… And What You Can Do About It

Have you ever told yourself that you wouldn’t do something? Maybe you said you wouldn’t eat too much at a party. Maybe you told yourself that you wouldn’t speak too soon at a meeting. Or maybe you just told yourself that you wouldn’t break the speed limit on the way home from work.

Whatever it was, you told yourself that you wouldn’t do something that you either normally do, wanted to do, or habitually do, and you eventually “gave-in” to the temptation.

Well, there’s a good reason for this behavior, and Dan Heath gives more details about it in this article over at Fast Company. I suggest that you check out the article for more details. For now, here’s the short version: self-control eventually runs out. In other words, you can only resist so long before you “run out” of self-control.

Your limit might be different from mine, and we all have a limit.

So, what does this observation have to do with this blog?

Since one of the recurring themes here is “get over yourself,” the concept of depleting self-control is vitally important to understand.

Whether you are trying to change your behavior, your team member’s behavior, or your child’s behavior, remember that everyone has a self-control limit, and when you exceed the limit you invite failure.

You invite failure to comply with rules, failure to cooperate, and failure to do things in new and different ways.

This is an observable and repeatable psychological phenomenon. Like so many of the things I write and speak on, I don’t suggest hiding behind the behavior. Rather, I suggest understanding the behavior and then making plans that recognized the reality of life instead of wishing that things were different.

So, what do we do with this observation?

Here are three suggestions to get you started with applying  this principle in your efforts to change your behaviors or to influence another person’s behaviors:

1. Get away from tempting situations as quickly as possible.
   Since we know that self-control will eventually run out, if at all possible, remove the temptation to do things the old way or to partake in some forbidden behavior.
2. Give people (or yourself) a break.
   If you ask someone to change their behavior in a particular situation, make some time for them to get away from it for awhile so that they can replenish their “supply” of self-control.
3. Make big changes in small steps.
   Smaller steps do many things to make change easier to accept. One benefit of smaller steps is the reduction of effort required to remember the new way of doing things. If the effort to remember the new way is small, the time to “self-control” exhaustion is longer. This longer temptation resistance time increases the odds that the new way of doing things becomes easy to remember before our self control runs out.

Photo by NomadicLass.

Related posts:

1. Being Too Nice Can Hurt You
2. A DISC Model Question You Should Ask of Yourself
3. DISC Model FAQ’s: Is Changing Your Behavior Phoney?

I have noticed one behavior many of us use that almost guarantees that our suggestions, solutions, and opinions will be ignored when we offer them:

We tell people what to do before we have heard their whole story.

When we offer people suggestions, solutions, and opinions before we have heard them out, they often do not care what we have to say. So, they rarely listen to and fully comprehend what we are suggesting.

The suggestion might be useful. It might be right on target. It might be exactly what the other person needs to hear.

And, they probably won’t hear it.

If you speak too soon, you’re just trying to push fluid into an already full container.

Offering suggestions before people have told their whole story is like having a doctor prescribe medication or treatment before listening to all of the symptoms.

I once had numbness and tingling in my foot. I went to my doctor, and he asked a whole battery of questions before prescribing a treatment plan. He asked about my physical activity, other pains or sensations I had in other parts of my body, how my leg felt, etc.

In the end, we identified the source of the numbness in my foot to be a problem in my lower back. It could have been any number of other problems. If he had jumped on the numbness in my foot without digging further into my other symptoms, he could have prescribed a wonderful treatment for a problem that had nothing to do with my problem.

In this case, he chose to diagnose the problem before he prescribed a solution.

When we work with other people, we need to keep this idea in mind.

We may have valuable experience to offer. We may have seen this problem before. We might even have a great, simple solution to offer.

And it just doesn’t matter if we offer the suggestion, solution, or opinion in a way that virtually guarantees that the other person ignores or discounts our input.

As you work with others and attempt to share your experience, remember the lesson from my doctor:

Ask, listen, and diagnose before you prescribe.

