Tuesday, May 3, 2016
So, we've Persuaded our way past Hassles without triggering Frustration events and actually got people to do stuff!! Hopefully we didn't use much Threat and wisely picked people whose Interests mostly aligned with the tasks and are well on our way to success and happiness and joyful fulfillment in life - or completed a task with others and got to a marginally positive endpoint...(whatev) - Except that one guy who took your careful advice on report formats as a mortal insult and now isn't talking to you...how did that happen?? Turns out the guy had a "thing" about report formats, and you totally harshed his mellow.
Well, luckily you've turned into a guy who's got YUGE experience in accidental mortal insults. When you talk as much as I do, some of it is just the law of averages I think...ok, maybe on some occasions I've got way sucked into solving the problem at hand, and totally forgot that there were other actual people in the room, and that the questions I was popping off in rapid succession weren't being answered by some machines or something....and maybe once or or 20-ish times I've sorta made a "what, that's stupid - where did you get that" type comment when the person it came from was in the room...maybe...
It turns out that when making a criticisms there are better and worse ways to do it...I mean, who knew!! We now go back into "Skelly's theories of the mind that he's largely poached from other people but he doesn't remember who because that's how his mind works and he doesn't mean anything by it". If you know who should be getting attributed for any of this blather, let me know in comments - I'm happy to shift the blame.
So as discussed in previous blogs, us people things have a Focus bit and the Interests bit, but they also have this whole "image of self-thing" (and yeah, that part's Freud, but he made up silly words to confuse people and seem important cus he had self-image problems...probably something about his relationship with his mother ;) )
Turns out this "image of self-thing" is really important in the whole Persuasion thing as it is the gold standard in Encouragement - or pissing people off if you blow it. It's a good thing I'm so witty and charming that I can recover from blowing it...sometimes...but it means I can share the wisdom I've garnered from a fair amount of blowing it!!
And I guess "image of self thing" (IST) isn't any better than "ego" but at least it comes out of acronyms and not some dead language, or whatever "ego" came from...wait, "self image thing" is "SIT" and that can lead to all sorts of humorous misunderstandings! SIT it is!!
So let's take...me, as a not very random example - cus I have some idea what my SIT is and stuff. Now it's important to note that one's self-image need not have any particular relationship to reality or anything (Freud had that part down too - ego and id are all right, but he wasn't even trying with the Super Ego thing).
So my SIT includes; witty, charming, somewhat intelligent (compared to the "typical human" standard, I'm a complete idiot compared to the "what there is to know" standard), lazy (I've got a doctor's note that says that and everything!!), open, occasionally careless, resilient (or stubborn, whatev...), prone to excessive "ownership" of problems guy - who likes being helpful and genuinely likes people (groups sometimes suck, but as individuals we're mostly kinda cool). There's a piles of other stuff in there, but that's a good enough start for the present discussion.
To encourage me to actually do something, the easiest way is to lean into those beliefs. "Hey Skelly, we have problem that's right up your alley - it's too hard and complex for most of us so we need your help." Ron got me with a variety of this one a couple weeks ago, darn-it.
The easiest way to get me not to take something on, is to lean against those beliefs..."Skelly we need somebody to do this work, there's not much to it, and you need to stick strictly to your scope" is a statement begging for a response of "I'd really like to do it, but have to drive spikes into my feet that day" (and to clarify, I don't have a fetish for foot pain - not that there's anything wrong with that). It turns out you have a better chance to get support for stuff if you don't motivate people to run in the other direction...who knew??
If you have a person whose SIT contains risk adverseness and who likes well defined roles, that same line (that will get me running the other way), may work just fine. Different strokes and all that.
Unfortunately, unless you've managed to only hire people with largely overlapping self-images (which is a REALLY REALLY BAD IDEA – infinite reflections and a singularity occurs, destroying the universe), this means that you cannot usefully manage groups of people with simple, one size fits all encouragement. Let me stress that part for any managers that are still reading - YOU CAN'T USEFULLY MANAGE GROUPS OF PEOPLE WITH SIMPLE, ONE SIZE FITS ALL ENCOURAGEMENT.
You have to manage people as individuals, with different motivations and dislikes. Which means you have to get to actually KNOW the people you're trying to get the most out of. I mean what's the job number we can charge that to??
Getting back to the accidental insult thing, it gets tied in here - stick with it. If someone criticizes one of those SITs, they better be careful about it. Coaching a colleague on improvements in their behavior or output that links up to a self-image thing are on REALLY, REALLY unstable foundations. And walls falling on you are usually unpleasant.
A "Hey Skelly, you really need to take ownership of problems you see more, and not wait to be told to fix something" would be met with a blank look and a "wwhhhhaaa???". Several people would likely drop into the conversation about then with "don't bloody encourage him" or "are you bonkers??" or similar and I would just think you're delusional ...no mortal insults there but that's trying. The insult needs to interact with the SIT in a way that the target audience isn't totally sure of – and isn't a frontal assault on a region reinforced to the point of indestructability.
Hmmm, maybe a "Hey Skelly, you really need to work harder and be more reliable" that would certainly rub me wrong, with my brain going "I bloody well know that, (add assorted, but inventive cursing here)- if I could make my health improve I would". Actually, my mouth would be going there but a mere moment after my brain. Here's an insult! - or a totally tactless expression that would get my back up and wouldn't work even as sarcasm (tact being for people who lack the wit for sarcasm - and I got that one off a T-shirt, but it's still funny...)
My health problems, and how wonderfully I cope with them ("hmmph", "gaffaw", "whhhaaaa...??" and similar reactions may be barely suppressed by those who know me at that "wonderfully" comment...but whatev) is unfortunately part of my SIT and criticism that focuses on what my health has taken away is not going to endear me to the speaker.
But the most angry I've been in some time was the result of a "happiness is a choice, choose to be happy" footer on an email - and before you get all "what kind of curmudgeonly, grumpy, cynical jerk would get upset by that??", let me finish. I had just come back to my senses after a month "out of it", had two broken legs and the brain doctor was worried about how my brain bleed was coming along. I run across this sanctimonious, simplistic, pop psychology about how we can all just choose everything to be good...it wasn't pretty.
In other circumstances, getting people to think more about what the good outcomes of a situation could be and focus less on what might turn out badly - trying to "choose to be happy" - can be helpful and useful coaching. In the circumstances that one (of the many) particular recipient happened to be in (that would be "me" if you're lost, I don't make it easy to stay with it...), I would have thrown something at him if he was in the room. Of course I was weak as a kitten at the time, so the thrown object wouldn't have been heavy, but still. As he wasn't in the room to receive the inappropriate physical harm I wished to apply, I typed "I didn't choose to be hit by a F...ing car" with menacing aggression and launched an email in his direction. That'll learn him.
So here you have a happy, positive, "trying to help others with a catch phrase that he found enlightening" guy, getting a totally negative reaction out of a pretty harmless act. My identity at the time included pride at dealing with life's crap reasonably successfully, and along comes "cutesy, think positive guy" saying I should deal with this new load of...life...by being happier through choice. Wrong audience- bad fit.
It is the big risk of one size fits all communication, and part of the reason that corporate communication has watered itself down to riskless blather, because we don't want to offend anyone. It's where "political correctness" as a slur comes from, and it lets certain politicians use that as a club to stoke and enflame negative emotions for personal gain. Communication doesn't need to be "safe" – it needs to be effective. And as much as Trump is building barriers between people and motivating his supporters by playing on the least admirable of emotions; his communication is clearly very effective.
Now, pissing some people off some of the time is a perfectly useful tool towards effectiveness. It just needs to take the likely consequences of the likely response into account. In the "choose to be happy" case, ignoring the one irate email from the one guy who took offence was the senders perfectly reasonable reaction to my unreasonable response. The reminder to try to give oneself the opportunity to be happy probably led to enough good to outweigh my temporary anger.
In fact, sometimes pissing somebody off is the best way to get someone's engagement – if you're angry, your engaged – you just have to get the offended party to use the 'power' of the anger to reach a good outcome! Not tricky at all! It's sort of the idea behind the "good cop, bad cop" thing you see on the TV shows but even small missteps can easily lead to "bad". I suppose you could use the anger to try to get votes, but that seems wrong.
Bottom line is to be really careful when trying to coach, change, avoid behaviors or opinions that lie at the core of any particular person, which means you should probably get to know anyone pretty well before trying to coach, change, avoid any of their behaviors/opinions – which is why I'm trying to coach, change, (whatever the opposite of avoid is) the entire company's/world's behaviour/opinions through these blogs!! Do what I say and all that…I figure no one who wasn't susceptible to my unique outlook on life would stand a chance of reading to the end of the fifth of these things!! So I presorted!! Or whatev…
P.S.
There will be more math in the next one...