The Gut Check: Comebacks at Work

Commentary: The work place has become a challenging place today. People are on edge, tempers flare, and in some cases the competitiveness has taken a hostile direction.  Simply good communication skills is not enough.  Professionals must become skilled at handling difficult people and in many cases corporate psychopaths.

This series of postings will discuss using communication methods to gain control of circumstances and reduce your chances of becoming a target. We will cover ten (10) chapters in the book "Comebacks at Work" over the next several weeks. I'll attempt to couple these when appropriate with other authors works such as Dale Carnegie.

The Gut Check

Humans are both rational and emotional. They are not mutually exclusive but instead mutually inclusive. To deny one or the other is to deny part of who we are.  When one is cornered, humiliated, frustrated, attacked, or in some way placed on the spot then both logic and emotions form a gut feeling. Our emotional self picks up on the periphery while the logical portion focuses on the central information.  Reason selects the response and emotions sets the intensity.

Commentary: We often speak in terms of IQ and EQ as they relate to the 8 components of intelligence given in Frame of Mind authored by Howard Gardner. Author Daniel Goleman of numerous books on EQ has parsed Gardner's work and better grouped some of the intelligences renaming them. Nonetheless, 4 of the intelligences relate to IQ and the remaining other 4 to EQ.  The 4 Gardner's EQ intelligences are; Bodily-kinesthetic, Linguistic,  Interpersonal, and Intrapersonal. Understanding these intelligences and training on them can dramatically improve your skill in these areas. 

Developing a Gut Instinct

Gut instinct has both experiential and self-confidence elements. Over time you have had events in which you responded learning what works and does not. You also assessed you emotional tolerance levels for violation of your principles developing an anticipation of the situation and direction, intuition.  Intuition requires attention to people and the rules that drive them.

As to learn experientially, you may have a tendency to ignore intuition or to go with it too often. Either end of the range is problematic. You will need to begin assessing your responses to intuition and developing your sixth sense.

Becoming a Communication Detective

We observe the situation for clues about the emerging situation then attempt to connect  action with the anticipation. The more experience we have with a particular circumstance the more adept we are at connecting the correct action with the anticipation. The action becomes instinctive but you have this edge that you do not know why. It is a primal level sensibility.

The root of this ability is an outcropping of the fact that we are people of pattern and nature itself is patterned. The observant communicator picks up on these patterns. Dr. Reardon offers a model she calls the Comeback Component Model, figure 1.

Figure 1: Comeback Component Model (source: 2010, Comebacks at Work)

Effective comebacks originate from one of three components; gut instinct, current information, or episode memory. Proficient comeback artisans consider objectives of their own and the organizations as well what works and the big picture. This is a dance and balancing act.

You should seek to evaluate your weaknesses in the model's components then work to strengthen them. It is a good start to becoming a more effective communicator. The following four are examples of how people have learned to use instinct.

1. Gut Instinct on Moral Issues

You have a moral base and when actions of others violate that moral base you can react sternly and instinctively. However, allowing yourself to manage your reactions and filter information increases effectiveness. Appealing to the higher moral value and bigger picture can build support for an effective comeback. It is a balancing act between reaction and reason. You should even allow for mistakes and demonstrate confidence by recovering with your repertoire of comebacks.

2. Gut Instinct from Prior Experience

You have to build upon the past rearranging the present like jig saw puzzle pieces from the past applying them to the current puzzle. Effective comebacks then are a combination of logical and emotional assessments. This accomplished easily by those who have trained.

3. Gut Instinct in Inflexible Situations

Sometimes the gut reaction is to cut the push and move on due to inflexible circumstances. This can leave you with a sense of unfinished business. You will need to create a clean slate each day dumping any baggage.

4. Gut Instinct Relying on Learned Clues

With age and experience, you develop a sense of when to push and when to back off. Some people draw a line in the sand that denotes when the response is greater than the benefit.  One sort of has to get into the mind of another and anticipate responses and thinking. One has to be a double agent and detect what someone else is thinking about you. Vetting the information coming your way is important and to ensure you do not have incorrect data is just as important. Thus, assessing your emotions and body language is critical.

Dr. Reardon offers a checklist for self assessment in the book.

Commentary:  Project managers often have to rely on experiential knowledge and make quantum leaps in judgments. These quantum leaps often require gut instincts.  A major portion of project management is personality management. This is where gut instincts often act significantly. Project managers must learn how to read people and assess the situation at hand. Diverse cultural multi-national projects become even more complex and even more important to properly read people as some cultures will always show a smile yet be upset beneath the surface. This can manifest in various ways at the most inopportune time. Assessing the correct circumstances and gaining knowledge on your staff and key stakeholders culture is essential. Also establishing up front and early moral and ethical standards as well as workplace etiquette is important to moving production along smoothly. 

Having strong effective gut instincts takes training and a willingness to embrace mistakes as a principle centered leader.

