Tongue Fu!

by Sam Horn

  What do I want to be true? I choose to found THE DINK PROJECT. I choose to write and speak about “What’s Your DINK?” and ask people if they are ignoring the incidents in their life that are trying to send them messages that would change their life for the better.

  If things have gone wrong, use the Emotional Accountability Quiz to precisely interpret what’s happened so you don’t catastrophize it by using extreme words that make things worse than they are. Then, take it a step further and proactively interpret what’s happened with affirming words so you can make things better than they might have been.

  Action Plan To Avoid Going To Extremes

  You and your teenagers go to the video store to rent a couple of movies for the weekend. Your children select an R-rated film, and you tell them they need to pick something less violent. How do you respond to their statement that you never let them watch what they want?

  Words To Lose

  You deny their accusation and establish yourself as an adversary.

  “That's not true, and you know it. Last week you picked both movies.”

  Your kids say, “You always make us get a Disney movie,” and you refute what they’ve said.

  “That’s ridiculous. We haven't seen a Disney movie in months.”

  They add an extreme conclusion and say you never care what they want anyway, and you feel even more falsely accused and react angrily.

  “I do too care what you want. Why do you think we came to this video store in the first place? Not because I want to watch a video.”

  Words To Use

  You repeat their extreme statement with an upward inflection.

  “I never let you pick the movie you want to see?”

  You direct their all-or-nothing accusation back at them as a question, then say nothing else.

  “I always make you get Disney movies?”

  You bypass their allegation instead of belaboring it and choose to focus on solutions.

  “I know you can find something you’ll enjoy watching. What's a movie you’d like to see that’s rated PG-13?”

  PART III

  Turn Conflicts Into Cooperation

  “Find new meaning in every joy and sorrow. See another world where the end is another beginning. ~Rumi

  Are you thinking some of these techniques seem soft?

  You’re right, some are. Yet, soft techniques are often what’s needed in a hard world. They are the contrasting norm in a storm. Caring, cooperative responses help bring people to their senses and compel them to be kinder. Instead of ending relationships because of conflict, compassionate words and responses can help us create new beginnings.

  In this section, we start dealing with more difficult behavior.

  For example, what to do when people are swearing or being verbally abusive. If people are volatile, you may need more assertive approaches to turn those conflicts into cooperation. These techniques can help.

  CHAPTER 17: ESTABLISH RULES FOR UNRULY SITUATIONS

  “A true diva dismisses drama. A true diva’s heart is open. She plays by her own rules – rules that are gentle and kind.” - Jenifer Lewis, American Singer

  Imagine if there were no rules of the road. Imagine driving along in your car only to discover that suddenly all the lines, traffic lights, crosswalks, and road signs indicating the right of way had disappeared?

  It would be chaos, wouldn’t it? No one would be safe.

  Think about it. Most human activities have rules. These rules of the road ensure that we can pass within feet of cars speeding in the opposite direction—and feel no fear because we have faith other drivers will obey the laws.

  Every sport has rules. In football, you can’t hit a quarterback after he throws the ball. Even boxing has rules: you can’t hit your opponent after the bell rings to end the round and you can’t hit below the belt.

  Yet, surprisingly, most communication doesn’t have rules. There are no agreed-upon guidelines to dictate what’s appropriate and what’s not. Anything goes. People interrupt each other, monopolize conversations, and make personal attacks. We can bring up something that happened ten years ago; something that person has already apologized for. People play by their own rules; but they’re usually not gentle and kind. With no standards of behavior established, people run amok.

  Establish Relationship Ground Rules Up Front

  “We learned that you don’t take shortcuts or play by your own set of rules… success doesn’t count unless you earn it fair and square.”- Michelle Obama, American First Lady

  One way to make sure people play fair and square is to establish rules for ongoing relationships, in advance. The way to ensure personal and professional relationships coexist collaboratively is to outline and agree upon communication guidelines right at the start.

  For personal relationships, meet with your partner, roommate, or family members and agree upon what’s permitted and what’s not. Maybe you have terrible memories of your parents’ sniping at each other in public, and you promise not to do that to each other. As discussed in the “Maintain a Positive Perspective” chapter in the last section, maybe you agree that everyone can “gripe” about their day for 15 minutes when they come home from work or school and then “Enough” … the topic gets switched to something else.

  Perhaps you could institute your own more helpful variation of Phyllis Diller’s advice: “Don’t go to bed mad. Stay up and fight!”

  I’ll always remember the time I suggested a good ground rule for marriage was, “We agree not to threaten divorce during an argument.” A woman in the audience clapped her hand to her forehead, exclaiming, “Too late!”

  Karen Waggoner, the office manager for my speaking business while we lived in Hawaii, posted this rule on her refrigerator and gently, yet firmly enforced it: “There is to be no name-calling ... and that includes “stupid,” “jerk” and “dummy.” If my sons were playing a video game with her sons, Scott and Todd, and one of them yelled, “Stupid!” she would remind them, ”Choose a different word” … and they would.

