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

As I read about, study, and work to apply effective conflict resolution techniques, I see one common and overwhelming problem develop in workplaces, families, and social organizations. I see the same problem develop just about everywhere I see people interact.

What is this huge problem?

People make assumptions about other people’s intentions.

Sadly, they often make wrong assumptions about the other person’s intentions.

This behavior is so common and so prevalent, I have written about it on at least two other occasions.

In one post, I told the story of how I started down the path of wrong assumptions in an interaction with my daughter.

In another post, I shared an observation I made about an interchange where one person based their entire interaction with another person on their assumptions about the other person’s intentions without ever asking for clarification.

Recently, I had the opportunity to observe another interchange between two people who got seriously engaged in a heated conversation because one of the parties took offense to what he believed to be the other person’s intentions. For the purposes of this post, let’s say their names are John and Joe.

In a small meeting setting, Joe raised a question about something John had proposed in a previous meeting. I heard Joe question the proposed approach to solving a problem. Apparently, John heard Joe question the necessity of solving the problem.

John’s body went almost immediately rigid as he turned to face and lean toward Joe. His voice tone grew sharp, and his volume went up. In all fairness to John, I don’t really know what he was thinking. I did perceive his tone and body language to become aggressive.

The conversation got progressively more heated as Joe and John spoke.

As they continued, John made direct, negative comments about his view of Joe’s intentions. He used words like:

• “You just said that because you want to…”
• “You didn’t have the courage to speak earlier about…”
• “I knew you would do this to me…”

In rapid succession, John manged to:

• Negatively label Joe’s intentions,
• Attack Joe’s character, and
• Express his view that Joe was doing something “to” him.

It only got worse from there, and it all began with John’s assumption about Joe’s intention.

John immediately assumed that Joe had a negative intention. His response followed the classic conflict escalation cycle almost perfectly. From this negative interpretation, he went to anger (my interpretation of his emotional state), and both parties found themselves locked in a negative conversational spiral.

Had John been willing to question his assumptions about Joe’s intention and then to engage in conversation and dialogue rather than in attack and recrimination, the situation would likely have gone in a totally different direction.

The next time you find your assumptions about another person’s intention leaning towards the negative, stop yourself for just a moment and question your assumptions.

• Did they mean that as an attack or simply as a statement of their opinion?
• Are they attacking my character or are they just trying to understand my approach?
• Did they mean what I think they mean?

I’m sure you get the point. Take just a moment to slow down and question your assumptions before you dive into the conversation.

Related posts:

1. Why Your Natural Response to Conflict is Probably Wrong & What You Can Do About It
2. Exercise Your Power of Choice in Conflict Resolution
3. Conflict Resolution Insights: Why Conflicts Escalate

Guy Answers the Question:
Can I Change My Personality Style on Purpose?

People often tell me that they believe that they have changed their personality style, and then they ask me if I think this is possible.

My general answer is this: It might be possible. I don’t think it is probable.

In short, I don’t think that your core, inner, basic personality style changes unless you experience some type of major psychological or brain trauma.

I do think that you can learn to behave differently in different situations. I think that you can learn to adapt, mold, and shape your behavioral style to increase your effectiveness in a broad range of situations.

However, changing your words and actions does not change your personality style.

Further, why would you want to change your personality style? Assuming that you fall in the range of normal human psychology, your personality style is just another expression of “normal.”

Wanting to change your personality style implies that there is something wrong with your natural one.

In the vast majority of people, there is nothing wrong with their personality style. So, why try to change it?

As we consider the question raised in the title of this post, we have to carefully distinguish between who we are and what we do.

Personality style relates to our perceptions, interpretations, priorities, and reactions to the world around us. Behavior style is often related to our personality style, and it is influenced by many other things. Personality style is part of who we are. Behavior style is merely what we do. They are definitely related. They are not exactly the same thing.

So, can you change your behaviors in response to the world around you? Absolutely you can!

Can you change your personality style? Not real likely.

Related posts:

1. DISC Model FAQ’s: Can Your Personality Style Change Over Time
2. DISC Model FAQ’s: Is Changing Your Behavior Phoney?
3. A DISC Model Question You Should Ask of Yourself

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?

This is a simple, straightforward communication technique that you can use immediately to improve your ability to connect and communicate with others:

Use “and” more than “but”.

Imagine that you and I are in a conversation and that you have just shared your opinion with me.

Compare these two responses that I might make:

1. “You know, that’s a good point, but …”
2. “You know, that’s a good point, and …”

With the first reply, it almost doesn’t matter what I say. I have probably triggered a natural defensive mechanism. Even if what I say is positive, you probably have a bit of a defensive posture in receiving what I am about to say.