Reference:

Reardon, K.K., (2010). Comebacks at work: using conversation to master confrontation. (1 ED.). Harper Collins publishers, New York.

Choosing a Relevant Comeback: Comebacks At Work

Commentary:  This is a series of posts on the book ComeBacks at Work by Dr Reardon.  This chapter  will help you with comebacks at work. The length of the post may be daunting but this was one of the core chapters with a lot of information. I suggest you copy the R-list onto a wallet sized card and refer to it occasionally as you self-train on these methods.

Choosing a Relevant Comeback

Dr Reardon has discussed how comebacks work and what typically gets in the way of effective comebacks. This chapter offers a list of comebacks and categories but still requires you to practice and discern the appropriate time and place to use them. Reardon suggests that you make a list and review it from time-to-time.

The Comeback R-List

As with most forms of knowledge the more you study the more you become proficient. Comebacks are not a mystery to be held by some elite group of intellectuals. The ground state for learning is to memorize the R-List of Comebacks. This will put you on the path of significant comeback improvement. The R-List of the most common comebacks types drawn upon follows:

• Reframe: Recast the issues in a different light

• Rephrase: Say it in a different light way that works better for the you.

• Rejoin: Disarm the other person with an offhand phrase or witty retort.

• Revisit: Use an earlier success to redefine a current failures.

• Restate: Clarify or redirect.

• Request: Ask focused and deliberate questions.

• Rebalance: Adjust their power over you.

• Reorganize: Prioritize the issues to your favor.

• Rebuke: Chastise them or bring them up short.

• Retaliate: Get back at the them.

The list makes a handy tool from which to think more quickly. We will begin a closer inspection of each type.

Reframe:  This one is the absolute favorite of many people. People naturally default to this method as they seek to define circumstances and people around them. Often people will carefully select the terms used. For instance, 'agrees' and 'admits' have two very different connotations. Agrees insinuates a state of being nice and cooperative. Whereas admits suggests guilt or a sense of being wrong. Therefore, careful selection of wording can reframe the conversation to one's favor.

The objective of a reframing strategy is to take the words used by another person then alter them in order to change the connotative and/or denotative meaning of the interaction toward your desired outcomes.

Reframing is a powerful tool that in practice becomes crucial to effective comebacks. Gaining skill in this method will propel you far beyond others who allow the words of another to define who they become. You will gain control over the situation and negotiate beet outcomes.

Rephrase: This method is similar to reframing but instead of changing meaning, this method asserts the correct or intended meaning. If the remark is left unchecked then it could result in dysfunctional relationships and paths. This method often begins with phrases like:

• Did you mean to say...
• If you meant...
• Would it be better to say...

Rephrasing seeks to clarify the situation by stepping back then regrouping and moving forward under the corrected or better understanding.

Rejoin:  This method is designed and intended to avoid an awkward moment or digressing commentary by another that may result in an argument or you looking bad. The rejoiner is usually a neutral comment.

• Good for you
• Whatever...
• If that floats your boat

These are intended to diffuse an awkward moment and/or bring a strange comment to a close.

Revisit:  Perfectly good conversations go bad simply because of a wrong word, thought, or poor body language. The revisit methods stops the downward spiral by returning to a good point. For example, reminders of the successes the two parties have had or returning to where the conversation left off on a positive note.

Revisiting is an anchor in a conversation and there can be many. Attentive and skilled comeback artisans listen for anchor points and changes in tone. At such tone changes, a revisit can quickly abate a downturn keeping the conversation on track.

Restate:  We are responsible for 75% of how we are treated and sometimes we say things we did not mean or were simply misinterpreted.  The quickest solution to this dilemma is to restate:

• Oh forgive me, let me restate ...
• Lets back up and start over....
• Did I just say that...

If done well, that is with humility and grace, most people will understand as they have done it too. Of course, if this happens too much then you will have other issues to contend with as others will expect you to self correct. Other than that you can use restatement as a means to restore a derailed conversation.

In some instances, especially when you are the leader, you may desire to assume more than your share of responsibility. You may do this for a variety of reasons. For example, other people are too focused on their mess up, you may have set the conditions for the mix up, or the situation is heading down the wrong path and needs to be brought to a stop. Regardless, of the cause, a decision is made to put the circumstances back on track by restating the intended communications in a non-offensive and positive light.

Restating is breaking patterns over an argument of right or justified in order to become effective again.

Request:  WHEN IN DOUBT ASK! This method is perhaps the least used and the most important one of them all. Most people never ask questions. They simply react. Many people believe asking questions is a  result of poor listening skills or is an indicator of weakness. Yet experts tout that the sign of a good leader is an inquisitive nature of asking questions. Therefore, when in doubt ask questions to validate your perceptions.

