Be Bulletproof

by James Brooke

  Oh, and then remained silent.

  Rapport severed. Behaviour unrewarded. Message received.

  On the other hand, if you want to convince your boss of something it is worth remembering that bosses tend to be sensitive souls with fragile egos. They may feel out of their depth. Perception of others tends to be important. Either way, the golden rule is never to make it appear that you believe that your boss’s judgement was wrong. If you want to persuade your boss of something or change his mind, go for the ‘new information approach’. In other words, whatever your boss’s judgement was, it was right at the time – but, of course, now new information has come to light. For example, you might say: ‘Of course, supplier X has always been the best company for the job, but given that things have changed …’

  In life, as in the movies, understanding more about the ‘villain’ – which in this case might be your boss – instead of just damning them immediately, is a more realistic way of viewing the world. Robert McKee says, ‘Try and see things from the villain’s point of view. Instead of just telling yourself and anyone who’ll listen that the guy is a dick, talk to him and show you understand him. Start the guy talking about his life and then repeat his life back to him, but starring him. You can lead him like a child. From our time as children we’ve listened to stories so tell him, “I see what you’re up against.” He’ll start to think: “This person really gets me.” Once you can get this guy to realise that you understand him, then life becomes much easier.’

  Summary

  Avoid drawing attention to your boss’s behaviour – avoid becoming an emotionally high-maintenance employee

  In conversation with a toxic boss, take a deep, easy breath before responding

  Puncture a person’s silence ploy by drawing attention to it – ‘Are you still there?’

  Bulletproof people minimise any sense of drama by keeping their tone adult and businesslike

  Bulletproof people don’t take the set role another person is nudging them to play – they know how to break the rapport

  If you want to change your boss’s mind about something, don’t suggest that her initial judgement was wrong; suggest that the situation has changed or new information has come to light

  Create options

  If you want to reduce stress and therefore feel and act in a more resilient way, look at how you can increase the ways in which you exercise your own control, freedom and latitude to make decisions in a situation. In the modern office, what we do and the way that we do it is often predetermined by someone else. It often feels that we work at the behest of an omnipresent boss.19

  It goes further. Research conducted within the civil service in the United Kingdom measured the levels of cortisol – the stress hormone – in workers at different levels in the organisation. The findings exploded the myth of the stressed senior executive. One might assume that the most senior grades, encumbered by all of that day-to-day responsibility, would show the highest levels of stress; in fact, the reverse was shown to be true. Those further down the organisation were significantly more likely to suffer ill-health associated with stress. For them, stress comes less from the demands of the job, and more from the degree of control that the individual has when delivering against those job demands.20

  So how can we increase the scope of control that we are able to practise in any given situation? Feelings of stress and unhappiness at work are likely to be accompanied by feelings of helplessness. Confidence falls, cortisol increases and, of course, cortisol is there to say to you ‘stay out of trouble, hide, keep your head down’. Under stress, our minds tend to narrow their focus. This mechanism has a useful evolutionary purpose. Narrowness of focus in our evolutionary past may have been the most useful way to concentrate our energies to ensure safety, but it does mean that when we are feeling low or stressed we are typically at our least creative, inventive or imaginative about the full range of alternative options that might be open to us.

  We are at our least stressed, happiest and most personally effective when we have control. Control is about choice. The first step is to challenge yourself to identify aspects of the current situation where you have choice. Then start to exercise choice in those situations. How might you prioritise? What are the things that you could choose not to do? Whose help could you call on in the current situation? How could he or she help you?

  A significant breakthrough comes when we ask people whether they really need to remain in the situation. The answer that frequently comes back is along the lines of, ‘Well, you can’t choose your boss.’

  When we stop and reflect, we realise that we are, of course, free to exercise more choice – in more ways – than we typically allow ourselves to consider.

  A follow-up question goes along the lines of: ‘If the current situation doesn’t improve, what alternative options could you create for yourself?’

  This is followed by: ‘What could you start to put in place right away, so that you are in a position to exercise those options if you need to?’

  Those stressed civil servants would be far less stressed if they had the latitude and control that comes about from knowing that you can step into an alternative job, if you need to do so. Even if they stayed in the same role, just knowing that they had the option of stepping into an alternative role would reduce stress. In our view, people become blinkered when they find themselves in a high-stress situation. This means that they are less likely to look at their full range of alternatives and less likely to create options for themselves.

  And remember that, like any good supplier, you have a product that people want. There are other potential customers out there. Just as you have some latitude to choose the customers with whom you do business, you also have some latitude to choose your boss. There are plenty of other bosses (customers) in the marketplace, who would appreciate your skills. You may not like the idea of leaving your current job or your current employer, but it is always an option that you have. Put yourself in a position to be able to exercise this option if you choose. Brush up your résumé, hone your interviews skills, use your network of contacts, even start early, informal conversations with other employers (customers) who might be in the market for your talents. Once you create alternative options for yourself, you put yourself back in the driving seat. Any smart supplier scans the horizon for potentially more fruitful customers.