Related posts:

1. Effective Communication Skills: You Don’t Know Until You Ask
2. How To Get People To Do What You Want
3. DISC Model FAQ’s: Is Changing Your Behavior Phoney?

I don’t know about you, but I often get frustrated in conversations when the other person simply will not slow down long enough to hear what I have to say.

On a number of occasions lately, I have had the opportunity to work through these types of conversations with other people. We both wanted to be heard, and both of us were talking.

In reflecting on the situations, I recall some things I learned as a practicing engineer. I remembered concepts from the physical world that paint a clear picture by way of analogy for how we can better connect and communicate with others.

Imagine that you have a sealed container of some kind. It could be a pressure cooker on the stove or a carbonated beverage bottle on a warm day. They both demonstrate my point.

The sealed container has pressure in it greater than the pressure exerted on it by the environment. As a result, venting the container causes the liquid inside to vent out of the container.

If you want to put something new into the container, you can either let what’s inside it vent to reduce the pressure before pouring in the new contents or you can push the new contents in at a high pressure.

The first approach takes a little patience, but it doesn’t take much energy.

The second approach can seem faster in the moment, but it takes lots of energy and it creates the risk of rupturing the container.

I think that people are sort of like the containers in my example above.

When they have pent up emotional pressure inside (anger, frustration, pain, etc.), they have to vent what’s inside of them before they can receive any new information. They have to be heard and understood before they are ready to hear and understand.

Keeping this thought in mind, here’s a communication tip for you. The next time you are confronted by a really agitated person, give them a chance to vent before you attempt to deliver your message. Once they relieve the pressure inside of themselves, they just might be willing to listen to what you have to say.

Related posts:

1. DISC Model FAQ’s: Is Changing Your Behavior Phoney?
2. How To Control Your Anger: Two Questions To Ask Yourself
3. One Way To Guarantee That Your Suggestion Is Ignored

As Mary spoke about Sue’s behavior, she said something like this: “Sue did it on purpose just to irritate me.”

I remember thinking: “Maybe she did. Maybe she didn’t.”

I was not on the flight in question, and I did not personally observe the interaction between the two people. So, I don’t know exactly what transpired between them. I only know that Mary believed/perceived that Sue had behaved in a particular way with the express intent of irritating her. Based on Mary’s further description of the events, I also know that her behaviors towards Sue:

1. Came from her belief that Mary had intentionally irritated her, and
2. Served to escalate the conflict between them.

From what I could hear of the conversation, Mary never asked Sue about her thoughts, feelings, or intentions. Mary simply made some quick assumptions about Sue and then launched a tirade against her that significantly escalated the conflict.

Mary believed certain things about Sue. She did not know these things. Sadly, she acted on her belief without confirming it in any way. She just got angry and attacked (verbally in this case).

Later, as I sat on the flight and reflected on what I had heard, I recall thinking:

You never know another person’s intentions until you ask.

The point of this blog is to learn how to get over yourself and to get out of your own way when it comes to interacting, building relationships. leading, and communication with others.

My personal approach to the challenge of quickly judging other’s intentions is to keep an attitude of curiosity. For example, rather than assuming someone intentionally did something to irritate me, I work to ask myself a question like:

• “I wonder if they meant that the way I heard it?” or
• “I wonder what they see in this situation that I am missing?”

I’m far from perfect at avoiding the tendency to make wrong conclusions about others. So, I’m asking for your input:

What tips/techniques/suggestions have you used to better understand others and their intentions?

Please leave your responses in the comments section below. (If you see this post at some other site like facebook, please come on over to my blog to leave your comment.)

*Mary and Sue are totally fictitious names. While the event is real, I do not know, nor would I share if I knew, the real names of the parties involved.