You rarely want to shoot from the hip but at times cannot avoid this. Training on the request comebacks can aid in reducing the negative affects of shooting from the hip. Asking the right questions can stall the moment long enough to assess misperceptions and clarify comments further. Sometimes people will attempt to wave off or graze over questions for a host of reasons. For example, they may feel it is too probing or revealing, a question could also be interpreted as an insult, indecisiveness, or a lack of competence. You have to exude confidence and properly phrase the questions. Your questioning should arise from the ole dictum of the 5W's and an H. He are some examples:

• Who put that idea out there?
• What is the real objective here?
• Where did you get that information?
• When should this be discussed?
• Why is this being brought up now?
• How are you going to contribute to the solution?

The last point and word of caution is that you do not want to elicit responses that you do not already have a feel about. Asking questions often leads to more questions which could be embarrassing or cause other issues. Model your questioning based on Socrates approach to guiding and steering conversations.

Asking questions causes people to rethink things and clarifies the situation. They can also buy time. Therefore, ask questions.

Rebalance:  This method is about retaking power from those who have attempted to usurp your power and control. I'm the workplace, there are people who block progress of your work or take control of the destiny of your work. This is accomplished through a variety of means. First, you must understand that power is yours to give away and we do to undeserving people way too much.

One approach is to be proactive and take control of even minor circumstances. For example, a letter of recommendation that never seems to get written would be better handled by writing it yourself and walking it through the process.

You can use language that softens your level of control by asking if you can swing by to either drop it off or pick it up. In the end, you take positive control, usurp getting upset and frustrated, and manage the circumstances on your tine schedule.

Reorganize:  All too often people create problems when they organize and prioritize activities that can affect other people. A skillful communicator will monitor for this seemingly benign ordering of importance by others then they will reset the order when common activities are imbalanced.

This method is also useful when people fail to prioritize too. Some people will see all activities in equal concern 'cluttering' with too much information then executing in a haphazard manner. A good communicator will assess this remove the excess and/or irrelevant data then zero in on the primary concerns. Often the communicator must take control of the situation and impose order on the chaos.

Reorganizing is a handy comeback strategy that focuses on the process. It can peel away personal injects and get at prioritizing the concerns. Reorganize may be characterized as the correction for a failure to communicate.

Rebuke:  This method should used sparingly. A good communicator and leader would read the anticipatory clues then avoid any confrontation by simply minimizing exposure. Thus, never having to employ this method.

Nonetheless, letting people walk all over you or challenge your authority, respect, or esteem directly and overtly should never be tolerated. If you are confident about the nature of the remark or the character of the person then you have the rebuke method available to you.

The rebuke can come in several forms. Some these are:

Directly addressing the remark: This often results in a battle of the wits and refocuses the situation on the human relationships rather than the circumstances and progress.

Public humiliation: This is a belligerent method that can have dramatic impacts on morale, relationships, and cooperation. Other people may see this in an unfavorable light or misinterpret your intentions. This should not be employed unless the persons conduct is over the top, unyielding, and itself public. The best approach is to bring attention to the persons conduct. 

Offering insulting commentary: Often used as an affront to their conduct or overbearing positions or when someone is acting in a pompous and arrogant manner. The intent is to terminate the conversation and reject their commentary by positioning yourself opposite of them.

Affirm the relationship: This is used when someone assumes undeserved authority or attempts to control you in an obnoxious or dominant manner. ie you are not my boss!

Gratuitous Insults: These are comments made that sound endearing to bystanders but possess a sting to the recipient. 

Good communicators practice these techniques and are exceptionally cautious about deploying them. They seek to avoid these circumstances rather than deal with them.

Retaliate:  This method, in all truth, should never be deployed. Once again a good leader and communicator will avoid these circumstances like the plague. Nonetheless, the workplace is brutal and there are people who deliberately take hostile actions against coworkers. They have a mindset to identify office place enemies and marginalized them. This method is outright belligerence.

Retaliation can come in various forms. One can usurp another's authority, control, and/or respect in the workplace. Even set the initial conditions for termination. However, retaliation and the circumstances that call for it are best avoided.

Commentary: In a secular world and work place that is becoming increasingly hostile, common grace and dignity are fleeting principles. Many people aspire to more power, visible material wealth, and influence. Other people simply are in over their heads and resort to less than becoming conduct. Thus, saving facing and acquiring power, wealth, and influence become more important than human relationships which are cavalierly treated as expendable. Stephen Covey speaks to principle centered leadership which gets at the root of these issues and may be a good review for you. 

Finding Your Comeback Comfort Zone

There are many strategies, techniques, and methods that have been presented thus far. Not all of these may best fit each person's individual style as most people have comfort zones. It is important to know your comfort zone and have an awareness of when to leave it. If you are unable to manage this then you will feel helpless and stressed at work.

One of the key abilities of a good communicator is to know when to let loose, bluff, and/or avoid. This is essential to making effective comebacks and achieving the desired outcomes. Some communicators enjoy being underestimated and use that to their advantage.