The second reply creates a more positive lead-in to the second part of the statement. Even if I offer a slightly different interpretation of the facts, I have avoided triggering defensiveness  early in the process so that you might receive what I have to say with an open attitude.

As I think about the times I am tempted to say “but” rather than “and”, I see that the vast majority of the time my real message is an “and” message rather than a “but” message.

One little word substitution can yield huge benefits in communication effectiveness.

So, remember to use “and” more than “but”.

Related posts:

1. Effective Communication Skills: You Don’t Know Until You Ask
2. Get Over Yourself To Develop Effective Communication Skills
3. Effective Communication Skills: How to Quickly Guess a Person’s DISC Style

This week, I traveled to Boston to lead a Bud To Boss Workshop for first time supervisors. On my return trip, I connected with a flight in Chicago.

I ran between gates to catch the flight to Indianapolis only to wait at the gate because this flight — like the one I had just taken from Boston to Chicago — was delayed.

Upon boarding the plane, I settled into my seat beside a nice young woman who was also connecting on this flight, and I made a comment about the commuter jet we were on not being built to accommodate people of my height. She replied with a soft laugh, and we struck up a conversation that lasted until we landed in Indianapolis.

During the conversation, I learned that she had gone to school in Indiana and that she now lived out-of-state as a result of her husband’s job. I also learned that through her husband she knew a fairly prominent public figure, and I asked a question about this person’s public versus private persona’s. She responded kindly. I acknowledged her response, and the conversation took another turn.

Seeing each other again at baggage claim, we waved and said good-bye. I enjoyed our conversation and the opportunity to meet this rather interesting person.

My wife picked me up, and I told her about the nice young woman I had met on the plane. Arriving at home, my wife went to bed, and I stayed up a bit to unwind from the trip.

While I checked my email, I began to get curious about the full connection between the person I met and the prominent public figure. With less than two minutes of searching on Google, I learned that she was the prominent figure’s daughter-in-law.

Reflecting on our conversation, I was really happy that I had not said anything derogatory, negative, or judgmental about her father-in-law. Like many public figures, he has a strong personality that can create both strong allies and strong detractors, and it would be easy to pass judgment on him as a person because of his public persona.

In the days that have passed since my interchange on the plane with a person I will likely never see again, I am pleased that I both remembered and followed advice I received long ago:

You never know what the person you just met may have experienced or who they might know. So, just be nice.

Related posts:

1. Being Too Nice Can Hurt You
2. Effective Communication Skills: You Don’t Know Until You Ask
3. Memorial Day Reflections: Let’s Keep Things In Perspective

As a result of this perception of threat, we often get angry. Then, we behave in ways that they perceive as a threat, and the conflict escalation cycle begins.

Our natural responses to conflict often begin with this perception of threat. This perception triggers our “fight-or-flight” response, and our adrenal glands kick into high gear. At this point, our bodies get flooded with adrenaline and logical, rational thought pretty much stops (at least for a moment).

When we perceive others to be a threat, we generally act in two ways that can be incredibly effective at protecting us from physical harm and terribly detrimental when it comes to resolving most workplace and family conflicts.

How the “fight” response contributes to conflict escalation is pretty straightforward. With this approach, we usually come on too strongly and too aggressively for the vast majority of normal relational situations. As a result, the other person feels a direct threat from our response.

How the “flight” response contributes to conflict escalation is a little more subtle, and still just as powerful in its affect on the conflict escalation cycle.

The flight response often leads us to disengage, remain quiet, and withdraw from the person we perceive as a “threat.”

Depending on the other person’s perspective, withdrawing from the situation can signal a number of things that actually contribute to escalating rather than de-escalating the situation (if not immediately, then over time).

For example, they might view us as being unmotivated, unconcerned, or unwilling to engage. In any of these cases, they can feel compelled to pursue interaction in an effort to settle the issue. They pursue, we withdraw, they pursue some more, we withdraw further, etc.

Our withdrawal, rather than helping the situation, has escalated the conflict.

To avoid either of these negative responses, I suggest an approach that starts this way:

Question the story you are telling yourself about the other person.

For example, you can question whether or not they actually intend to be a threat to you by re-framing your internal dialogue this way:

• “Do they mean to harm me in some way, or did I just misunderstand?”
• “Are they really on the attack, or are they just tired and having a bad moment?”
• “Are they an evil person, or did I say something that offended them?”