Related posts:

1. Get Over Yourself To Develop Effective Communication Skills
2. Effective Communication Skills: How to Quickly Guess a Person’s DISC Style
3. Effective Communication Skills: Use And More than But

As I listened to the the news on both radio and television this Friday, nearly every mention of the switch to Daylight Saving Time brought on some mention of the “loss of one hour” we would experience on Saturday. It seemed that the entire focus during the time change weekend was on the loss. I don’t recall a single person speaking positively about the hour of daylight we would “gain” at the end of the normal business day.

Then, I thought back to the switch from Daylight Saving Time to Standard Time last fall, and I did not recall any significant mention of  “gaining one hour” during that weekend.

Here in Indiana, we just started observing Daylight Saving Time in 2006. So, it is still fairly well talked about when the time change happens. And, it seems to me, almost all of the talk is towards the negative.

Since I moved to Indiana as an adult, I lived for the better part of my life in states that observed Daylight Saving Time. So, I don’t really give it much thought one way or the other. It’s just “how it is” for me.

The point of this post is not to argue the merits or costs of Daylight Saving Time. I am just noticing a tendency that the time change reveals in human nature, and thinking through how I can learn from the behavioral tendencies surrounding this event. And here’s my observation:

People tend to notice loss more than gain and  to see the negative before they see the positive.

I recognize that this is a broad statement. Some people will argue that they don’t go negative. Well, maybe not. And most people do.

If you are interested in becoming a more persuasive and influential leader, communicator, or parent; the learning point is to realize that the people you are interacting with will likely notice what things cost, what they will lose, or how much your proposal will inconvenience them long before they notice the positive benefits or rewards of cooperating with you.

From a practical standpoint, this means that we must give people room to vent and express their negative reaction while we maintain a focus on the positive. They will likely go negative first. We need to anticipate and plan for this response rather than get caught off-guard and frustrated by it. Really, it’s okay. It’s normal. Almost all of us do it to some degree.

Highly effective leaders and communicators find ways to stay positive in spite of initial negative reactions from others.

Related posts:

1. Conflict Resolution Tips: Task Oriented People with People Oriented Individuals
2. “It’s cold in here” and Other Fighting Words
3. Effective Communication Skills: You Don’t Know Until You Ask

Guy Gives a Quick Overview of
The DISC Model of Human Behavior

As a teenager and young adult, I thought people were totally irrational and unpredictable. In my thirties, I learned about patterns of behavior that people tend to follow in many areas of their lives and in many situations.

Understanding these patterns helped me to realize that people are not totally irrational. Most people simply see the world, prioritize their activities, communicate with others, and act according to relatively predictable patterns of behavior.

The model I learned, and eventually studied to the point of becoming a master trainer, is the DISC model of human behavior.

Before we even get into this post too deeply, I want to emphasize the statement that people tend to do things in predictable ways. I do not mean anything in this post to box people in, label people, or to imply that any of us can know everything about any other person merely by understanding their primary behavioral style (actually styles). Still, understanding the model can form a strong basis for learning to communicate with and understand other people in better and more effective ways.

That being said, here’s a brief overview of how the model describes our behaviors. I’ll be writing more over time. I hope you’ll check back in the future for more posts on this topic.

The foundation for the DISC model comes from the work of a Harvard psychologist named Dr. William Moulton Marston in the 1920′s. He developed a theory that people tend to develop a self-concept based on one of four factors — Dominance, Inducement, Steadiness, or Compliance. This idea forms the basis for the DISC theory as it is commonly applied today.

Later psychologists and behavioral specialists developed a variety of practical tools to apply Marston’s theory. Currently, there are many assessment and measurement tools based on the DISC model.

Dr. Robert Rohm — founder and president of Personality Insights, Inc of Atlanta, Georgia — has developed the best collection of practical application tools using the DISC model that I have found. Through his work, his publications, the work of his team, and a network of Human Behavioral consultants certified to teach his material; he has reached millions of people around the world.