The bottom line is that effective comebacks operate within your comfort zone, are deliberate, managed, and achieve a positive outcome. Negative comeback strategies should be avoided and employed only as a last resort. Usually these negative strategies are outside most people's comfort zone. Nonetheless, knowing when to use a method and when not to is a personal choice refined with experience and practice.

Commentary: Many of the negative methods have their foundations in war fighting concepts. These have been popularized and discussed in books like Leadership Principles of Attila the Hun or Sun Tzu: The Art of War. For example, taking a strength and portraying it as a weakness in order for your opponent to underestimate you. Once lured in, you retaliate with a vengeance. Many people have read these books and have taken those principles to heart. As an outcome you may be confronted with these in the workplace as they practice them.

For example, I worked in a small firm once where they often perform duties as professional witnesses. Some of the professionals in the firm had been trained in psychological methods used in the court room and often practiced them on the staff in the office in order to achieve their mundane objectives. It gave them a sense of power over others by often usurping another's authority. However, whenever someone unexpectedly pushed back the professional witness's own insecurities would run uncontrollable and even childish. It would be wise to at least have an understanding of these counter-culture books and methods out there when assessing comeback strategies. Your objective is not to war fight but instead bring people together and focus on positive outcomes.

Which comebacks work for you

You now have a sense of which methods are in your comfort zone. Now you need to assess the intensity with which your comebacks are applied. There is a rheostat of intensity that ranges from passive to highly aggressive. The various degrees of intensity follow:

• Let it Pass - ignore the remarks, silence, perhaps comment that you will let that one go.
• Silent Contact - long stare, a nod of disapproval, or other body language of disapproval.
• Give the Chance to do the right thing - rephrase, revisit, restate, request
• Set them straight for their own benefit - restate, rebalance, reorganize, rebuke
• Consider yourself told - rebuke, retaliate, rebalance,
• You'll wish you were never born - retaliate, hard glares or body language of disgust, public humiliation,

You should think about your comfort zone and the use of intensity in your responses. Dr. Reardon offers a matrix scale to meter your response levels. Ideally, intensity should be low and positivity should be high. It is better not to over do it and on the safe side. Then gradually increase intensity over time learning the best levels. You do not want to err on the side of high negativity and high intensity. That could have negative impacts on you.

In the end, you do not have to be someone you are not. You simply need to increase awareness, learn new methods, practice delivery, and be yourself but a little more savvy.

References:

Covey, S.R. (1992). Principle Centered Leadership. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Gladwell, M. (2005). Blink: the power of thinking without thinking. (1 ED). Little, Brown and Company. New York

Griffith, S.B. (1971). The Art of War. Oxford University Press 

Reardon, K.K., (2010). Comebacks at work: using conversation to master confrontation. (1 ED.). Harper Collins publishers, New York

Roberts, W. (1990) Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun. Business Plus

Ongoing Project: Combining Project Management with Hands On Skills

Commentary:  This is a series of posts that will follow highlights of an ongoing project I am currently engaging. The project is the development of a turnkey thematic shopping cart. My charter as the project manager is to develop the prototype site, establish baseline performance metrics or reasonable sales, and turnover the prototype deliverables. I am not at liberty of discussing client specifics but will provide general highlights of the project in a series of sporadic posts. 

Project Initiation

The chartering process was kept simple and to-the-point. Brief overarching statements framed the project, stakeholders were identified, and the scope statement was prepared. Upon approval, I was officially identified as the project manager and began the project on a deliverable contingent basis with a residual revenue stream on future success. The client wanted his risk exceptionally low and was willing to generously share success.  This requires me to manage my cost and 'sweat' closely so as to prevent overruns due to the fixed cost of the deliverables. 

The project in general is designed around the installed base profit model. When most people think of a need, they think in terms of a complete solution not in terms of the individual components.  Entire magazines such as Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and GQ are devoted to creating statements that readers embrace by purchasing in whole or, at least, elements of the statements declared. This concept applies to many purchases, especially, those that can be accessorized. Utilizing the installed base profit model as the underlying framework for a thematic shopping cart, revenue streams can be generated based on the accessorizing products and services.

The high level objectives of this project are the business objectives to demonstrate reasonable sales, establish a baseline process, and create a potential turnkey solution. 

The Planning Phase

The planning phase is perhaps the most critical to success of this project since this project is fixed cost. Cost overruns are assumed by me. At the time of this post the planning phase is underway. While the typical standard work breakdown structure, organizational measurable value, and objectives are laid out, we also created a series of addendums to the Project Document.  These addendums were technical specifications (Tech Specs) that are being developed for the database, page structure, security, and other features of the site. Some preliminary execution phase activities were test run also during the planning phase to evaluate methods and technologies.

For example, after Tech Specing the Entity Relational Diagram we built the MS SQL database and connected  it via DSN-Less to a MacroMedia Coldfusion Engine MX 7. The hosting site has not upgraded their service to Adobe's CS5 yet.  Then we test ran populating the tables using <CFQUERY>, Select and Insert SQL statements evaluating performance and ease of use. We determined that this is sufficient for the prototype deliverable. 

