Be Bulletproof

by James Brooke

  At this point, there are two possible outcomes: Jacques allows his inner case dweller to kick in; or he uses Jujitsu Communication to handle the situation.

  Jacques’ cave dweller feels a compelling urge to protect his reputation, to launch a counter-attack on Mary, and to draw attention to Mary’s lack of professionalism in not coming to him first.

  But Bulletproof Jacques is smarter than this, and he is adept at calming his inner cave dweller. He says to the senior partner: ‘It’s interesting that you say that. I am obviously concerned that Mary feels that way. I know she is feeling under quite a bit of pressure at the moment. She’s working long hours and I want to do all I can to help her through this time. I’ll call her right away to see exactly what I can do to make sure the way that I work with her works better for her.’

  The senior partner thanks Jacques and goes away relieved that the conversation went well: Jacques heard the message, and in Jacques he has a professional and caring colleague. Jacques has successfully positioned himself alongside the senior partner and refocused the spotlight on Mary. Jacques didn’t put forward his defence and he did not attack Mary; the senior partner was spared the invidious position of having to act as judge between two employees.

  Most self-help books advise that we should draw attention to the unhelpful behaviour of a co-worker. They tell us that we should point out the behaviour and explain how it caused us to feel. Now, there is certainly a time and a place for this, but we suggest that you limit this to extremes of intolerable behaviour. The simple fact is that too much talking about how your feelings have been hurt will not endear you to co-workers. Nobody wants to work with someone who appears unduly sensitive and emotionally high-maintenance.

  When someone behaves in a way that you feel is undesirable, a smarter strategy is to turn the focus on the perpetrator of the behaviour, rather than making the situation mean something about yourself.

  • ‘Tom, I noticed you …’

  • ‘… has something angered you?’

  • ‘… is there anything that I can help you with?

  Consider the following dilemma: Dick and Don are both competing for the next available opportunity to become partner at a law firm. They both started on the same day, some years ago, but the underlying sense of competitiveness has escalated. As the other lawyers gather for the address by the senior partner, Don takes up a prime space in the circle of seats directly in the sightline of the senior partner. Dick arrives late, with no available seats left. He picks up a chair and places it directly in front of Don, blocking his view of the senior partner. Don now either spends the meeting looking at the back of Dick’s head or he asks Dick to move.

  The latter tactic raises the stakes; it draws attention to the fact that Don is feeling slighted and he loses face publicly if the chair remains where it is.

  Bulletproof Don uses Jujitsu Communication. Ostensibly he shows concern for Dick. Standing up, he places his hands on Dick’s shoulders and says, ‘We all sat down without leaving a seat for Dick. Could we all shuffle along slightly so that we can all see each other face to face?’

  Body language experts recognise that it is the higher-status individual who invites the other person to go through the door first. This is the essence of Jujitsu Communication.

  Summary

  Showing concern for the person who might be seen to be attacking is often more effective than counter-attack

  Outflanking

  Have you ever been in a situation where you have started off angrily making a customer complaint, and ended up reassuring the person to whom you were complaining that is wasn’t such a big deal after all and that you fully understand that ‘these things happen’?

  If you have, the chances are that the complaint handler was very effective at using the outflanking technique.

  If I am hungry and that room service I ordered is very late, when I call down to reception I want to feel cared for and understood. If the apology doesn’t quite match up to how I am feeling, then I feel that I have still got some work to do.

  On the other hand, imagine if, on my pointing out that I am a little annoyed, the complaint handler responds, ‘Sir, you have every reason to be annoyed. I would be more than annoyed; I would be furious. We have let you down and that is completely unacceptable …’

  You might be familiar with the Monty Python sketch about the diner who casually complains to a waiter that his fork is slightly dirty. The horrified waiter immediately brings the head waiter who explodes with indignation and explains that the entire washing-up staff will be sacked. With Python-esque absurdity, the situation spirals out of control. It’s a completely ridiculous situation, of course, but what is realistic is that the diner who made the complaint starts protesting that the dirty fork really doesn’t matter.

  When someone makes a particularly heartfelt apology or outflanks our concern, we naturally want to restore the balance and reassure the other person of our reasonableness. The principle goes beyond complaint situations to virtually every walk of life.

  Counsellors who help people with addiction problems, for example, may use this technique. Before committing to a programme of recovery, an alcoholic may argue that there is not a problem and nothing needs to change. Counsellors discovered that if they took this view head on, they would simply increase the level of resistance. A far more effective strategy was to establish a sense of rapport and then ask, ‘Are you saying that you are absolutely happy with everything in your life and nothing at all needs to change?’

  To this, the other person will almost invariably acknowledge at least some aspect of his life that would benefit from change. There is a small opening, but that is all that the counsellor needs to start moving the conversation in the direction of the case for change.