In the DISC model as taught by Personality Insights consultants, the full range of normal human behavior is defined by a circle divided into quadrants as described below.

Divide a circle in half horizontally. The upper half represents outgoing or fast-paced people. The lower half represents reserved or slower-paced people. Outgoing people tend to move fast, talk fast, and decide fast. Reserved people tend to speak more slowly and softer than outgoing people, and they generally prefer to consider things thoroughly before making a decision.

The circle can also be divided vertically. The left half represents task-oriented people. The right half represents people-oriented people. Task-oriented people tend to focus on logic, data, results and projects. People-oriented people tend to focus on experiences, feelings, relationships, and interactions with other people.

Combining these two circles completes the model description…

This post is intended as a brief introduction to the DISC model. I’ll be writing more in the future. If you would like to get an estimate of your primary behavioral styles, check my Free DISC Profile site.

Related posts:

1. Conflict Resolution Tips: Task Oriented People with People Oriented Individuals
2. Effective Communication Skills: How to Quickly Guess a Person’s DISC Style
3. Communication Tips: Connecting With Outgoing, People-Oriented People

In summary, his research found that we tend to make poor decisions when we have recently experienced a negative emotion. That makes some intuitive sense related to the short-term impact on our decision making. Surprisingly, he also found that we tend to repeat those bad decisions when we are faced with them again in a later situation that was not preceded by a negative experience or emotion.

Here’s the impact of his findings, if we make a snap or quick decision in the heat of the moment while we are angry, upset, or frustrated, we just might repeat that decision at a later date when we are not under the influence of a negative emotion. So, that one time snap decision can have a lasting impact on our businesses, families, and relationships.

Here’s where I see the practical upshot of Ariely’s findings, always check your emotions before you make a significant decision. Before writing that performance appraisal, evaluating those budget numbers, confronting poor performance, disciplining your child, or speaking with your spouse; check yourself.

Are you still angry from an earlier conversation with someone else? Are you irritated by the traffic on your drive to work? Did you just learn that you need to invest money you don’t have to repair your car?

If so, be careful. You might want to take a few extra minutes to get your emotions in check. Take a walk, read something positive, or just get away from the situation for a moment to carefully consider your emotional state and it’s possible impact on your decision making.

The issue is bigger than the one decision in front of you at the moment. The issue is the potential to sow the seed of a pattern of decision making that could have a long-term negative impact on your relationships and performance.

Related posts:

1. Communicating About Change – Connect With Emotions
2. Victim or Victor – You Decide
3. Why You Might Eventually Do Something You Don’t Want to Do…

After the webinar, I was speaking with my friend and colleague Kevin Eikenberry. We discussed the webinar, and, as we spoke, I remembered an event from a training class I lead on this topic one time. During the training class, I made the point that only positive reinforcements encourage people to give high-level, maximum effort.

A class participant challenged me on this point, and our conversation went something like this:

Participant: “Are you saying that I have to keep giving people positive reinforcement for their workplace behaviors?”

Me: “Yes, that’s exactly my point.”

Participant: “Why don’t they just do what they’re supposed to do. I told them they were doing a good job once. I shouldn’t have to keep telling them.”

Me: “Well, you’re probably right about that. Is it ok if I ask you a question?”

Participant: “Sure.”

Me: “Do you have to keep paying people for them to keep coming back to work?”

Participant: “Of course I do.”

Me: “Well, you paid them once. Why do you have to keep paying them?”

Participant: “You’re kidding, right? I have to keep paying them because the money eventually runs out. If I stop paying them, they’ll go somewhere else.”

Me: “It’s exactly the same thing with reinforcements and high-level performance. If you stop giving encouragement, praise, and other positive input to people; eventually the positive runs out.”