Anyhow, the planning is continuing at this time with hopes of being able to move into the execution phase shortly. 

A Project Manager's Tricks of the Trade

The nature of this project is requiring flexibility, adaptability and considerable hands on skills. I rely on a host of pocket guides and references as I move through the project and the hands on aspects. I cannot afford lengthy training cycles and must be able to get-to-the-point quickly. Some of the materials I use are slightly dated but they get me in the ballpark and I know where nearly everything is in them. They include:

Burdette, L (2010). JavaScript: pocketguide. PeachPit Press. CA.

Groff, J.R., WeinBerg, P.N. (2002)  SQL: the complete reference. (2 ed.). McGraw Hill Osborne. CA.

PMI (2008). Project Management Body of Knowledge. (4 ed). Project Management Press. PA 

Vromans, J. (2002). Perl: pocket reference. (4 ed.) O'reilley. CA.

Of course, I also look up online manuals for Coldfusion and PHP as required as well as other issues that come to mind. I am also benchmarking with people in my network and other successful cart projects using their successes as baselines for this project. That is it for now. I'll try to get another post going soon. 

Commentary: The next post is not scheduled so please monitor for it. Most likely, I will be adding portions of the execute phase and completing the planning phase processes in the next post.  Please review my other postings. I am completing the Dale Carnegie series this week and continuing with the Comebacks at Work series. Feel free to email me at james.bogden@gmail.com or post a comment. Thanks for reading!

Project Posts:

1. Ongoing Project: Combining Project Management with Hands On Skills
2. Project Management: Unique Skills Beyond Paper Documents
3. OnGoing Project Manages Business Rules

Overcoming Coming Brain Freeze: Comebacks at Work

Commentary: The work place has become a challenging place today. People are on edge, tempers flare, and in some cases the competitiveness has taken a hostile direction.  Simply good communication skills is not enough.  Professionals must become skilled at handling difficult people and in many cases corporate psychopaths.

This series of postings will discuss using communication methods to gain control of circumstances and reduce your chances of becoming a target. We will cover the chapters in the book "Comebacks at Work" over the next several weeks. I'll attempt to couple these when appropriate with other authors works such as Dale Carnegie.

Overcoming Coming Brain Freeze

One of the most common frustrations of many people is the inability to respond effectively on the spot. Dr Readon points out that this frustration is like a Unwanted Repetitive Episode or URP, a habit, that can be broken. The problem is at the root. Could the problem be a lack of comeback tools and training, a lack of confidence, or some other trauma from childhood or family environment. If we are 75% responsible for how people treat us, we can not be blaming our parents or families or others for our shortfalls. Once you have released blame to others and assume responsibility of freeing yourself of URPs, this will defrost part of our brain in order to become a much more skillful communicator at work.

A Mind in Shock

Humans are social creatures who enjoy being included. However, the workplace is a competitive place where people want your job, do not like you or your ideas, or actively seek to exclude you. So even on the best of days in the workplace, there are difficult times that impact your social nature.

Research at UCLA indicates that social exclusion can cause physical impacts. Researchers determined that a gene, OPRM1, associated with physical pain is linked to social pain of rejection. People with a rare form of this gene are more physically affected by rejection than people with the more common form of the gene. Some people can go into "shock" in the wake of social pain and essentially shut down. Dr. Reardon associates this with brain freeze, a form of numbness or brain lockup. This raises the question for each of us: how sensitive am I to insult and rejection and does it cause me physical or psychological pain?

If you are not good with socially challenging situations that fall under the umbrella of potential or real rejection, your ability to respond may be compromised by socially induced brain freeze. Thus it is necessary for you to assess your past social pain experiences. This is not getting therapy but instead reflecting on the event with the realization you can think on your feet. The earlier event may be holding you back.

Breaking the bad habits and developing comeback skills takes practice, practice, and more practice.

Commentary:  Social setting also affects ones ability to comeback. The stressors of a board meeting, being heckled at a speech, or some other like event can add additional stressors than sitting in your cubical, break room, or work table then have someone snap at you. The best approach is to train in these settings when possible. Dale Carnegie coursework has a lesson on speaking and being heckled. Their approach is to over speak the heckler in a boom voice. I suggest should you be in this class seek variation in which you may address the heckler in a Ron Reagan fashion using humor to quiet him. Or ask if the lesson can be adjusted for the work environment where you may receive a put down during a board room presentation from a seated member.

The Pondering Gene

The brain freeze can also arise from being too analytical. If you are too analytical, that is thinking and gathering information, you may be too slow to respond. Dr Reardon points out that effective comebacks do not require impulsiveness but instead instinctiveness. That is the ability to quickly assess the circumstances instead of reacting. One does have to ask the question are they are in the habit of reading a situation too long. If you think you are too analytical, ask these questions:

• Is my credibility with those looking on in jeopardy?
• If the response is not effective will the person fell free to do it again?
• Is there little if any doubt that she intended to insult me?
• Is this not The first time he's gone too far with me or others?
• Is what was said acceptable by any standard ?

