by Anne Dickson
Start with the situations where you can practise your assertive skills with people who do not mean so much to you: a fellow passenger, a salesman, a neighbour, a new work associate or waitress, for example. You can probably find many opportunities which present themselves during your day when you can try out these skills. Nothing is too trivial: every single interaction that you manage assertively will build up your skill and confidence. You can do as little as you want and take as long as you want. You can look at your list as a personal programme. What for you is very easy, and would not even appear on your list, might represent a Number 10 problem for someone else. And, similarly, something which presents you with a lot of difficulty could be easy for someone else to manage. There is no point in comparison because we all have our own areas of competence.
As you read through the book you may find more and more situations you would like to try for yourself: you may want to practise an important interview that you know you are going to have to face or you may want to find a better way of handling a recurring problem. The worst hurdle is making a start. It is always easier to think about doing it and even rehearse in your mind the whole dialogue before or after the event but role-play offers the most effective way I know of actually helping people use the skills for themselves through incorporating new behaviour into their lives, translating thought into action.
I remember Anna reporting back during the follow-up meeting when I asked if anyone had practised what we had worked on using role-play during the previous session. Anna, a quiet woman in her late forties, had found it difficult to speak up in meetings at work. We had role-played an alternative strategy so that she would not have to endure yet another meeting without having said what she wanted to say.
Our practice had first involved Anna realising the folly of waiting for ‘the right moment’. This moment never comes, of course, but what happens is that our anxiety increases with each passing ‘wrong’ moment and the tension makes it physically harder to get the words out. Anna had practised several times resisting her tendency to wait: for a lull in the conversation or for her colleagues to stop speaking or for the chairman to notice her and invite her to speak. Instead Anna learned to keep breathing evenly and take the plunge. She practised using a specific phrase ‘I’d like to make a suggestion’ and each time she strengthened her voice in tone and volume so that the others taking part in the role-play meeting instinctively stopped to listen. She was then given a spontaneous burst of applause but she still had to practise speaking once the attention was focused on her. So we did it again and she learned how to continue with her proposal.
This exercise was to teach Anna how to manage her anxiety instead of being restricted by it. As a consequence she was able to try it out in her real-life meeting. She reported that she had felt the same levels of anxiety and noticed she was waiting once again for the right moment when she recalled the experience of her role-play. So she took a deep breath and spoke up a couple of times until the discussion stopped and the attention turned to her: at this point she made her suggestion. She told us that her heart had been thumping so loudly, she had thought everyone else could hear it but she got the words out anyway. Probably none of Anna’s colleagues knew how hard it had been for her but that didn’t matter. She had managed to make her suggestion and also to invite a response: this was really helpful in taking the spotlight off herself and encouraging others to show interest. She told us she had felt six-feet tall when she’d left the meeting and her sense of triumph was shared by us all: she had taken a big step in building her confidence. Having done it once, she could do it again.
If you try to tackle the more difficult problems before you are ready, you will only come unstuck and do the reverse. On the other hand, with one, two, then three small successes under your belt, you will achieve two things. You will be able to shrug off a failure here and there without too much self-recrimination and also feel better equipped to tackle more difficult areas from a position of strength. In this way, you will avoid the common barrier which prevents people getting started: the trap of thinking that everything is either too trivial to bother about or too difficult to cope with. A lot of us get stuck in this trap and end up doing nothing. The first and major step is to start applying some assertive techniques which are introduced in the next chapter.
5
Assertive Techniques
If by now you are interested in knowing how assertive skills can work for you, take a closer look at the dynamics of a familiar, everyday situation: imagine that you are tired, you go home and the place is in an absolute mess: how exactly do you ask for help with clearing it all up?
What might Agnes do? She storms into the empty lounge, turns off the unwatched television, yells upstairs to her children who are nowhere to be seen, kicks a toy across the floor, finds her husband in the kitchen, pulls the newspaper out of his hands and shouts: ‘Why the hell has nobody done anything about tea?’
Dulcie plonks herself down at the kitchen table, puts her head in her hands and then slowly rises and starts to pick up the breakfast things, trudging around thinking to herself: ‘They really are an inconsiderate lot. Look at him sitting there doing nothing.’ Then, in silence, she sets about preparing the meal.
Ivy comes in and mutters: ‘Look at this mess! I don’t know how you can all be so inconsiderate.’
She clears the mess sulkily then slowly and laboriously prepares a meal which is served late. She calls her family to eat and when anyone complains about the lateness, she responds with a chilling stare. The whole meal is conducted in a heavy, awkward silence and everyone feels uncomfortable and guilty. (Notice that not one of them has asked directly for what she wanted: namely some help.)
How could you deal with this issue assertively? Selma arrives home and finds the same chaos and mess and her husband sitting in the chair. She confronts him with a statement: ‘I’m tired and I’d like you to help me get the supper ready. Could you to do the washing up (or wash the vegetables or lay the table)? ’ She asks specifically and directly for the help she wants.