  Outflanking is about overstating the other person’s point of view to the extent that – and we all like to see ourselves as reasonable and flexible – he or she will restore the equilibrium by coming back towards your point of view. (It can only be used once you have managed to set up a state of rapport. If you attempt the outflanking technique before you are in a state of rapport, the other person will smell manipulation and the defences are likely to spring up.)

  Imagine David is making the point to Kim that he really dislikes Proposal 21. If Kim scours the proposal for bits that might change David’s mind, David remains in the same position; he is in the habit of saying no and shooting things down, so, of course, he may as well stay congruent and consistent in his reactions.

  Bulletproof Kim will get alongside David and use the outflanking technique: ‘Thanks for sharing your thoughts, David. Just so that I understand, are you saying that there is absolutely nothing you like in Proposal 21?’

  David, because he wants to see himself as open and reasonable, will almost certainly respond by finding something he likes: Kim has the basis for conversation.

  Summary

  Establish rapport by listening and reflecting concerns

  Once you are in rapport, play back the other person’s issue or concern, but make a point of overstating

  If your best option is to apologise, it is better to over-apologise than risk being seen to under-apologise

  Use the power of reciprocation

  If you have ever found yourself in a kasbah in a North African country, the likelihood is that someone has thrust a cup of mint tea and a pastry in your hand before broaching the subject of his beautiful hand-woven carpets. This is because the salesman understands the psychological power of reciprocity. It may seem preposterous that a cup of mint tea might make you more likely to buy an expensive carpet, but the salesman knows that it does. Reciprocity is an important driver in human interactions, and small favours, concessions or good deals can lead to reciprocated actions that are out of all proportion to the original act.

  Here’s another example of people’s innate desire to reciprocate: Robert Cialdini, Regents’ Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University, sent a Chris
tmas card to a large number of complete strangers – and promptly received cards back from many of them. They had no idea who he was but they were sent a card and so they reciprocated.

  Reciprocity can help you create that all-important opening when you find yourself at loggerheads with someone. The key is to acknowledge one specific area in which you are willing to accept and acknowledge that your adversary may have a point. Almost everybody will then reciprocate by acknowledging the validity of your view on a certain point. The door of communication starts to open and you have movement.

  Consider this dilemma: Roberta, who is head of finance, finds herself in a stand-off with Matt who runs IT. Both believe that the other is trying unfairly to deflect blame for an error on to their own department, but Roberta knows that a vacuum in communication is bad news. She and Matt will need to work together to solve this problem and make sure that it doesn’t happen in future.

  Bulletproof Roberta uses Jujitsu Communication. She re-establishes communication by saying, ‘Matt, I read over that email that I sent you in the heat of the moment, and, in fairness, you had a point. It did sound like I wasn’t taking into consideration the pressures your department have been under. I can understand why you felt how you did. I should have been more balanced.’

  Summary

  Giving ground over a small issue and accepting a point that is obviously of concern to your opponent establishes a rapport that improves communication and helps you win the bigger battle

  Preparing for a presentation

  It seems that in most corporations the presentation has taken over from the conversation as the communication mode of choice. At the time of writing, pharmaceutical giant Glaxo has announced to the press that its scientists will have to make Dragon’s Den-style presentations to its – presumably sceptical – senior management, in order to win support for the pipeline drugs that they are championing. For those not familiar with the reference, Dragon’s Den is a TV show where a series of hapless entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to a panel of cynical and hard-bitten venture capitalists in the hope of bringing a partner, and their finances, on board.11

  The presentation, for the majority of the time, is a remarkably inefficient mode of communication. Report writing requires us to organise our thoughts. The conversation promotes a generative and developmental mode of communication. On the other hand the presentation promotes a sit-back-and-judge mentality. Nonetheless, we need to deal with reality as we find it. It appears that many corporations feel that presentations provide an ideal platform to pick out the shining talent of the future. Excelling at presentations is an important part of being bulletproof.

  You may hear the old chestnut that for most people fear of public speaking ranks higher than fear of death. We have never come across any robust data to back this up. It may be that public speaking is more avoidable than death, but even there the difference is becoming marginal. In today’s corporations you need to be able to cut a dash in the presentation stakes.

  The principles of Jujitsu Communication apply to the presentation every bit as much as the conversation. The presentation is basically a performance. No martial artist – or athlete or actor or musician, for that matter – would step out into the performance arena without the appropriate preparation ritual for mind and body. These things only take a few minutes, but, based on our observation, the majority of presenters in the corporate world use no form of preparation ritual. If anything, the vital minutes prior to a performance are spent making compulsive last-minute changes to the PowerPoint slides. Let’s be clear: people do not buy your argument because of what is on your slides; they buy your argument according to the confidence that they have in you.

