Be Bulletproof

by James Brooke

  Case Study 3.2

  Charlotte and John were peers and colleagues on the same account team at an advertising agency. Charlotte stepped out of a client presentation with the rest of the account team. She turned to John and said, ‘John, I have to say that the client team were really unhappy. It was clear that you weren’t prepared.’

  Angry and upset, John then defended himself, refuting Charlotte’s suggestion as outrageously unfair and arguing that no other mortal had put in as much preparation as he had. He might have put forward the number of hours and the number of late nights that he’d spent preparing. But John had already lost. He might have refuted the assertion that he was unprepared but he had accepted the premise of the discussion. John had linked himself with being unprepared.

  Richard Nixon for ever associated himself with the word ‘crook’ after his infamous ‘I am not a crook’ defence at the height of the Watergate scandal.

  Imagine if John had responded by saying, ‘Okay, I hear your concern. Thanks for the feedback. I need to give some thought as to what might have given that impression. I think it’s always worthwhile for all of us to look at what we could do better. What about your performance? Is there anything you feel that you could have done better?’

  John’s use of the phrase ‘I need to give some thought as to what might have given that impression’ means he does not defend or attack, and, therefore, does not give his critic anything to push against. He sounds open and reasonable, but he does not accept the premise and emphasises ‘impression’.

  John has left Charlotte with two options: she either has to refer to her own shortcomings, or look churlish by criticising John but refusing to acknowledge that she has any shortcomings (by the way, this is not one for use with your boss).

  Become aware of situations where you would normally defend yourself. Try simply taking a breath, and saying nothing about the criticism. Then move the conversation on to what you see as the most immediate forward-looking priorities.

  Have you ever noticed how martial arts experts often stand on their own in parks doing the same movements over and over again when there are no assailants? This is because they understand the principles of muscle memory. Repetition is the key in committing a technique to muscle memory. This enables a technique to become more deeply ingrained, so when you need to recall it, it becomes much more automatic and instinctive. The process at work engages with the brain every bit as much as the muscles. It strengthens the relevant neural pathways.

  If you keep practising Jujitsu Communication in the low-stakes situations, the techniques will more readily and automatically spring to mind in the high-stakes situations.

  Jenny, a young woman executive we spoke to, explained how she had used this technique: ‘Every year the public affairs department where I work becomes insanely busy as we prepare to publish the financial results. A colleague from another department and I share a secretary, and it becomes a tug of war at this time of year between the two of us as we battle over her time. This year when I broached the subject, he said, “Here we go again … you only ever think of yourself.” Normally I would have become upset and told him how unfair his comment was. This time I simply took a breath and said, “The annual results aren’t far away. I think it would be good to start making some plans for resources.” At first he seemed completely wrong-footed and there was a moment’s silence. He apologised. We came up with a really good compromise.’

  If we meet the force of an assault head-on, we increase its intensity. We invite the other person to come forth with more evidence in support of their assault on us. We accept the premise and, therefore, we affect other people’s perception of us. And we waste energy and lose focus.

  Bulletproof people understand that – rather than fighting like with like – the most effective way to fend off a verbal assault is to take the energy out of the assault and turn it around so that it disables your assailant.

  Summary

  Wrong-foot your opponent by not defending an attack

  Take breath and a pause, and then move on to what you want to talk about

  Phrases like ‘I need to consider what gave you that impression’ make you sound proactive but emphasise the fact that it is an impression only

  The power of the breath

  There are smart ways to respond to a verbal assault and there are dumb ways. Many of us know the smart ways but too often enact the dumb ways in spite of ourselves. This takes us back to the cave dweller and guide metaphor. The cave dweller wants to go for the instinctive, automatic and emotional response, but the guide knows that there is a smarter way to handle the situation. The problem is that the cave dweller is more powerful than the guide.

  Sometimes we allow the cave dweller to take over. We get emotional, we counter-attack, we lose our temper and then we tell ourselves that it was the right thing to do at the time. We say to ourselves, ‘Well, just on this occasion he really needed to hear it like that.’ Our minds confabulate explanations after the event to try to make us feel better about the way we acted. This, of course, is nonsense. There is never an occasion where exercising less control works to your advantage.

  Nobody has found a perfect way to make sure that our rational, reasonable self takes charge in every situation, but we do believe that you can get better at it.

  In all communication situations, the breath is vital. Try it right now. Take a nice easy breath into the diaphragm and breathe twice as slow on the exhalation. As you exhale become aware of your muscles relaxing. Now do it again, this time placing your hand gently over the diaphragm. As you breathe in, feel your hand move gently as your diaphragm inflates slightly. Again, take it twice as slowly on the exhalation. That good feeling that you are experiencing is your body signalling to your mind that everything is okay. You can cope. Because you are calmer, your thinking is clearer and you are in a better situation to choose the most helpful response.