  One of the most important ground rules for a successful marriage is to agree not to bring up old baggage. Agree upon a signal (“Ouch!” or “Time out!”) to let someone know s/he is treading on thin ice and it’s in their best interests to back off. By establishing communication covenants, it’s easier to maintain goodwill with and between your loved ones.

  What’s Your “NJ?”

  “The future is completely open, and we are writing it moment to moment.” - Pema Chodron

  My sister and I came up with a ground rule that we still use (ahem) 50 years later. Do you have a brother or sister? Did you, when growing up, tease each other, lie to each other (“I did NOT play with your Barbie”) or give each other a hard time?

  We did, and one time my sister got tired of it. She suggested we come up with a code word to cut through the you-know-what. She wisely said there were times we just needed to be able to trust each other instead of having to read between the lines and second-guess if what the other sister was saying was true.

  She was right. We came up with the word “NJ” which stands for No Joke. We agreed not to abuse or overuse this word. However, if we were in the middle of something and wanted the other person to know we had reached our limit and/or we were telling an important truth we wanted them to accept, no questions asked, we pulled out the NJ.

  It has served us well. I now use it with my sons … it works for us too. It’s wonderful to have a word that you can count on to know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the other person is not kidding, they MEAN this and they want us to take it seriously. What could be your version of NJ?

  Keep Your Meetings Proactive And Productive

  “If you had to identify, in one word, the reason the human race has never achieved, and will never achieve its full potential, that word is ‘meetings’.” – Dave Barry, humorist

  In professional relationships; it’s essential to establish and enforce ground-rules for each and every meeting. Di
d you know more than 3 billion meetings take place in the United States every year? This is not a particularly alarming statistic, except that a Microsoft survey found that 69% of participants say over half their 5.6 hours a week (!) spent in meetings are wasted.

  It’s estimated that Fortune 500 companies waste more than $75 million per year in meetings. What’s worse is that statistic doesn’t begin to address the ruined relationships that result from poorly run meetings.

  Out-of-control meetings that have no ground rules can do more damage than good by pitting people against each other in a blame-shame game that provokes divisiveness and dissension.

  These simple guidelines can help any manager or chairperson facilitate constructive meetings that don’t deteriorate into verbal brawls. By enforcing these ground rules, you can keep things on track and make meetings a proactive, productive, positive experience for all involved.

  1) One person speaks at a time. No four-way conversations with people talking over each other. If someone interrupts or if people start a side conversation, enforce this rule with these methods:

  a.) Look at the original speaker, hold your hand up, and say in a firm voice, “Excuse me, [name of speaker], we’ll wait until we have everyone’s attention.’’ Be sure to finish your statement with a downward inflection. If your voice goes up at the end, you will sound unsure of yourself, and interrupters will ignore you.

  b.) Do not look at the interrupter. If you look at the person who is trying to hijack the conversation, so will everyone else. That will either embolden the interrupter because he will now feel he’s been given the floor. Or, if the interrupter was being innocently passionate (and not rude), he will feel embarrassed that you singled him out and will resent you for causing him to lose face in front of his peers.

  c) If people continue their side conversations, continue to look at the speaker and repeat your call to order in a louder, more commanding voice that reaches every corner of the room. “Bev, we’ll wait until we have EVERYONE’s attention.” Only after everyone is silent do you give the floor back to the speaker with a flourish of your hand and a “Thank you, Bev, please proceed. You were telling us about. . . .”

  Conduct Disciplined Meetings

  “Discipline is remembering what you want.” – David Campbell

  Having facilitated retreats and conferences for years, I can promise if you enforce this rule immediately and consistently early in a meeting, you will establish a powerful precedent that carries throughout the meeting. Honoring the speaker’s right to be heard will be the norm, and people will pay attention and behave courteously instead of thoughtlessly barging in whenever they have something to say.

  What people want is for meetings to be purposeful and time well spent. Holding participants accountable for these rules disciplines everyone to stay focused. They’ll thank you for it.

  2) Participants can speak only once on each agenda item until everyone who wants to contribute has a chance to do so. This rule prevents forceful personalities from taking over the discussion and turning it into a bully pulpit while shy participants hold back because they’re uncomfortable, or can’t wrest the conversational ball from opinionated peers.

  How do you enforce this? If Margie speaks out of turn (before other group members have had a chance to offer their comments), put your palm up toward Margie and say, “Margie, we want to hear what you have to say, and first let’s find out what the rest of the group thinks about this. Tyler, your thoughts?”

  3) Be sure to practice Words to Use. The goal is to hold participants accountable, not to embarrass them. Instead of, “Margie, you need to wait until everyone else has a chance,” or “Margie, I know you have strong feelings about this, but several other people… ,” say, “Margie, you’re welcome to respond as soon as everyone else has an opportunity to contribute their thoughts.”