  If you are about to perform, your body should adopt a state of heightened alertness. Professional athletes understand this and actively seek out this feeling, hence ‘getting in the zone’ or ‘getting psyched up’. They understand that if they are not feeling these sensations, they are likely to lack focus and underperform. Evidence suggests these physiological or ‘autonomic’ responses are fairly common across all of us; indeed they do not vary much between people who are highly confident and people who consider themselves shy and nervous. What varies hugely, however, is the way in which people read these signals and the interpretations that follow.

  Studies show that people who are less confident have a greater tendency to interpret their body’s autonomic responses as a problem. To this group, the speeding heart, dry mouth, clammy hands and churning stomach are signs that something is wrong. These signs then feed into a cycle of anxiety. Indeed, as Dr Amy Silver puts it, ‘It appears that a misreading of our bodies’ natural signals is one of the greatest sources of performance anxiety.’12

  For the confident group, measures of their physiological changes show that their bodies are doing pretty much the same thing, but the language that they use is markedly different. They are more inclined to describe themselves as ‘calm’, ‘relaxed’ or ‘focused’. It is not that the latter group are deluding themselves. It is more likely that they have learnt to read and interpret their body’s responses in a way that works for them.

  As acting coach Peter Nicholas puts it, ‘The key is to welcome those sensations in your body. Practise becoming aware of them. Be glad that your body knows what to do. In a physiological sense, being nervous and being excited are the same. Stop telling yourself that you are nervous. Start telling yourself that you are excited. You cannot get rid of those butterflies in your stomach, but you can get them flying in formation.’

  A simple physical and mental ritual helps. Tongue-twisters not only relax the facial muscles and tongue, they refocus your attention:

  • Unique New York, New York’s unique.

  • Peggy Babcock’s mixed biscuits.

  • Nine men in a mini is too many men in a mini.

  Humming also helps. It is surprisingly simple but effective. With feet several inches apart, and your knees nice and relaxed, as you hum picture the sound moving up and down your body in a ‘figure of eight’: low, bass down towards the groin and higher pitched towards the crown of your head. This will loosen your mouth and facial muscles and relax your body.

  As all sports performers know, gentle muscular stretches are an ideal way to release tension in your body. Become aware of your breathing, and slowly and effortlessly increase the depth of breath in an easy sensation down to your diaphragm, and slow and easy on the exhale.

  Summary

  Remember – those nerves are there to help you, to improve your performance, not to make life more difficult

  Become aware of your body gearing up for a performance; remind yourself to welcome the sensation

  Learn to recognise the feelings that are evoked, so that you begin to view them as natural rather than a sign of weakness

  Visualise the butterflies in your stomach lining up in formation, as if they mean business

  Practise drawing on different levels of confidence

  It may appear self-evident that bulletproof people are confident. In his work as a confidence coach, Peter Nicholas has observed a common misconception about confidence. ‘People generally tend to talk about confidence as if it were a fixed quantity doled out at birth and then remaining unchanged throughout life. All my experience tells me that this assumption is false and that confidence is something that any of us can learn.’

  When people meet their heroes from any field of performance, one of the things we commonly hear is a sense of surprise at how unassuming this particular superstar appears to be. That is because top performers do not constantly function as if they were constantly stepping out in front of an audience of thousands. They learn how to ‘turn it on or off’, or, more precisely, they know how to select the level of confidence that they need to operate and readily switch on to that level, like a driver selecting a gear.

  Central to Nicholas’s idea is that we have a full range of confidence levels within us. Science seems to be bearing out Nicholas’s intuition. It makes so
und adaptive sense, in evolutionary terms, to be able to move between varying levels of confidence.

  Research into testosterone shows that levels increase as we gear up for a competition. This is understandable. Testosterone is associated with aggression and competitiveness – precisely what we need to prevail in a competitive situation. But research among sports people shows that testosterone’s greatest surge comes after success has been achieved. If you ask people to cite a time when they have felt at the most confident, more often than not they will mention a feeling directly following some victorious achievement.

  This makes sense for our ancestor. A good time to go and pursue more of the same is following a success, so our bodies fire up the chemistry set to go and do so. Success is a positive feedback cycle.

  Conversely, a similar cycle occurs for failure and setback. On these occasions, instead of testosterone, our bodies flood with cortisol, which is a hormone more readily associated with withdrawal and avoidance. If our ancestor has just suffered a defeat, it makes sense to get away and live to fight another day. Watch how soccer players’ ‘heads drop’ when they concede a goal.13

  Winning and losing streaks are real; they have a sound physiological basis. But like any physiology that affects our levels of resilience, we can influence it to work in our favour.

  Peter Nicholas believes that we all have the ability to function at the entire range of levels of confidence, but most of us get stuck at a certain level. That becomes our default setting. Nicholas feels that a vital starting point is to recognise all of our varying levels, and to familiarise ourselves with them, without judging.