If you answered yes to any of these, prioritize them, and develop then train on comebacks that correct at least the worst of these. Do not worry about mistakes. It is better to make the mistake than not to have tried at all.

Commentary:   Being analytical is only one way of thinking. Creative and Gut thinking are the other styles. I have worked to develop skills in all areas and tend to be centered on creative thinking with strong analytical abilities to see patterns and abstracts. Sometimes my creative modus operandi exceeds the gut thinkers surrounding me and they fail to see through the comebacks I make.  I have had to adjust my style. Gut thinkers are reactionary and can be stalled quite easily because they simply have limited set of tapes they run which can be quickly identified then managed.   I suggest that you look at all three major thinking realms and adjust accordingly.  

On another point about gut thinking, the Book "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell makes a point the humans have an instinctive hunch based on years of experience. Gut thinking in the case "Blink" presents is the outcome of training. Thus, there is no way around training. One has to practice, practice, and practice in order to gain skills in each arena of thinking.

Bypassing Comeback Brain Freeze with Metaphors

Comebacks are not one-liners or zingers. Comebacks are a variety of responses to hostile remarks that tend to terminate the conduct and move activities in a productive direction. Therefore, some of the best comebacks can be metaphors. Metaphors tend to frame things making an impression on people often in a positive or graceful way. Likewise, for many years, it was difficult to get through a work day without someone throwing out the now cliche metaphor, 'thinking out of the box'. Other cliche metaphors include 'a mistake is a gift' and 'paradigm shift'.

Metaphors are memorable and often serve future comeback needs. They pop in to our minds under similar situations, guide behavior, and offer persuasive images. These qualities make them useful in comebacks. Many categories of metaphors tend to be used such as sports and childhood.

The use of metaphors can be designed as comebacks because they can group people. For example, sports metaphors use language common to sports and people who do not pursue sports may not understand the jargon. Therefore, dropping a sports related metaphor to someone in a non-sports group, could have the effect of terminating the conversation or at least giving you an advantage to control the conversation because the person would not know what to say next.

The most astute at comebacks are those who are capable of crafting or calling upon compelling metaphors. Effective metaphors grab our attention and seem to make things suddenly appear clear.

Bypassing Comeback Brain Freeze with a Repertoire and Practice

Bypassing brain freeze that results from fear or habit is a matter of training the brain to view such events as opportunities or challenges. Training the brain to see workplace disasters coming your way as opportunities to prevent and redirect outcomes is no different than meditation or other training. Dr Reardon offers comebacks scenarios in her book to train on. She asks that people memorize them to help them through rough spots.

She also encourages people to add their own. Unless comebacks are put to work we will fail to remember them. With routine study and practice, you'll develop a repertoire of comebacks and rarely experience brain freeze. 


Commentary:  Project managers often find themselves having to manage personalities and have developed stakeholder analysis matrix for this end. This format is a good instrument for assessing individual risk and effective comeback responses. For many people this may be a good instrument for assessing your own circumstances in the workplace. However, if you do develop such a tool then I would keep it closely held as its release could cause you some political damage. 

Reference

Gladwell, M. (2005). Blink: the power of thinking without thinking. (1 ED). Little, Brown and Company. New York

Reardon, K.K., (2010). Comebacks at work: using conversation to master confrontation. (1 ED.). Harper Collins publishers, New York

Easy to Correct and Glad to Do It: The Dale Carnegie Method

Commentary: This is a continuing series of posts reviewing Dale Carnegie's book 'How to Win Friends and Influence People'. This program is attractive in professional relationships due to it's time tested advice for those moving up the ladder of success. I have been introduced to Dale Carnegie training not once but twice. I attended Naval Aviation Officer Candidate School or AOCS during 1988 through which Dale Carnegie principles were first introduced to me, at least in part. Years later during 1999, I attended the Dale Carnegie school and coursework introducing me again to the Dale Carnegie method and principles.  I will be detailing only one principle a week in a shorter post in order to for you to digest the information. This series  may be reviewed at All the Principles in One Post

Make the Fault Easy to Correct

Making a change or correcting a problem is easier if the gap between where you at and the destination seems achievable or at least achievable in a series of micro steps. Humans are in need of hope. Hope has to be achievable. Without hope the drive to become something greater or achieve a goal is lost.  If you desire to help others to improve, remember to use, 

Principle 29: Use encouragement. Make faults seem easy to correct

Make People Glad a to Do What You Want

When people feel involved in the process and are included in the counsel, they are more apt to do what you need them to do. Leaders should:

• Be sincere.
• Know exactly what they néed the other party to do.
• Be empathetic.
• Consider the benefits that person will receive from the suggestions
• Match those to benefits to the other person's wants
• When making the request put it terms the other person will understand and benefit.