  Pausing and allowing the silence gives you time to breathe and to think rationally, and it gives others a moment to calm down. It also means that when you do speak the fact that you have taken a pause means that people are much more likely to really listen to you.

  You cannot easily remind yourself ‘not’ to respond in a certain way, under given circumstances. Our minds don’t readily respond to the ‘don’t’ command. You need to remind yourself to do something else instead. Again, this is where the breath helps. Before you respond or answer, take one of those deep, easy breaths. The pause will be imperceptible to anyone else but it will buy you an age of valuable time to choose your response. Practise the breath before responding in lower-stakes situations. Start now. You will be well positioned to think clearly and choose the best response in high-stakes situations.

  Being ‘attacked’ during a meeting provokes a variety of strong emotions: hurt, anger, indignation and embarrassment, to name but a few. However, bulletproof people know how to identify these emotions. It’s not a question of denying their existence or trying to combat them, but rather objectively noting them. As above, it’s something that with practice can become automatic: a form of ‘muscle memory’.

  You can master this. You just pause and become aware for a moment about your thoughts and feelings.

  When you feel under verbal attack, the danger is that your reflex defence mechanisms take over. This is where the ‘wiser-you’ can step in to help. Take a breath. Imagine that for a moment you are turning the volume down on the situation, just as you would do with a television, to have a quick chat with the wiser-you, before you respond.

  Summary

  Pause and breathe

  Do not be scared to allow a moment of silence before you respond

  Take a moment to note how you feel during a confrontational conversation

  Imagine you are viewing the situation or antagonist through a screen; you are free to turn the volume up or down

  ‘Reflect’ before responding

  ‘How has the national debt personally affected each of your lives? And
if it hasn’t, how can you possibly find a cure for the common people if you have no experience of what is ailing them?’

  The young woman in the audience had pitched a perfectly reasonable – but, at the same time, fiendishly clever – question to the presidential candidates in the live television debate during the 1992 US presidential election. Clinton, the outsider from Arkansas, is challenging the former vice-president, George Bush, Snr.

  Both candidates are known to have considerable financial means. They appear to be left with the options of admitting that they are in no position to identify with ordinary people, or looking ridiculous as they pretend otherwise.

  Bush waffles. He refers to the national and global economies. The questioner is insistent, chipping in to draw him back to the phrase that is at the heart of the question: ‘you personally’. He’s visibly uncomfortable and appears irritable. He tries a new tactic:

  ‘Help me with the question and I’ll try to answer it.’

  Clinton’s performance, however, demonstrates why he is such an intuitive communicator. Looking comfortable, yet caring and concerned, he slowly rises to his feet. Not too slowly; he is keen to answer the question but he knows how to look considered. He looks squarely and openly at the questioner. It’s a look that suggests he is hiding nothing. ‘You know people who have lost their jobs and lost their homes,’ he says. ‘Uh huh,’ replies the questioner.

  Clinton’s tone of voice matches that of the questioner. As he talks, she nods her head.

  ‘I am the governor of a small state … when people lose their jobs, I know their names.’

  Clinton’s answer was not ingeniously slick – the content was scarcely memorable – but he understood the power of being in rapport. Bush felt irritated and exposed, so he tried to take the questioner on. Clinton got alongside the questioner, so that they both appeared to be looking at the same problem together. Bringing personal experience to bear like this is extremely useful in any communication. This is the essence of Jujitsu Communication.

  Clinton started by simply playing back to the questioner what she said. To be more precise, it is the bit of what she said that she clearly cared most about. This is what we call ‘reflecting’. Clinton demonstrated the power of reflecting as a rapport-building tool. This is one of the simplest and most effective ways of showing that we are listening and, therefore, it is one of the simplest and most effective ways to create rapport.

  By reflecting, we mean simply playing back what the other person has said. You can paraphrase (but what you do not do is to take what the other person has said and put an angle on it to support your argument). The important thing is to reflect the feeling behind what the other person has said. So for example:

  • ‘This is important to you, isn’t it …’

  • ‘I can see you care about this, don’t you …’

  To reflect you need to listen out for feelings as well as facts. Reflecting is intended to show that you have listened, so each reflection must be unique, holding a mirror up to the feeling that the other person has just expressed. For this reason, phrases that will definitely not cut it are phrases such as:

  • ‘I hear what you say …’

  • ‘I understand where you’re coming from …’

  These are vague, generalised and overused. Immediately the listener feels that the speaker is going to dismiss them or reject their arguments.

  We make a point of encouraging reflecting in customer service situations:

  • ‘You have been waiting for an hour and no one has spoken with you. That must be really frustrating.’

  In fact, the use of the breath and the use of reflecting are two important cornerstones when dealing with any highly emotional person who is making a complaint. And here’s a useful further tip. As you pause and take a breath, say silently to yourself, ‘This person needs to be heard.’ You will notice how it calms you and helps you to stay in control.

