Here’s a mistake which I’ve sometimes committed and gotten defensive as a result, and which I’ve seen make other people defensive when they’ve committed the same mistake.
Take some vaguely defined, multidimensional thing that people could do or not do. In my case it was something like “trying to understand other people”.
Now there are different ways in which you can try to understand other people. For me, if someone opened up and told me of their experiences, I would put a lot of effort into really trying to understand their perspective, to try to understand how they thought and why they felt that way.
At the same time, I thought that everyone was so unique that there wasn’t much point in trying to understand them by any *other* way than hearing them explain their experience. So I wouldn’t really, for example, try to make guesses about people based on what they seemed to have in common with other people I knew.
Now someone comes and happens to mention that I “don’t seem to try to understand other people”.
I get upset and defensive because I totally do, this person hasn’t understood me at all!
And in one sense, I’m right—it’s true that there’s a dimension of “trying to understand other people” that I’ve put a lot of effort into, in which I’ve probably invested more than other people have.
And in another sense, the other person is right—while I was good at one dimension of “trying to understand other people”, I was severely underinvested in others. And I had not really even properly acknowledged that “trying to understand other people” had other important dimensions too, because I was justifiably proud of my investment in one of them.
But from the point of view of someone who *had* invested in those other dimensions, they could see the aspects in which I was deficient compared to them, or maybe even compared to the median person. (To some extent I thought that my underinvestment in those other dimensions was *virtuous*, because I was “not making assumptions about people”, which I’d been told was good.) And this underinvestment showed in how I acted.
So the mistake is that if there’s a vaguely defined, multidimensional skill and you are strongly invested in one of its dimensions, you might not realize that you are deficient in the others. And if someone says that you are not good at it, you might understandably get defensive and upset, because you can only think of the evidence which says you’re good at it… while not even realizing the aspects that you’re missing out on, which are obvious to the person who *is* better at them.
Now one could say that the person giving this feedback should be more precise and not make vague, broad statements like “you don’t seem to try to understand other people”. Rather they should make some more specific statement like “you don’t seem to try to make guesses about other people based on how they compare to other people you know”.
And sure, this could be better. But communication is hard; and often the other person *doesn’t* know the exact mistake that you are making. They can’t see exactly what is happening in your mind: they can only see how you behave. And they see you behaving in a way which, to them, looks like you are not trying to understand other people. (And it’s even possible that *they* are deficient in the dimension that *you* are good at, so it doesn’t even occur to them that “trying to understand other people” could mean anything else than what it means to them.)
So they express it in the way that it looks to them, because before you get into a precise discussion about what exactly each of you means by that term, that’s the only way in which they can get their impression across.
It’s natural to get defensive when someone says that you’re bad at something you thought you were good at. But the things we get defensive about, are also things that we frequently have blindspots around. Now if this kind of a thing seems to happen to me again, I try to make an effort to see whether the skill in question might have a dimension that I’ve been neglecting.
Once I’ve calmed down and stopped being defensive, that is.
Here’s a mistake which I’ve sometimes committed and gotten defensive as a result, and which I’ve seen make other people defensive when they’ve committed the same mistake.
Take some vaguely defined, multidimensional thing that people could do or not do. In my case it was something like “trying to understand other people”.
Now there are different ways in which you can try to understand other people. For me, if someone opened up and told me of their experiences, I would put a lot of effort into really trying to understand their perspective, to try to understand how they thought and why they felt that way.
At the same time, I thought that everyone was so unique that there wasn’t much point in trying to understand them by any *other* way than hearing them explain their experience. So I wouldn’t really, for example, try to make guesses about people based on what they seemed to have in common with other people I knew.
Now someone comes and happens to mention that I “don’t seem to try to understand other people”.
I get upset and defensive because I totally do, this person hasn’t understood me at all!
And in one sense, I’m right—it’s true that there’s a dimension of “trying to understand other people” that I’ve put a lot of effort into, in which I’ve probably invested more than other people have.
And in another sense, the other person is right—while I was good at one dimension of “trying to understand other people”, I was severely underinvested in others. And I had not really even properly acknowledged that “trying to understand other people” had other important dimensions too, because I was justifiably proud of my investment in one of them.
But from the point of view of someone who *had* invested in those other dimensions, they could see the aspects in which I was deficient compared to them, or maybe even compared to the median person. (To some extent I thought that my underinvestment in those other dimensions was *virtuous*, because I was “not making assumptions about people”, which I’d been told was good.) And this underinvestment showed in how I acted.
So the mistake is that if there’s a vaguely defined, multidimensional skill and you are strongly invested in one of its dimensions, you might not realize that you are deficient in the others. And if someone says that you are not good at it, you might understandably get defensive and upset, because you can only think of the evidence which says you’re good at it… while not even realizing the aspects that you’re missing out on, which are obvious to the person who *is* better at them.
Now one could say that the person giving this feedback should be more precise and not make vague, broad statements like “you don’t seem to try to understand other people”. Rather they should make some more specific statement like “you don’t seem to try to make guesses about other people based on how they compare to other people you know”.
And sure, this could be better. But communication is hard; and often the other person *doesn’t* know the exact mistake that you are making. They can’t see exactly what is happening in your mind: they can only see how you behave. And they see you behaving in a way which, to them, looks like you are not trying to understand other people. (And it’s even possible that *they* are deficient in the dimension that *you* are good at, so it doesn’t even occur to them that “trying to understand other people” could mean anything else than what it means to them.)
So they express it in the way that it looks to them, because before you get into a precise discussion about what exactly each of you means by that term, that’s the only way in which they can get their impression across.
It’s natural to get defensive when someone says that you’re bad at something you thought you were good at. But the things we get defensive about, are also things that we frequently have blindspots around. Now if this kind of a thing seems to happen to me again, I try to make an effort to see whether the skill in question might have a dimension that I’ve been neglecting.
Once I’ve calmed down and stopped being defensive, that is.
(see also this very related essay by Ferrett)