People are more likely to follow along if you,

Principle 30: Make the other person happy about doing the things you suggest

Give a Dog a Good Name: The Dale Carnegie Method

Commentary: This is a continuing series of posts reviewing Dale Carnegie's book 'How to Win Friends and Influence People'. This program is attractive in professional relationships due to it's time tested advice for those moving up the ladder of success. I have been introduced to Dale Carnegie training not once but twice. I attended Naval Aviation Officer Candidate School or AOCS during 1988 through which Dale Carnegie principles were first introduced to me, at least in part. Years later during 1999, I attended the Dale Carnegie school and coursework introducing me again to the Dale Carnegie method and principles.  I will be detailing only one principle a week in a shorter post in order to for you to digest the information. This series  may be reviewed at All the Principles in One Post

Give a Dog a Good Name

Sometimes people are unaware of their condition or circumstances. A good leader will take the time to investigate and discuss the circumstances with the individual. As part of the discussion the leader should give the person a reputation to live up to. For example, if their past performance was exemplary, express this as the standard to live up to. 

The average person can be led readily if you have his respect and if you show that you respect that person for some kind of ability. The way to achieve this is to act as though they already have that trait.  If you want to excel in that difficult leadership role of influencing the behavior or attitudes of others, 

Principle 28: Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to

References:

Carnegie, D. (1981). How to win friends and influence people. New York: Pocket Books.

The Perils Of Patterns: Comebacks at Work

Commentary: The work place has become a challenging place today. People are on edge, tempers flare, and in some cases the competitiveness has taken a hostile direction. Simply good communication skills is not enough. Professionals must become skilled at handling difficult people and in many cases corporate psychopaths.

This series of postings will discuss using communication methods to gain control of circumstances and reduce your chances of becoming a target. We will cover ten (10) chapters in the book "Comebacks at Work" over the next several weeks. I'll attempt to couple these when appropriate with other authors works such as Dale Carnegie.

The Perils Of Patterns

An article named, "Good Communications That Block Learning" by Harvard professor Chris Argyris argues most people develop models early in life in order to deal with emotional and threatening issues at work.  Most people operate based on a dual system or a master program; one that is learned and one that is earned. The learned program is intellectual in nature and is often the 'espoused theory-in-action' as part of one's constitution. The program that is the earned one is the 'theory-in-use' that is the outcome of life experience. The gap between the espoused and the in-use creates contradictions that are counter to good communications. there are some patterns in this and the book will explore these in order to replace them with more effective communications.

Avoiding Communication Ruts

Many people develop their communications style early in life then fail to adjust to different environments and cultures.  This failure to adjust is characterized by repetitive conduct that results the person becoming stuck in a rut. This can hold a person back from career opportunities. Professionals should develop several communication styles. The key is learning to identify circumstances and selecting the appropriate communication style. When in doubt, the best style is to revert to a help me understand style. It endears others in sort of a Dale Carnegie methodology that involves listening and demonstrating a genuine concern for others as well as involving others in the process.

The first step, as with Carnegie, is looking at ourselves before trying to change others. We must admit on some level that we all develop patterns when interacting with others.  There are both functional and dysfunctional patterns. Most people are held back at effective comebacks because they were unable to change their communication patterns that are within their control to do so.

Unwanted Repetitive Episodes

The up side to patterns is that they are easily identified and managed with little re-training. Patterns make conversations predictable. The downside is that we become predictable and fail to learn or change. We become sitting ducks when this occurs. Doctor Reardon refers to this as Unwanted Repetitive Episodes (URPs). Identifying this condition aides in changing your patterned behavior. We need to learn how to handle the unexpected.  These are URP situations:

1. Personal or Protected Information Queries

There are people who, for various reasons, ask personal or proprietary questions and sometimes these question can be pointed. A relatively trusting and open person may share some this information which could be misused later.  The questioning could push you beyond a tolerance level and result in an URP.  Your undesirable responses may include getting angry, lashing out, or to offend. These are unproductive responses.

In professional cultures especially, you should think through, in advance, what kind of questions are off the table and develop productive responses to these questions.  The response should first demonstrate genuine concern for the other person then terminate the questioning.  For example, Could you please clarify why you need to know this information, otherwise we should not be discussing this. If the questioning persists then increased forcefulness will most likely be required. For example, We determine your need for this information is not justified. Let us move on.  Then if the questioning continues and is approached differently or cast a different way then an even stronger response is necessary. For example, Smile remark, You have reached the quota for today; Then turn and walk away.

2. Jumping to Judgement

Another URP tendency is to reply or react too quickly before discerning if harm was intended. This is as dysfunctional as allowing another to put you in a compromising position with personal questions. As a general rule, observing a situation or stalling for time for a few minutes is a good idea. Proficient comebacks are deliberate and the result of correctly assessing the circumstances. A good stall tactic is to ask questions that clarify or discern the situation. This allows you to self-correct too. You will need to determine the mood you desire to set in your response but try something like smiling or chuckling as you ask Could you please clarify that remark as I do not want to make a mistake. Of course, you can be direct but be aware not to be confrontational. 