This brings us to three skills which are essential to assertive interactions. You need to:
• Decide what it is you want or feel and say so specifically and directly.
• Stick to your statement and repeat it, if necessary, over and over again.
• Assertively deflect any responses from the other person which might undermine your assertive request.
Being specific If you have ever listened to someone’s longwinded preamble, you may have wondered impatiently when they were ever going to get to the point. This is the key to this technique. It means deciding what the ‘point’ is and stating it without all the unnecessary padding that we tend to use when we are anxious. Look at the following examples of padding (in italics).
‘(I hope you don’t mind me saying this, you’ll probably think I’ve got a bit of a nerve, in fact it is unusual for me, but) could you check this list for me before I send it through to the boss?’
‘(I’m terribly sorry to trouble you but) I’d like you to change this for a clean cup.’
‘(Oh, I’d have loved to say “yes” but you know, with things as they are, and, you know, really if you’d told me last week, I mean, you haven’t given me much notice, so this time) my answer is “no”.’
‘(Ahem, waiter, I’m really sorry, but I’m afraid that) I’ve been waiting over half an hour for my sandwich.’
‘(I wondered what you were doing this afternoon, you know, if you were busy, because I, em, have to go to the shops, and well, if you’re doing anything, it doesn’t really matter, I suppose, but) I’d like to borrow your car.’
The padding often weakens your statement and confuses the listener. Practise making a clear statement or request without the preamble.
Being specific sounds an easy instruction to follow but I know from teaching this skill how difficult we find it to say what we want exactly and concisely: somehow we seem to have lost the ability to focus on wh
at we want and instead tend to focus on the other person.
Here is an example of a typical dialogue between myself and a course participant. In this instance, Casey had expressed her wish to learn how to make an effective request of her female assistant to produce a report for a monthly area meeting.
AD: What do you want to ask for?
Casey: Well, she’s working for three other people not just me.
AD: What do you want to ask for?
Casey: The thing is, she always puts their work first and leaves mine till last.
AD: What do you want to ask her to do?
Casey: I’d like her to go get the typing done. But I think she has a problem with me.
AD: What do you want her to prepare?
Casey: The report.
AD: When do you want it by?
Casey: (shrugs her shoulders) I don’t know . . . Tuesday?
AD: Is that what you want?
Casey: That would do.
AD: When would you like it?
Casey: Well, people need a few days to look at it.
AD: So does Tuesday give enough time?
Casey: It really should be last thing Monday.
AD: Do you need to see it before it is sent out on Monday?
Casey: Ideally.
AD: So, does mid-day on Monday give you enough time?
Casey: Yes.
AD: So your request is “I’d like you to type this report and email it to me by Monday lunchtime.”
Casey: Yes.
Casey was intelligent, competent and also articulate but not at all unusual in finding it hard to be specific. The problem is her habit – shared by many – of using the other person as a reference point which will only elicit a spiral of anxieties about the imagined response: ‘she’ll be aggressive’; ‘he won’t listen’; ‘she seems to resent me’ or ‘I don’t want to appear bossy’. These kinds of thoughts interfere with our ability to focus solely on what we want.
It is only when you say what it is you want that you can say it with conviction. It is no use, for example, trying to convey assertively that you want your partner to phone if he’s going to be late when secretly you suspect he’s having an affair; it is no good trying assertively to arrange where and when to meet someone when your heart is not in it and you really don’t want to be going out at all; you will not sound convincing when you ask someone to help you set the table when your real wish is to have the entire evening off, with someone else fetching a takeaway.
With help and discipline, you can learn to work out in excruciatingly specific detail what it is you’re asking for. You may not get what you want but this is the only starting point because by asking for it directly and specifically, you give yourself the best chance of getting it. If you only hint or complain, after a while you will probably hear yourself saying, ‘I’ve asked him so many times’ or ‘I’m always telling her but . . . ’ as if the problem lies with the other person who is somehow too obtuse or unwilling to understand your message. This risks reinforcing your own sense of powerless to change what is happening. Every time women complain in this way I can be sure that the problem lies with the manner in which they themselves are making their requests rather than with the response of the other person.
Check your own behaviour to see whether or not you have made a clear request or if you have relied on the common belief that the other person ought to know what you want and feel, without you having to spell it out for them. We assume that someone should know us well enough or that if they loved us enough, they would understand our needs without us having to be explicit. But we cannot always depend on other people’s telepathic abilities. Nor is it safe to rely on dropping hints, however broad they are: uttering a deep sigh and looking heavenwards may still not accurately convey that you want some help with doing the chores. Besides which, if you are not specific, then others can always sidestep the issue conveniently on the grounds that you did not actually ask for anything!