  Reflecting is not the same as agreeing. In the case studies that we used, John, without agreeing, could have reflected by saying to Charlotte: ‘You’re concerned that we’re going to lose this client; tell me more about that … what else could we have done differently?’

  Jenny, without agreeing with her colleague, could reflect his concerns with: ‘You’re worried that you won’t have sufficient resources during this busy period. Okay, let’s talk about that.’

  As we often remind people, great conversations are built on rapport, not agreement.

  Summary

  Reflect back at the other person what they have said (and how they feel), without putting any spin on it

  Develop rapport – make it clear that you understand and share their concerns

  Make a personal reference wherever possible

  Ask for the ‘thought behind the question’

  People frequently ask a question when what they really want to do is make a statement. We could hypothesise why this is: maybe people feel that they do not have permission to simply state their point of view, as it seems too forthright to do so; maybe it is an instinctive defence mechanism, which stems from a desire to avoid committing or exposing ourselves; maybe it is just a linguistic convention.

  Either way, if you simply take the question at face value and attempt to answer it, you miss vital opportunities to understand people’s true concerns and to open up meaningful communication.

  If you think that the question is important, do not leap straight to an answer. Try asking, ‘What’s the thought behind the question?’

  We received the following email from an oil industry executive with whom we had recently worked:

  I tried that ‘thought behind the question’ thing that you guys talked about the other week. I was asked this really annoying question by a doubter I have on my team. Just as I was about to answer I paused and asked the thought behind the question. This opened up a whole new dialogue with the guy. We were able to talk about his concerns and in the end I was able to turn around a real cynic. It worked like magic.

  We all have a basic human need to feel understood. If you can draw out what is really important to people, you have the basis for more effective communication. We have found that framing your response as ‘the thought behind the question’ seems to open up communication in a more helpful way than the more conventional ‘why do you ask?’. Maybe it is because the notion of a ‘thought’ suggests something a little more substantive.

  Highly effective communicators learn to create time and space for themselves when under pressure, without ever appearing to do so. This is why they appear to be so graceful under pressure and so capable of thinking on their feet. Being bulletproof requires the same skill. The key is to turn the attention back on to the interests and priorities of the questioner. This buys you vital time, while giving the impression that your main priority is to understand your interlocutor’s concerns (not to mention the benefit of actually understanding her concerns). The ‘thought behind the question’ technique is ideal for the purpose. There are variants on the same theme: ‘You have clearly given this a lot of thought. Before I give my answer, can you tell me a bit more about your concerns?’

  People often use a question when they intend to censure or criticise the other person. When people do this to us, it puts us on the back foot. The aggressor sets the agenda and leaves us with the feeling of scraping around for self-justifying answers. The ‘thought behind the question’ technique is ideal for turning around an assault that is dressed up as a question.

  Here is an example: Kevin and Ray are colleagues whose teams have to collaborate each year to deliver the annual report to shareholders. Kevin is responsible for the financial data, while Ray’s department do the creative and production. Each year the stress and temperature rise as the deadline looms. Kevin says to Ray, ‘How do we know that your guys won’t let us all down again by going over time and over budget?’

  Ray could react with aggression, with self-justification, with excuses or with an apology. But just imagine if Ray
were to respond like this: ‘Just before I answer, Kevin, it sounds like you have some real concerns there. Could you tell me about them?’

  The onus is now on Kevin to articulate things in an adult way. Once Kevin has spoken, a good follow-on for Ray would be along the lines of: ‘What specific thing would you need to see in order to allay your concerns?’

  In the exchange above, Ray has put himself in the driving seat of the conversation without ever needing to become defensive or aggressive. That’s Jujitsu Communication.

  Summary

  Before you answer a question, consider the thought behind it. This is the real issue that the questioner is really concerned about

  Then use a question in return to tease out more details or make sure that your answer to the question addresses this thought

  Shift the focus on to the other person’s underlying interest

  The ‘thought behind the question’ (and its similar and closely related phrases) also allows you to move forward to interest-driven as opposed to position-driven communication.

  For example, David says to Kim, ‘I want you to take all references to Project X out of the proposal.’ Let’s assume Kim feels that there are important elements to keep in. So, if Kim is being position-driven, she will respond with something like, ‘Well, I think it is important to keep them in.’ A tug of war ensues. Kim may get her way, but she will probably leave David determined to win the next round.

  Bulletproof Kim takes a pause and decides to go for the interest-driven tactic. Her response will be, ‘Why is that important to you, David?’

  David now feels better towards Kim as she is taking an interest in what is important to him. Kim has moved herself alongside David, rather than taking him head on, to a position from which she can far better steer the conversation to a more productive outcome.

  This might be followed up along the lines of: ‘David, I take your point about XYZ … from my perspective, I think it’s important that we mention ABC … can we find a workaround?’