Related posts:

1. How To Get People To Do What You Want
2. Effective Communication Skills: You Don’t Know Until You Ask
3. Why You Might Eventually Do Something You Don’t Want to Do…

Picture a drowning man. He is flailing in the water. He is grasping at everything and everyone within reach. He has little or no visible concern for others. He may, at other times, be a kind, loving, considerate person. While he is in the process of drowning, he thrashes, lunges, and swings his arms and legs wildly.

If you get in the way of a drowning man, you just might get hurt.

He won’t necessarily hurt you because he is unkind, rude, or inconsiderate. He might hurt you in his effort to get air.

And what has all of this got to do with communication, conflict resolution, leadership, and parenting. Well, everything.

Picture a person (adult or child) who really needs to feel some control over their choices and environment. If they don’t get this control, they will fight against the organization, people, or person who they perceive is limiting their ability to control their own environment. In a different situation, they might be a really nice person. Catch them in the moment that they are fighting for their emotional needs and they look just like a drowning man. They are fighting to get their needs met.

Emotional needs are no different from physical needs. They are needs. They are not wishes, wants, or desires. They are needs. When they go unmet, people lash out.

Here’s a challenge, not everyone has the same blend of emotional needs. Some people really need control, challenges, and a feeling of being respected. Other people need fun, excitement and to feel liked. A significant portion of the population, though not all people, need to feel supported, encouraged, and appreciated. Another segment of the population needs to understand the reason behind decisions, what data entered into the decision, and to be valued.

The person who needs respect may not totally understand the idea of appreciating someone. The person who needs to have fun may not understand the importance of verifiable facts. The person who needs support may not see the need to move quickly and to create a feeling of forward momentum. The person who needs to be valued may not understand the need to be liked.

At some other time, I’ll comment on the basis for these observations. For now, I just want to make the point that all of us have certain emotional needs. There are some commonalities between us, and their are some differences. Often, we just don’t “get” why someone else needs something that we don’t need. When we fail to understand, validate, and, to the best of our abilities, meet the needs of other people, we just might put them in the state of the drowning man. When we do that, they really don’t (should I say can’t) care about us.

We can change this dynamic when we throw people a life preserver by working to understand and feed their needs. When we do this, we help them get to a place where they can also hear and understand us. We communicate, resolve conflict, lead, and parent more effectively when we meet needs rather than challenge them.

Related posts:

1. Snow Drifts, Driving Lessons, and Conflict Resolution
2. Conflict Resolution Tips: Task Oriented People with People Oriented Individuals
3. Why You Shouldn’t Take Conflict Resolution Lessons From Politicians

In the picture above, the desired goal is somewhere on 9th Street. At the moment, the normal or shortest path down 9th Street is closed. That does not mean that we should change our destination because the original road we wanted to travel was closed. We just take the detour, enjoy the scenery, and move on towards our goal.

Similar situations strike us as we move through life. It could be a college choice – which college to attend and what to study. It could be a career choice – what to do, where to do it, etc. It could be a business direction decision – what product to launch ( or cancel), how to offer a service, or what market to enter ( or leave). These situations hit us over and over again as we go through our lives.

Here’s what I’ve learned at this point in my life: stay focused on the end goal and take the detour.

The detour might take longer to follow than your originally intended path. The detour might make you do some things you had not planned to do and may not enjoy doing.

The detour might also show you some things you would not have otherwise seen. The detour might give you a chance to learn some skills or insights into yourself that you would not have learned on your original path. The detour might actually be a little bit of fun to follow.

I’m not suggesting that you should look for detours. I’m not even saying that I’m always good at accepting detours with a positive attitude. I am saying that re-framing the detour as a learning experience or as an adventure rather than a road block can make it valuable.

Some of my greatest lessons in life have come from detours. So far, I have always found a way to use the lessons I learned on the detour to help me move closer to where I really want to be.

Related posts:

1. Exercise Your Power of Choice in Conflict Resolution
2. Effective Communication: Begin With The End In Mind
3. Conflict Resolution Lessons From A Lifeguard: A Drowning Man Doesn’t Care About You