  Many people are uncomfortable with our suggestion that you should consider leaving the role because of your boss, but a supplier is far more effective if he has also explored the possibility of working with other customers who have expressed an interest in his talents. This is not a case of running away from situations. The power comes simply from the act of starting to exercise choice and create options. You may or may not exercise the options but it is having options available that lowers stress and increases confidence to deal with situations. The process of identifying choice, exercising choice and creating options soon becomes a habit. Once you start doing it and feel how personally empowering it is, you will find yourself doing it instinctively in situations that may have seemed hopeless to you in the past.

  Summary

  Stress at work is often accompanied by feelings of helplessness as confidence falls and our focus narrows

  Stress comes less from job demands and more from the lack of control we have when delivering against those job demands

  To reduce stress and become more resilient, consider how to increase your own control, freedom and latitude to make decisions – create new options for yourself

  You do not need to use them – just having them empowers you

  You have more control over your relationship with your boss than you think

  As we’ve said, it’s important to understand that, given your boss’s seniority within the organisation, in many ways they have more power than you. It’s also easier to change the way in which you work, rather than trying to make your boss change their habits. But bulletproof people do not allow a difficult boss to creat
e feelings of helplessness and impotence within them.

  You might not be able to control your manager but you can control the way you think about them and even the way in which you relate to them. When it comes to making the most of a difficult boss, it’s interesting to look at the work of Dr Suzanne Kobasa Ouelette, a researcher in stress at City College, New York. She believes that people who cope effectively with stress have three particular traits, which she calls ‘The Three Cs’:

  • Control – successful copers feel in control of their lives and decisions. They feel they can influence and have an impact on events and their surroundings, and they can make things happen. They have an internal locus of control, rather than an external one. They feel powerful, rather than like a victim who allows circumstances to dictate their life’s outcomes. They feel in the driver’s seat of their own lives in making choices. Remember, you don’t have to cede this right to your boss. You are a supplier and you have choices. Can you change things or reorganise things at work so that they work better for you, like Karen and Freddie did in the previous examples? Challenge yourself to think where and how you can exercise choice in this situation – it may be over something big or something small; either way it will help.

  • Commitment – successful copers have a strong dedication, involvement and commitment to whatever they do, and put their heart into it and give 100 per cent. They are curious about the world, rather than feeling alienated from people, their workplace and the environment. Bulletproof people don’t let their difficult relationships with a boss damage their working relationships with other colleagues and their overall commitment to their job. If you are going through a tough time with your boss, make sure that you increase, rather than decrease, your commitment to your work.

  • Challenge – successful copers treat a problem as if it were a challenge from which to learn, grow and test their strengths and abilities, instead of feeling afraid, burdened or threatened. As the Japanese saying goes, ‘The end of the world for a caterpillar is the beginning of a whole new life for a butterfly.’ It’s worth remembering that what you learn from dealing with this difficult boss will be useful for handling bosses and colleagues in the future; see your boss as a customer and take on the challenge. You can’t change your boss’s behaviour, but you can focus on being the best possible, most resilient and flexible supplier you can be.

  Of course, your boss is important, but often it is your boss’s boss who is really important. As with any customer relationship, you also need to know who’s the ultimate decision-maker and purse-string holder. And, in many cases, that person is your boss’s boss. That is why he may be important in helping you to find a new ‘customer’ (a new boss).

  What leverage do you have with your boss’s boss? Are you on his radar? Do you have a relationship with him? Aim to build your ‘leverage’. Any entrepreneur knows that they need to have a ‘USP’ (unique selling proposition). Determine what it is that you can do better than anybody else – something that is a high priority to your boss and your boss’s boss. Keep getting better at this and making sure that both your boss and your boss’s boss are aware of it.

  Don’t flaunt it. Anything that suggests you are throwing down the gauntlet to your boss will worsen the situation. A toxic boss is most lethal when feeling insecure. Just quietly get on with it. Use the three Cs. View building leverage and a relationship with your boss’s boss as a challenge. Commit to it. You will increase your sense of control.

  Summary

  You have power over the way you think about and relate to your boss

  Challenge yourself to identify any aspects, large or small, in the current situation over which you have control – and take action

  Consider dealing with them to be a challenge and an opportunity, rather than a hopeless task

  Increase your commitment to your work

  Don’t let the problems you’re experiencing with them damage your relationships with others

  Find a mentor

  Dr Karen Reivich is co-author of The Optimistic Child and a world-recognised authority on resilience. In her research, she notes that resilient people are not the tough individualists going it alone that many people assume them to be. On the contrary, she finds that most resilient people are those who have no qualms about reaching out for support as and when they need it.