As women we often confuse clarity and directness with bluntness or rudeness. We learn to hint in a roundabout way, to make others feel guilty if they have not responded to our unexpressed needs. We complain, we reproach others, we resort to sarcasm, we sulk. The last thing we actually say is what we want. Whether it is the Agnes, the Dulcie or the Ivy which predominates in our behaviour, the problem of identifying the actual need or request poses the same difficulty.
Sticking to it So now you know what you want to say, beginning with an assertive request or statement. But what happens if, as soon as you start, you receive a barrage of abuse or are met with a refusal or even ignored? This is when you move on to the next stage which is to repeat your statement or request calmly until it is understood and acknowledged by the other person.
The purpose of repetition is to help you maintain a steady position without falling prey to manipulative comment, or irrelevant logic, or argumentative bait, some or all of which may be provoked by your assertive request. Here are some examples:
Example 1
At the deli counter in a small supermarket, Selma returns some French cheese which, when opened at home, was revealed to have rather more mould than was healthy.
Selma: I bought this cheese yesterday. When I got home and opened it, I found it was very mouldy and I’d like a refund, please.
Shopkeeper: Nothing to do with me, I wasn’t here yesterday. (Irrelevant logic)
Selma: I bought it in this shop and as it is inedible, I’d like a refund.
Shopkeeper: That sort of cheese is meant to be mouldy, Madam. It’s the way it’s made. (Argumentative bait)
Selma: I know what kind of cheese I buy. This is past its healthy state and I’d like a refund.
Shopkeeper: Look, there’s a queue of people behind you waiting to be served and I’m on my own here . . . (Manipulative bait)
Selma: I can see that there are people behind but this is inedible and I’d like a refund.
Shopkeeper: Well, have you got the receipt?
His manner is resigned and unfriendly but he nevertheless complies with the request for a refund.
Example 2
Selma has an unexpected morning off and intends to spend her time finishing a novel for the next meeting of her reading group. Her next-door neighbour knocks on the door in a fluster.
Neighbour: Selma, love, what are you doing this morning?
Selma: I’m going to spend it catching up on my reading.
Neighbour: Oh good. Since you’re not busy, would you look after the children while I go to the hairdresser? The only appointment I could get is at 11 o’clock.
Selma: I’m sorry but I’m not prepared to spend the morning looking after your children.
Neighbour: But Selma, what are friends for? (Manipulative bait) You know I don’t often get the chance to go . . . and I’ve got a date on Friday. (More manipulative bait)
Selma: Yes, I know and I was OK with taking them when you last asked but I’m still not prepared to look after your children all morning today.
Neighbour: It won’t be for long, you could read while they played. They wouldn’t bother you at all. (Irrelevant logic)
Selma: No, I’m really not prepared to look after them this morning. Why don’t you try someone else? Marsha’s in, you could try her.
The neighbour finally accepts Selma’s refusal
Example 3
Robert, a friend of a distant cousin, landed on Selma’s doorstep from Australia. He said he expected to stay a couple of nights but it’s now three weeks later. He has spent most of the time watching television, lounging around, trawling the internet and smoking dope.
Selma: Robert, I have something to say to you. I feel really uncomfortable with you smoking dope in my flat and I would like you to move on somewhere else.
Robert: Oh come on Selma, what are you being so heavy about? (Argumentative bait)
Selma: You may think I’m being heavy, but I don’t even know whether it’s illegal or not so I don’t want you to smoke in my flat and
I’d like you to look for somewhere else.
Robert: How can you chuck me out when I haven’t any money? (Manipulative bait)
Selma: You can get yourself a job if you try. You have been here for three weeks and I’d like you to look for somewhere else.
Robert: Look, just calm down and cool it. If it makes you happy, I’ll promise not to smoke any more when I’m in the house. (Irrelevant logic)
Selma: I am calm, Robert, and I really want you to make plans to move. (Robert eventually gets the message.)
The difficulty with some arguments is that as soon as you reply to them you become hooked and your position is weakened so this technique works in two ways. First, it helps you to project an image of determination and purpose instead of appearing to be a pushover. Secondly, many women find that after the first two or three repetitions, they actually feel the truth of their statement which gives them more determination as a consequence which, of course, reinforces the impression of conviction. The technique is remarkably effective, but it does require constant repetition of the key phrase: hence the importance of starting with one!
Once you are able to repeat your phrase and feel your confidence increase, you then need to ‘field’ the other person’s rejoinders. Simply ignoring what they say or pretending you have not heard as you carry on repeating your request is not enough. You won’t create an assertive impression sounding like a mechanical parrot: on the other hand it is difficult to respond to a deflection without getting entangled in someone else’s line of argument: it’s easy to get side-tracked and then lose heart. An assertive beginning all too often degenerates into an aggressive outburst or sulky submission because of this one specific difficulty. This is where the third skill of deflecting the argument becomes relevant.