Giving the chance to people to explain or clarify is a gift from their vantage point whether deserving or not. This alters the course of the conversation in a right-the-situation strategy. Most will alter the conversation and the communication method. This is a good strategy in professional settings where the objective is to move things forward and build repetitive working relationships. After all, some people are just brazen or a little to forward leaning sometimes but well intentioned.

Another situation that many people have trouble dealing with are individuals who have fits-of-rage not at specific people but circumstances. These people are in most cases highly attuned to principles that when violated cause outrage.  Realizing that they may be yelling a lot but not at anyone is a special skill. Allowing these people to vent and focusing on commonalities is rare that relies on how to listen and observe.

Aristotle had some wisdom regarding comebacks. In summary, he saw three kinds of outcomes that stem from unavoidable natural feelings such as temper in which humans are liable; Mistakes, Misadventure, and an Injury. Those actions done in ignorance are mistakes. When the outcome of actions occurs contrary to reasonable expectations, that is a misadventure. And when the outcome results from a knowing act then that is an Injury. None of these outcomes make a human wicked or evil unless the human acts out of malice intent.

Dr. Reardon points to misadventures as a key category asking how often do we say something and get the opposite or unexpected reaction.  All kinds of factors come into this scenario. The messenger is simply tired, dealt with another contentious issue causing bleed over, is in a bad mood, etc... Taking a pause, applying Dale Carnegie principles of smiling, not condemning or complaining, and showing genuine interest in the other person apply well here. Create stalling mechanisms and phrases to regroup the situation.

"I suggest we step back for a moment."
"Tell me. I want to understand [or listen]."
"Are you okay?"

3. Confronting and Demurring Too Quickly

All too often we react too quickly and jump to judgment. We slip into a pattern of conduct that either confronts or fails to assert ourselves. Dr. Reardon uses a directionality in a conversation to determine your pattern. She label confrontation as one-up and acquiesce as one-down.  She further clarifies that there is nothing wrong with these comments except if you are doing one way too much. This can be costly to your career.  Her remedy is to insert more one-across comments than the others which give you time to think. 

Silence is an across comment but can be incorrectly perceived since many people cannot handle silence well. Other across comments include:

"Run that by me again."
"What was that logic?"
"That is interesting"
"Hmmmm."
"I see."

The idea is to stall for time, reroute the conversation in a constructive manner. In stalling for time you can send signals that cause the other person to rethink their comment or position by selecting the appropriate across-comment. This is an under utilized strategy and would be of benefit to hone skills in this skill set. 

Conclusion:

This chapter focused on patterns and using time as well as across-comments to break bad patterns of conduct. Dale Carnegie methods apply well in developing responses. Dr Reardon offers several techniques to break Unwanted Repetitive Episodes, URPs. The primary take away for the reader is to stall for time, level the commenting, and redirect the communications towards productive outcomes.

Reference

Reardon, K.K., (2010). Comebacks at work: using conversation to master confrontation. (1 ED.). Harper Collins publishers, New York

How to Spur People On to Success: The Dale Carnegie Method

Commentary: This is a continuing series of posts reviewing Dale Carnegie's book 'How to Win Friends and Influence People'. This program is attractive in professional relationships due to it's time tested advice for those moving up the ladder of success. I have been introduced to Dale Carnegie training not once but twice. I attended Naval Aviation Officer Candidate School or AOCS during 1988 through which Dale Carnegie principles were first introduced to me, at least in part. Years later during 1999, I attended the Dale Carnegie school and coursework introducing me again to the Dale Carnegie method and principles.  I will be detailing only one principle a week in a shorter post in order to for you to digest the information. This series  may be reviewed at All the Principles in One Post

How to Spur People On to Success

Animal trainers often praise and reward animals at the moment of improved and/or correct behavior. They make a big to do about it and the animal responds favorably. Carnegie observed this conduct with an old friend of his who had a traveling circus act wondering why we do not use the same common sense with humans? Why we do not use a reward rather than the whip? Why we do not use praise instead of condemnation?   Carnegie felt we should inspire other people to keep on improving by praising the slightest improvements.

Praise instead of criticism is a basic concept. Research shows that when criticism is minimized and praise is emphasized the good things people, do will be reinforced and the poorer things will atrophy.  Carnegie asserts that we all crave appreciation and recognition, and will do almost anything to get it. However, nobody wants insincerity or flattery. Carnegie re-asserts that his principles only work if they come from the heart. What he is presenting is not a bag of tricks. Carnegie emphatically urges that he is talking about a new way of life. Any change is actually in us and not our circumstances.

People, those reading this, habitually fail to use their abilities to praise people and inspire them with the realization of their latent possibilities. Abilities whither away under criticism and blossom under encouragement. Effective leaders, 

Principle 27: Praise the slightest and every improvement. Be hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise.