Act as if you are building a solid long-term relationship, even if it is likely you will never see that person again.
Turn in work on time
Always give notice as soon as you realize you are going to miss a deadline (show up for a meeting on time, turn in work on time).
Separate the person’s behavior from the meaning of your conversation.
As a friend of mine said when her five year old son used tears to force her to go out with him in the evening after a long hard day, she said: “If I didn’t want to, I wouldn’t go. I would have explained to him that I was very tired and that’s why I didn’t want to go out. He would probably have been hysterical, but that’s just him expressing his emotions. The main thing is that I explained the reason and he heard me. He understands the reason for saying no: not the authoritarian “because I said NO”, but the comprehensible, coherent and logical explanation: ‘because I’m tired’”.
My conclusion is this: it doesn’t matter how a person behaves. Separate his emotions from the meanings you communicate to each other.
I have a problem with this, by the way: even in a conversation with an adult, I emphasize emotions. That is, the person may be rude but sending signals about what they need to agree with me, and I’m so triggered by the emotions they’re broadcasting that I don’t notice their signals—and because of that, I continue a conversation about something I should have left long ago and moved on to the next step.
Empathize
This means—understand the person. Don’t “agree” but just hear him in the way he is trying to explain to you. At times like this, respond with, “I think I get it. What you’re saying is that it’s important to you that..., and to accomplish that, you’re suggesting… because you see that as the only (or best) way to solve the problem?”
After the interviewee answers, you can ask, “Then can you flesh out what other options you see?”
Be polite first
There are people who have been taught by their life experience only one language of communication—through violence, through “run over”, scare, yell. Politeness and cooperation, unfortunately, they perceive as weakness and therefore it is impossible to negotiate with them in such ways. Only if you reeducate these people beforehand. Therefore, in such cases you will have to switch to their language: pressure, rigidity, authoritarianism.
In other cases, always start with politeness, even if the person is angry. especially if the person is angry! Don’t be confused, your job is not to overwhelm the person with your calmness. You want to create a safe environment for him, you want to get on his side to solve this problem together.
It’s difficult. It’s painful. You’re human too and you’re angry too, you may be hurt and sad and tired too. That’s why we talk about this principle—because it’s not easy to execute and it’s not intuitive in the moment of heat of passion. That’s why we talk about politeness as a tool that you have to learn and get used to using.
Strive to solve the problem in a way that all parties win
“Courtesy First” builds on this principle, the fundamental desire to solve a problem so that as many of the roles involved in the project as possible win.
This is taught by Eliyahu Goldratt and followed by William Detmer.
So look for every possible way to solve the problem together: you together against this pernicious problem, even if you are spouses and are arguing over who should mop the floor or if you just sold a friend your bar and the landlord of the bar space shortly thereafter decides to remove the bar from his premises and now the friend is demanding that you cancel the deal and give him his money back.
Either way you are together against the problem. Your job is to find what you have in common that can bring you together to solve it together.
2. Principles
Act as if you are building a solid long-term relationship, even if it is likely you will never see that person again.
Turn in work on time
Always give notice as soon as you realize you are going to miss a deadline (show up for a meeting on time, turn in work on time).
Separate the person’s behavior from the meaning of your conversation.
As a friend of mine said when her five year old son used tears to force her to go out with him in the evening after a long hard day, she said: “If I didn’t want to, I wouldn’t go. I would have explained to him that I was very tired and that’s why I didn’t want to go out. He would probably have been hysterical, but that’s just him expressing his emotions. The main thing is that I explained the reason and he heard me. He understands the reason for saying no: not the authoritarian “because I said NO”, but the comprehensible, coherent and logical explanation: ‘because I’m tired’”.
My conclusion is this: it doesn’t matter how a person behaves. Separate his emotions from the meanings you communicate to each other.
I have a problem with this, by the way: even in a conversation with an adult, I emphasize emotions. That is, the person may be rude but sending signals about what they need to agree with me, and I’m so triggered by the emotions they’re broadcasting that I don’t notice their signals—and because of that, I continue a conversation about something I should have left long ago and moved on to the next step.
Empathize
This means—understand the person. Don’t “agree” but just hear him in the way he is trying to explain to you. At times like this, respond with, “I think I get it. What you’re saying is that it’s important to you that..., and to accomplish that, you’re suggesting… because you see that as the only (or best) way to solve the problem?”
After the interviewee answers, you can ask, “Then can you flesh out what other options you see?”
Be polite first
There are people who have been taught by their life experience only one language of communication—through violence, through “run over”, scare, yell. Politeness and cooperation, unfortunately, they perceive as weakness and therefore it is impossible to negotiate with them in such ways. Only if you reeducate these people beforehand. Therefore, in such cases you will have to switch to their language: pressure, rigidity, authoritarianism.
In other cases, always start with politeness, even if the person is angry. especially if the person is angry! Don’t be confused, your job is not to overwhelm the person with your calmness. You want to create a safe environment for him, you want to get on his side to solve this problem together.
It’s difficult. It’s painful. You’re human too and you’re angry too, you may be hurt and sad and tired too. That’s why we talk about this principle—because it’s not easy to execute and it’s not intuitive in the moment of heat of passion. That’s why we talk about politeness as a tool that you have to learn and get used to using.
Strive to solve the problem in a way that all parties win
“Courtesy First” builds on this principle, the fundamental desire to solve a problem so that as many of the roles involved in the project as possible win.
This is taught by Eliyahu Goldratt and followed by William Detmer.
So look for every possible way to solve the problem together: you together against this pernicious problem, even if you are spouses and are arguing over who should mop the floor or if you just sold a friend your bar and the landlord of the bar space shortly thereafter decides to remove the bar from his premises and now the friend is demanding that you cancel the deal and give him his money back.
Either way you are together against the problem. Your job is to find what you have in common that can bring you together to solve it together.