  4) You can speak for up to two minutes (or substitute your own reasonable time limit) at a time. While this may seem unnecessarily strict, it serves an important purpose. My mom taught me, “That which can be done at any time rarely gets done at all.” Unless there’s a time limit, people have no reason to speak succinctly. They will repeat themselves, ramble, and wax eloquent (or not so eloquent) while the rest of the group goes to Maui in their minds.

  In their classic book, Elements of Style, Strunk and White say, “Vigorous writing is concise.” Vigorous speaking is also concise. A two-minute maximum can transform boring sessions into fast-paced meetings.

  Enforce this by appointing a group member as timekeeper. They are to give a ten-second heads-up when a speaker is about to reach their time limit. When time is up, gently and firmly interrupt and say, “Thanks, Brad, for that suggestion. Who else has an idea?”

  Be Pleasantly Unpleasant

  “if you just set out to be liked, you are prepared to compromise on anything at any time and you will achieve nothing.” – Margaret Thatcher, former Prime Minister of England

  The Hawaii Department of Education asked me to chair its annual conference. This event brought together students, teachers, administrators, parents, and DOE officials to discuss issues facing public schools.

  The agenda included several emotionally charged issues, including mainstreaming of special education students, minimum grade-point averages required for participation in sports, and mandatory drug and sex education.

  At the end of the day, participants actually gave each other a standing ovation! They unanimously agreed the issues had been thoroughly addressed and that everyone had an equal opportunity to air his or her views. While specific individual preferences may not have carried the day, the participants felt the process was fair, consensus had been reached, and they could support the outcome.

  Why were we able to achieve a successful retreat when, in the past, this annual conference had consistently deteriorated into a shouting match? Because each focus group was facilitated by a trained mediator who outlined the ground rules at the start of the session and held everyone accountable for them. In our orientation, I reminded the mediators that their goal was to be respected, not liked. That meant not allowing anyone to compromise the proceedings by breaking the ground rules.

  One of the mediators approached me afterward and said, “I just received the ultimate compliment. Our most opinionated participant stopped on his way out the door, shook my hand, praised me for keeping the session on track, and pronounced, ‘You were pleasantly unpleasant.’”

  I’ve always liked that characterization. A chairperson may need to be “pleasantly unpleasant” when administering these ground rules. It isn’t always easy to grab the floor from a speaker who’s ardently expounding a viewpoint. Stopping a heated discussion to suggest the focus be moved to action plans may initially ruffle some feathers, yet the result is worth it. Invariably, group members feel everyone’s rights were honored rather than those of just a few aggressive individuals.

  Respect Each Other’s Rights

  “The truth of the matter is; you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it.” – General Norman Schwarzkopf

  Three additional rules can ensure peaceful deliberation of even the most volatile subjects. They keep everyone focused on doing the right thing, even when it’s hard.

  1) Negating other people's contributions is not allowed. It’s not permissible to say, “That’s not how it happened” or “That’s a terrible idea.” Telling someone he’s wrong is a surefire way to make him angry. Diplomatically disagree by using “I” statements: “I don’t agree with that” or “I have a different impression of what happened.” See the difference? Using the word “I” is a way to state your position without personally attacking a person with an opposing view.

  2) A respectful tone will be maintained. No shouting is allowed. This is the key to keeping a discussion reasonable. Stanley Horowitz has observed, “Nothing lowers the level of conversation more than raising the voice.” He’s right. The louder people talk, the less they listen. Speaking in a normal tone of v
oice helps people interact objectively and keeps tempers from flaring.

  3) Focus on the future, instead of dwelling on the past. This very important concept, already discussed in previous chapters, bears repeating. Instead of finding blame; find solutions. Rather than spending time lamenting what should have been done, move on to what action can be taken now and how this situation can be handled more effectively from now on.

  Lay Down the Law

  “We have had challenging times, but there was not one single moment when I thought we couldn’t overcome the challenges.” – Starbucks founder Howard Schultz

  If people could be counted on to treat each other courteously, no rules would be necessary. Unfortunately, most groups have at least one individual who, if left to his own devices, would thoughtlessly trample the rights of others. That’s why it’s necessary to lay down the law so participants are protected.

  A friend of mine who lives in a forty-story apartment building called me with a success story. He reported, “Our annual condominium association meetings had become a nightmare. Some residents refused to go to them, for good reason. Last year the board president completely lost control. He actually ended up standing on his chair, banging his gavel and yelling for order. Neighbors were shouting at neighbors, people were walking out in disgust. It was a disgrace.

  “After reading Tongue Fu!®, I realized it didn’t have to be like that, so I proposed we hire an impartial mediator to chair the proceedings. The board voted for it, and as a result, our meeting ran smoothly and without incident.