I was helping my wife clean our living room, and I was, as I often am, thinking about what I could write here. I was not thinking about my wife, my kids, or my professional colleagues.

I was just thinking. (Remember, I am a recovering engineer. I am almost always “thinking.”)

I started thinking about how we often misinterpret other people’s meaning, and this little rhyme popped (almost) fully formed into my mind.

So, I share it here with you today:

I’ll never know your real intent,
Until I ask you what you meant.
And, if you choose, in your reply,
To then, tell me the reason why.

Related posts:

1. Effective Communication Skills: You Don’t Know Until You Ask
2. Resolving Conflict Lesson: Watch Your Step
3. Effective Communication: Begin With The End In Mind

… 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?

Guy Answers the Question:
Is Changing Your Behavior Phoney?

As I teach, train, and coach using the DISC model, people hear me say that I encourage them to change their behaviors to fit the situation and to better connect with other people.

Sometimes, people ask me if consciously changing behavior is phoney or fake. This concern raises another common question about the DISC model, and how I recommend people use it to connect and communicate more effectively.

In answering this question, I often refer to a Thomas Jefferson quote:

In matters of style, swim with the current. In matters of principle, stand like a rock.

As I see it, choosing a behavior, word, or tone that will improve your communication effectiveness is not a moral or ethical issue. It is just a matter of style.

We often change our behaviors for different environments. For example, most people recognize that appropriate behavior during a wedding ceremony is likely to be different from appropriate behavior at the celebration party after the ceremony. Different environments call for different behaviors.

As long as your intent is not to defraud, manipulate, or somehow deceive the other person, behaving in a way that might be uncomfortable or unnatural for you in the interest of connecting with them is not fake or phoney. Rather, I see it as working to create a better environment for the other person.

Related posts:

1. A DISC Model Question You Should Ask of Yourself
2. DISC Model FAQ’s: Could I Have More Than One DISC Behavior Style?
3. DISC FAQ’s: Can I Change My Personality Style On Purpose?

Just yesterday, I had an interchange with someone close to me (not in my family, but still close) that didn’t go very well. This person asked me a question that I perceived negatively, and I got angry.

His wording was a little off, and he got mildly put-off with me as well. However, he didn’t mean to irritate me. He had no intention of asking the question that got me going in a way that I would perceive as an attack. Still, I perceived it as an attack, and I got mad.

Yes, I was a bit tired from working some late nights. It is true that I have been sick for the last two days, and I wasn’t feeling well. It is also true that his request came to me when I was working under some deadlines to get projects done that were rather pressing. All of these pressures probably made me a little more on edge than usual. And still, I overreacted.

Fortunately, we met face to face shortly after our text/phone interchange, and we quickly resolved the issue. That was good.

Here are the key learning points for all of us (me included):

• Pick the right time and place to confront a miscommunication – on a cell phone while both of you are driving is probably not a good idea.
• Be on guard at all times for misperception – yours and theirs. (In this case, I should have been doubly on-guard given my physical state at the time.)
• When things go astray, be ready to meet personally with the person to work it out.
• Be willing to apologize for whatever you did to contribute to the conflict.

The reality of life is that you will have conflicts and that knowing intellectually how to resolve them will not make you immune to them. They will often happen when you let your guard down and allow your emotional “buttons” to get “pushed.”  That is certainly what I experienced in this event.

As I get farther away from the event, I begin to wonder: “How did I let myself get so angry so quickly?” The answer, I think, is that I was reacting to a question rather than thinking about the person asking the question and the whole situation. I was judgmental rather than curious. In short, I let my buttons get pushed by someone who had no intention to do so.

So, as I work to get over myself, I encourage you to do the same. Know your emotional triggers, be aware of how they could get unintentionally triggered, and watch your step in communications with others. I don’t propose that you or I will ever be perfect at doing this. We can work at it and attempt to get better.

Related posts:

1. Conflict Resolution Techniques: Question Your Assumptions
2. Conflict Resolution Insights: Why Conflicts Escalate
3. Effective Communication Skills: You Don’t Know Until You Ask

When we passed each other, he looked at me sheepishly and waved. Clearly, he did not see my car. I’m guessing that he did not intend to create a heart stress moment for me. It just happened. He’s human.

After I waved to him to let him know that I undestood, I thought of the times I have seen other people react totally differently. In fact, I thought of times when I have reacted totally differently. I thought of people yelling, honking the horn, and offering a one-finger salute rather than a friendly wave.

At that moment, I saw a connection to workplace conflict. The anger and escalation of road rage often begins by misinterpreting another person’s actions.

When someone pulls out in front of you, cuts you off, or stops short; they either did it for the purpose of annoying you or they didn’t. If they didn’t do it to annoy you, they probably just reacted to what they thought they saw as they decided to pull out, change lanes, or stop.

Since I have pulled out, changed lanes, and stopped in ways that frustrated others without meaning to do it. I think it’s fair to say that not everyone who does something to cause you stress in traffic intended to do so. In fact, I don’t recall ever intentionally driving my car in a way that annoyed another person. I’m guessing that most people don’t intentionally annoy others either.

What, you might ask, has this got to do with workplace conflict?

Everything.

It’s all about the interpretations we place on other people’s words and actions. In the situation I mentioned at the start of this post, I assumed that the other person did not see me. I assumed that he had good intent and just made a mistake. As a result, I didn’t get angry with him.

In other situations (when I have been less under control), I have thought that the other person saw me and pulled out despite the fact that they saw me coming. I assumed negative intent, and I got angry.

The same thing happens in the workplace. Someone does or says the wrong thing. Or, they don’t do or don’t say the right thing. Whatever the situation, it happens, and we assume that they “meant to do that.” With that assumption about their intention, we get angry, and conflict begins to grow.

I have noticed that the vast majority of people seldom do things for the purpose of causing other people frustration and aggravation. It usually happens unintentionally.

When things go wrong in our interactions with others, we have a choice. We can choose to assume that they meant to frustrate us, or we can assume that they made an innocent mistake.

I suggest starting with the later assumption.

I’m not talking about naive, polyanna type assumptions. I realize that some people actually do enjoy frustrating others. I’m just saying that most people don’t.

Why not start with the assumption that applies to most people, and minimize the risk of conflict even beginning? You can always adjust if necessary rather than starting with the negative assumption and escalating a conflict without reason.

Image by wherisat on Flickr.

Related posts:

1. Seven Workplace Conflict Resolution Tips
2. Conflict Resolution Techniques: Question Your Assumptions
3. Intentions – A Poem That Came to Me While Cleaning