our immediate and primary urge is to use this kind of talk on them. We may or may not always be successful in censoring ourselves, but we FREQUENTLY transmit messages with our body, face, and tone that communicate our initial feeling very clearly. This causes a separation between us that we do not intend and that is not productive. Learning to conduct positive self-talk will cause us achieve more than we dreamed, not because “happy talk” makes us more productive, but because it replaces the destructive negative self-talk with which we have been punishing ourselves (and others).

2) Arousal Control

When I am teaching classes on conducting High-Performance Communication, one of the most common comments I hear is “I never can seem to remain calm in the ‘heat of the moment’ in an argument.” I usually ask what kind of thing the person would be talking about, and they reply with something about their dignity being impugned or their integrity being questioned. I then ask them to imagine they are talking to a judge with the option of giving them a year in jail, a boss that could and would fire them, or a 300 pound felon with a gun and ask them again what it would take for them to fly off the handle and be unable to control themselves. Those that answer honestly say, “Well, under THOSE circumstances, I could.” I point out to them that the judge’s presence is NOT what censors them – the censoring is done by a CHOICE. So the first thing to recognize is that you CAN control yourself if you CHOOSE to.

The second issue is what to do INSTEAD of losing control. That takes practice. In any kind of martial arts training, there is an activity called “sparring” in which combatants use their skills on each other in order to practice them AND to be in the flow of the activity. These are not fights, but they aren’t quite mock fights either. They are practice sessions in which we develop skills in “supervised combat” against an opponent that has the same goal – to improve their skills. As a martial artist gains skill, they gain confidence in their ability to apply the skills they have learned. They feel less panic and more confident that little can happen that will catch them off guard.

It is important to notice the moment we begin to feel threatened or concerned and study it; understand objectively what has happened, and determine what it is about the situation that threatened us. Usually, the threat comes from our fear of something that might happen. We need to learn skills that help us understand that while certain consequences are usually preceded by specific events, they do not necessarily follow with certainty and that we need to analyze the specifics to determine the fear of those consequences are warranted in this case.

For you and I, the idea of physically fighting someone may be very frightening, especially if we know that person is trained. But if we are also trained, does that change the way we look at it? If we have trained longer? If we have fought them before and won? All of these specifics alter the way we apply a general feeling about fighting.

In a communication situation, I generally recommend to students that they take a deep breath before they respond to something that immediately triggers a fear reaction and that their response should be aimed at trying to discover precisely the topic of the conversation. So if I were told “You know, others have lost their job over doing just what you have done”, I would take a deep breath (to try to center myself and suppress any kind of knee-jerk reaction) and ask “What is it that I am supposed to have done?” This could be followed with other questions aimed at trying to determine the extent and the quality of evidence, the impact of my actions, and the consequences.

The point is that controlling one’s arousal reaction and reacting in the best way automatically takes time and practice, and is critical in gaining self-awareness and executing self improvement.


Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication