Be Bulletproof

by James Brooke

  However, anger and denial sometimes have a place. There are people – you’ve probably met them – who tend to dismiss critical feedback as being unconnected with their behaviour but entirely, in some form or other, down to the deliverer of the feedback. This view of the world is known as ‘defensive externalism’. Annoying though it might be for those who work with them, this strategy does, in fact, seem to work well for people up to a point. Research shows that people who deploy this tactic do tend to be more successful than the rest of us. Perhaps we can learn from them. It seems to be a more successful strategy than holding ourselves entirely accountable for any critical feedback that we may have brought upon ourselves.31

  As an emotion, anger gets bad press. The assumption seems to be that anger inevitably increases the likelihood of ever-more-undesirable outcomes. But why do we feel anger after receiving some critical feedback? Thinking of the physiological changes that were going on with Mike might explain why anger has a useful adaptive role to play. Anger is associated with increased testosterone, the hormone which in turn is associated with increased aggression and competitiveness. We could hypothesise that Mike is unconsciously harnessing the resources to get back out there and compete.32

  So what can Mike do to react in a positive way to this feedback and learn from it? It won’t surprise you to hear that CBT and mindfulness help.

  We can learn from our mistakes when we are able to set aside the emotional fallout and view them without judging. Ask yourself: ‘Why am I feeling like this?’ This will lead you to considering your thoughts objectively. For example, in Mike’s case these thoughts could be ‘Didier thinks I’m rubbish’, or ‘I’m going to lose my job’. Mike might be right, in which case it makes sense that he would be experiencing those feelings. But it might well be that this is not the case and he needs to check these thoughts and see whether they’re just part of the automatic chain of reactions that happen for him during such a situation. Mike could challenge these thoughts cognitively. Has he done good work before for Didier or his boss Jonathan or others, for instance? What do Jonathan and others say about Mike’s previous work? Thinking about the situation more dispassionately and putting it into context will help here.

  As well as that, here is a technique that you can try to increase your mindfulness when you feel that you have been ambushed by a verbal assault, and negative, destructive thoughts and feelings are preying on your mind. Peter Nicholas asked Mike to relax and to become aware of what thoughts drifted into his mind. If the thought of the incident with Didier drifted into his mind, Mike was asked just to let it drift.

  Practise this yourself if there is something on your mind such as some unduly critical feedback or a verbal assault:

  Imagine that it is something that you can see … a shape … it doesn’t matter what shape … maybe the shape is changing … become aware of how it’s drifting … imagine you could see how you feel about the incident. Let the feeling drift into your mind … See it. Don’t judge it … accept it … let it drift.

  You can practise this. Become aware of emotions as they drift into your mind. Don’t try to usher them straight out again. Just let them be there. Become aware of how they feel … you might feel the emotion in a particular part of your body. It might seem to be a particular colour. Notice how you let the emotion sit there and still be okay.

  Mike was now comfortable letting the thought and the feeling drift in and out of his mind. With no need to suppress it, he ceased to strengthen it. By ‘seeing’ the emotion, as opposed to simply feeling it, Mike was, in part, starting to place it outside of the automatic emotional processing part of his mind. He was starting the steps of what psychologists refer to as ‘dissociation’.

  Dissociation was traditionally seen in psychology as something less than healthy. It is normal for our memories, opinions, feelings, thoughts and automatic emotional and physiological responses, most of the time, to be seamlessly integrated and wired up together. Dissociation intentionally puts a bit of distance between them. This means that you can become aware of how an emotion feels – like anger, disgust, fear, panic – without responding to it physiologically.

  Summary

  Learning from feedback – even negative feedback – is essential to our personal development

  To perform best we must learn from feedback while minimising the emotional cost of receiving it

  Bulletproof people increase their mindfulness if they feel they’ve been ambushed by a verbal assault

  Bulletproof people know how to become more aware of their thoughts – they don’t suppress their negative emotions and therefore don’t strengthen them

  Bulletproof people can ‘see’ their emotion, as opposed to simply feeling it – in this way they’re able to dissociate

  Evaluate the feedback objectively

  Feedback is sometimes analogised with medicine: we don’t like it; it tastes nasty; but if we are to get better, we need to swallow it and move on. This is true up to a point, but there is a key difference. Medicine is tested rigorously in clinical trials before being put on the market and it is fair to assume that the person prescribing or administering it has attained a high level of professional training. Not so with feedback. Feedback in the workplace is of varying quality. Some of it will be useful and helpful, some of it will be harmless junk and some of it will be toxic junk. Other than in some very rare cases, to be willing to accept it all unquestioningly or to reject it outright are both thinking errors.

  The first exercise is to think through what we can control and what we cannot control in our quest to get back on our feet. This is an important characteristic of feedback. You do not control the feedback you receive. The deliverer of the feedback is entirely responsible for that. But you do exercise control over the extent to which you categorise feedback into ‘helpful’ and ‘unhelpful’ (this does not necessarily prevent you from feeling hurt by it, but you are entirely free to choose how you evaluate it, what is kept and what is discarded).

  We encouraged Mike to write down his evaluation of the feedback that he received, using a two-by-two grid. The axes were: (i) helpful versus unhelpful; and (ii) content as opposed to style. The process of writing down the feedback put Mike in control and allayed his instinct to defend. What happened to Didier’s feedback was now Mike’s choice.

  If you do this exercise, you may find that there is plenty of overlap between ‘content’ and ‘style’. Sometimes they are not easily separated. That is okay; don’t worry too much about the categories. You will notice also that we encouraged Mike to put his opinions or interpretations in brackets. Some things will only make sense if you acknowledge that they require the context of your interpretation. That Didier used words that were hostile is not a fact. That Didier’s words came across to Mike as being hostile is another matter. It is okay to be subjective, provided that you are clear you are being subjective.

  Sitting looking at the words on the matrix, Mike felt his blood pressure lower. The incident no longer seemed so threatening. Mike had put himself in charge of what is kept and what is discarded. He was the judge of what was valid and what was junk in Didier’s feedback.

  When you receive some feedback remind yourself that you do not control the feedback that you receive but you are 100 per cent in charge of the evaluation process: assessing what is useful and what is not; deciding what to keep and what to discard. Writing it down helps you to feel more objective and dispassionate. In the evaluation of the feedback, it is solely your judgement that counts and your interests that matter.

  Summary

  Feedback – some is useful, some is harmless and some is downright toxic

  You can’t control the feedback you get, but can control what you categorise as ‘helpful’ and ‘unhelpful’

  Bulletproof people put themselves in charge of what they keep and what they discard

  By putting themselves in charge, bulletproof people are able to maximise the learning they gain from personal feedback

  V
iew the situation from a different perspective

  The next stage was to encourage Mike to take a mental walk around the incident, and to view it not just from where he was standing but to use his imagination to view it from different perspectives. If the feedback was unexpectedly antagonistic, why had Didier behaved like that?

  The object of this exercise is not necessarily to forgive the person who gave you feedback, but to become as effective as possible following that feedback. It is important to note here that this is also not an exercise in attempting to mind read or to psychoanalyse people. Those strategies are doomed to exacerbate the problem. Equally it is important to keep reminding ourselves that we never know what another person’s intentions or motivations are in a situation. At best we can take a view on what they appeared to be under a set of circumstances, but always acknowledge the large scope for error.

  We asked Mike to ask a simple but useful question of himself: ‘How am I feeling when I behave like Didier behaved?’

  We were prepared for the inevitable, initial response: ‘I never act like that a***hole.’

  We persisted. Mike acknowledged that maybe he has – albeit rarely – been overly critical, harsh, aggressive, or let someone have it with both barrels. And building on this, we moved on to the next question: ‘What else might have been going on for Didier, when he made that phone call?’

  Gradually, Mike’s tone changed. ‘Didier may have been under a fair bit of pressure,’ Mike acknowledged. ‘Thinking back, I recall that he did say that he had tried to communicate the big ideas of our strategy to his board, but he had been through quite a tough time when he was talking to them. I guess maybe he had been beaten up and felt a bit bruised …’ The conversation continued. The point is not that Mike now read Didier’s mind; he didn’t. The point is not that Mike forgave Didier. The point is that Didier was just another fallible human under pressure. Didier no longer cast a gloomy shadow of mythic proportions over Mike’s day-to-day mood.

  Understanding the person who’s giving you harsh feedback will help you handle the situation – even if you can’t bring yourself to love them. Understanding a more complete picture of what was happening for Didier did not make his behaviour more excusable, but it did make it a little more understandable – and, therefore, more manageable for Mike.

  Summary

  We never know another person’s intentions in a situation

  You can take a view on what a person’s motivations might have been, but always acknowledge the large scope for error

  Remember, other people are fallible under pressure – just like us

  Learn to re-focus your mind

  Mike told us that, for some time in the aftermath of the feedback, he had a knot in his stomach and a feeling of impending doom … a feeling that either he was just about to be told off or someone somewhere was already telling him off. This is a common feeling: our inner cave dweller, putting safety first, is looking out for a common story, preparing us for the eventuality that this is now a regular occurrence and that we should be prepared for an ambush around every corner.

  That feeling in the pit of your stomach is created by an important neural function. The brain is sending a signal that something is amiss, so either watch out or take preventative action. Generally the moment passes and we feel that nice sense of relief. But the greater the impact of the initial blow or assault on the mind, the more that sense of doom becomes locked into the mind. It does not readily pass, even though the moment has passed.

  The nature of feedback, particularly harsh feedback, is that we want to dwell on it, and our minds ‘re-make’ the memory every time we think of it. Dwelling on it strengthens the extent to which it becomes locked into the mind. The conventional advice is to take what you can learn from it, move on and forget about it. Of course, the problem with this advice is that the mind is incapable of responding to the command to forget something. Trying to forget simply strengthens the association.33

  We, therefore, needed to help Mike to re-focus his attention. We cannot choose what not to think about but we can choose where we focus our attention. Mike had a deeply rutted pathway in his mind that linked meeting with clients to the bitter experience with Didier; because it is deeply rutted, it is the pathway down which his thoughts readily travel. The key was to help Mike build an alternative, more helpful pathway, which over time would become more used than the existing one.

  Mike picked an alternative incident on which to focus. He was asked to play another short movie in his mind, before any important meeting with a client: some other incident from his life, the thought of which would give him strength. On each occasion he was encouraged to allow his mind to focus on any aspect of this movie, no matter how small, to become aware and focus, or re-focus, attention. This movie appeals to all of the senses so we can smell things and feel their texture. We can turn up the contrast, volume, colour or brightness any time we choose. And crucially, if the incident with Didier drifts into Mike’s mind, that is absolutely fine; Mike was encouraged to do just that, let it drift.

  Mike told us about the alternative incident he chose as his movie: ‘It was the first time I won a creative pitch and brought in a big new client for the agency. I was young to be leading a pitch. All of the stars felt lined up that day. I was nervous, but focused before the meeting started, and as soon as I entered that room I felt something kick in: a feeling that this was going to be our day and nothing would get in the way. I just naturally found the right words … the right answers to questions … When I play it over in my mind, I just let my mind focus on whatever aspect of the movie it chooses: the feel of a handshake, the smell of the coffee, the clink of the coffee cups, the grain in the walnut of the table, the clear blue sky out of the picture window on a sunny winter morning.’

  We all have ‘ten moments’ sitting in our personal autobiographical bank account for us to draw on. They are the times when everything comes together. Often people will not be able to think of them when they are experiencing a slump, but feel free to pick the really small ones – these are just as powerful as the big ones.

  Don’t beat yourself up over how you should or shouldn’t feel. We can sometimes get impatient about getting over the incident. The mind does not respond well to being told to get over it. It is up to you to help your mind by choosing where you actively focus your attention.

  Feedback is essential to performance improvement but any toxic elements in the feedback can contaminate future performance by affecting your confidence. You can’t tell your mind not to think about it, but you can choose to focus your mind on a success or achievement. Call to mind an incident, no matter how seemingly small, of positive feedback. Enjoy dwelling on the details that spring to mind.

  Summary

  When we get a knock-back, the feeling in our stomach is created by an important neural function – ‘Something is amiss. Better watch out!’

  We can’t easily choose what not to think about, but we can choose where to focus our attention

  Bulletproof people focus on positive life incidents – even small ones – to give them inner strength in tough times

  Bulletproof people can turn up the contrast, volume, colour or brightness on their positive personal ‘movies’

  Bulletproof people don’t beat themselves up over how they should or shouldn’t feel

  Don’t vent anger – identify the benefits of a situation

  If someone commits a transgression against us at work – derides our work, ignores us or speaks to us in a disrespectful manner – our stress increases. People often tell us that they intend to deal with the situation by going to the gym and beating the living daylights out of a punch bag (or something similar if neither the gym nor the punch bag is available).

  In the movie Analyze This, Billy Crystal, playing the psychoanalyst opposite Robert DeNiro’s mobster boss, invites the DeNiro character to release his anger by punching a pillow (the pay-off is when the DeNiro character pulls out his revolver and shoots it). N
otwithstanding the quality of the gag, it seems that the idea that we best deal with anger by expressing it has an unshakeable grip, but it’s wrong. Study after study shows that expressing anger increases anger. Just as our bodies respond to what our minds are thinking, our minds constantly take readings from our physicality, and (because our minds like congruence) adjust accordingly. If you act angry, you are more likely to feel angry. Your body will generate higher levels of adrenaline and testosterone, the aggression hormone. Screaming and yelling – whether it’s at your dog, at your colleague or in the privacy of your car with the windows closed – does not let off steam.34

  Whether it’s harsh verbal criticism, rejection, alienation or ostracism by colleagues, the result is that we feel social pain. The incident feels like an assault and when we feel assaulted we are not functioning at our best. The key is to enable the emotions associated with feeling assaulted to subside so that we can restore clear thinking and make the best choices. And a powerful way to achieve this is a technique that psychologists call ‘benefit finding’. It’s another strand of positive psychology.

  Benefit finding can be done in just a few minutes but its effects are remarkable. It works like this. Michael McCullough and colleagues from the University of Miami conducted an experiment across three different groups of people each comprising a sample size of roughly 100 people35. All participants were asked to think about, and then describe, an occasion when they had suffered one of these non-physical assaults … when someone’s actions had been exceptionally hurtful. Then one group was asked to write in greater depth about their feelings of hurt. Another group was asked to think hard and write about any benefits that directly or indirectly arose out of the incident. These may be greater insight and awareness, greater emotional intelligence, new opportunities that arose out of rejection, benefits to focus or motivation, or any other form of silver lining that could be identified. To provide a control, participants in a third group were simply asked to describe their plans for the next day.