  ‘Contrary to some of the myths around resilience,’ Reivich explains, ‘resilient people don’t go it alone. When bad stuff happens they reach out to the people who care about them and they ask for help.’ Empathy is vital as it ‘is the glue that keeps social relationships together’.

  Bulletproof people are unafraid to go out and enlist the help of others. In fact, they actively go out of their way to do so. They probably recognise that, far from seeing us as weak, needy or indebted to them, the people from whom we ask for help tend to feel flattered and tend to like us more. (Recall the Benjamin Franklin effect: when we do someone a favour, we tend to like that person more. We have invested in that person, so our minds want to make sense of our behaviour by looking out for good things about that person.)

  If you seek out a mentor, you will not only have the direct benefit of a wiser and more experienced guide to help you through tough times, you will also have created an ally. While there is clear evidence for the benefits of having a mentor, the reasons for these benefits are less clear. However, we would put forward two strong hypotheses:

  • Because our mentor has presumably been around longer than we have and has attained some level of career accomplishment, our mentor symbolises to us an important principle of being bulletproof: the principle that whatever we are going through now, we come out the other side

  • By externalising our thoughts as if describing them to another person, we gain greater clarity, calmness and perspective around a situation, and, therefore, we make better choices. Even if we don’t have the conversation, the process of thinking through the conversation is what helps. This may help to explain another curious phenomenon about mentoring – the fact that even when the mentor does not do very much at all, there still seem to be measurable benefits21

  Choose a mentor. If your company does not have a formal mentoring scheme, find someone to be your informal mentor (someone you know, but not too intimately, to allow for a little reflective distance). If you are unable to find anyone suitable, create an imaginary mentor. Even an imaginary mentor will help to deliver the two benefits of mentoring that we mention above. And, of course, like so many of the ideas in the book, thinking things through as if you were talking with your mentor will strengthen those more helpful pathways of thought in your brain maps.

  Summary

  Bulletproof people are more resilient and have no concerns about reaching out for support when they need it

  Bulletproof people externalise their thoughts by describing them to another person – even imaginary – to gain perspective and make better choices

  Find a mentor – even an imaginary one

  CHAPTER 5

  TURNING REJECTION INTO A SPRINGBOARD

  BEING REJECTED, OR suffering a series of knocks, can feel like being in the wilderness. You’re lost without a map and can’t see any way to get back to normality. Anyone who has succeeded in any field has almost invariably had to survive knocks and setbacks. Taking stock, being honest with yourself, identifying what strengths you have and putting things into context by thinking of them being part of the storyline of your life, will also help. As we will discover, every hero spends time in the wilderness.

  Case Study 5.1

  ‘I used to have a spring in my step. Now I can’t even get out of the car at a sales call,’ Bob told us. He once had the highest figures in the department. He had been sales person of the month on more than one occasion. He knew sometimes you hit a lean patch. So why did it feel different this time?

  ‘Now, when I am talking to a prospective customer, I feel like I’ve got “reject me – I’m desperate” across my forehead,’ Bob continued
. ‘Even my best customers don’t return my calls any more.’ Bob looked like a man whose reserves of positive energy were running on empty. He was starting to show physical signs of stress and he could not help fearful thoughts about the future from entering his mind.

  Case Study 5.2

  Andrea knew the statistics: one of fifty bids for start-up financing is successful. So why did this latest rejection leave her feeling floored, more so than any of the others? When Andrea left her job with a global fashion brand at the age of 31 to set up her online fashion company, she felt convinced that she had the character and talent to be an entrepreneur. Self-belief was one of her major assets. Maybe that is why she felt so affronted when the latest presentation of her business plan was rejected in a way that not only asked questions of her plan, but also left her doubting her own talent and judgement.

  A business studies graduate, she had also been studying the mid-range fashion market during evenings and weekends. ‘I’d spotted a gap in the market,’ she said over coffee. ‘Women in their 30s want something relaxed but fashionable, which they’re not going to see all their friends wearing,’ she explained. ‘I know of lots of smaller labels and new designers who are looking for an outlet.’

  Having produced a detailed business plan and joined a number of women’s networking groups, she began to look for financing.

  When the first angel investors she presented her ideas to said no, she was naturally disappointed but not disheartened. ‘They were polite and listened, but then said no to me pretty quickly. They just said it wasn’t right for them at the moment.’

  She sighed and then began to list the other investors who had rejected her idea. ‘Some were helpful but others were just plain rude. I remember during a meeting, one of the guys I was supposed to be talking to never even took his eyes off his BlackBerry. And after another meeting, as I was leaving the room I heard them laughing.’