Alternative stories can stop our perception of threat and lead us to a more positive, rational, and engaged response than either a heated attack or an icy withdrawal. We can act to resolve the communication breakdown rather than act to escalate the conflict.

Please share your thoughts on the steps you can take to move conflicts towards resolution and away from escalation.

Related posts:

1. Conflict Resolution Insights: Why Conflicts Escalate
2. Conflict Resolution Techniques: Question Your Assumptions
3. Exercise Your Power of Choice in Conflict Resolution

These situations caused me to reflect on what happens in conflict:

• How it gets started,
• How it escalates, and
• What you can do to de-escalate it.

I was also wondering if these situations happen in your life. Here’s what I mean, you know what you should do in a given situation, the situation occurs, and then you do exactly the opposite of what you knew to do.

Since I’m guessing that I’m not alone in this struggle, I thought I would interrupt my series of posts on Frequently Asked Questions About the DISC Model by mixing in a few posts on understanding the dynamics of conflict escalation.

Using this post as a starting point, we can then look at how to avoid or minimize this problem in our lives.

In this post, I will quickly show a model of what often happens during conflict escalation. By understanding the model, we can plan positive steps to back conflicts down after they start. I’m drawing some of this post content from a video course I am developing on resolving personal workplace conflicts. I’ll share more on that later.

The escalation cycle generally starts with one person (I’ll call them Person A) doing or saying something that the other person (Person B) perceives as a threat. Notice the key word: perceives. It doesn’t really matter if Person A meant their words or actions as a threat. It only matters if Person B sees the words or actions as a threat.

This perception of threat can take many forms, and it is likely linked to the anger process I wrote about previously.

Once Person B perceives a threat, they will probably move to anger and then behave in a self-protective way out of that anger.

Person A now perceives Person B’s behavior as a threat.

Person A follows the same perception-anger-behavior pattern and further contributes to the conflict escalation as shown in the video above and the image below. (Click on the image for a larger view.)
I plan to revisit the specific things we can do to reverse this cycle in future posts. For now, I’ll leave you with this observation: either person can take steps to de-escalate the conflict.

They can either:

Recognize the problem and change their behavior so that the other person no longer perceives a threat.

— or —

Question their perception in order to get their own anger under control.

In practice, the person taking responsibility would likely do both.

In an ideal world, both parties would take responsibility, stop blaming, and move to resolution. Even in our less than perfect world, either party can take the right actions and move to resolve the conflict with or without the other person’s cooperation.

Related posts:

1. Why Your Natural Response to Conflict is Probably Wrong & What You Can Do About It
2. Conflict Resolution Techniques: Question Your Assumptions
3. The 7 Deadly Sins of Conflict Resolution

Guy Answers the Question:
Could I Have More Than One DISC Style?

One of the frequent questions that comes up in my training classes on the DISC model of human behavior is:

Can more than one DISC behavior style fit a person? or

Could I have more than one DISC behavior style?

In a word, the answer is: yes. In fact, emphatically yes!

The four quadrants of the DISC model do not define four neat and tidy “categories” of people. The four quadrants represent typical or general behaviors of people who share certain perspectives. Each quadrant does not, in and of itself, represent a “type” of person.

We Want to Understand, Not Stereotype or Label

The four DISC types simply provide an objective and descriptive way of looking at, understanding, and communicating about different behavior, communication, and leadership styles so that we can better understand ourselves and others.

Think Blends, Not Boxes

Only a small minority of people (about 5%) would agree that only one of the four DISC descriptors totally describes their viewpoint or perspective. Even this group of people will have some of the other traits. They just don’t have them to a strong degree.

As a general rule, most people have more of some of the D, I, S, or C traits and less of the others. When a trait is strong in a person, we call the trait a “high” trait for that person. This is simply a shorthand nomenclature for discussion purposes, not a label we can use to box people in to a neatly defined behavior pattern.

About 80% of people will have two traits that are “high” traits and two traits that are “low” traits. About 15% of people will have three traits that are “high” traits with the remaining trait being “low”. While DISC profile assessments will not produce a profile with four “high” traits (it’s not mathematically possible within the parameters of the assessment), it is possible to have roughly equal proportions of all four traits in what is known as a “level style blend.”

This blending of traits creates profile results that have 41 basic types. When you consider all of the various ranges of intensities of traits within the 41 basic types, you can get 19,680 basic style descriptors starting from the four original quadrants.

So, can you have more than one DISC type? Absolutely you can, and you probably do.

Related posts:

1. DISC Model FAQ’s: Is Changing Your Behavior Phoney?
2. DISC Model FAQ’s: Can Four Styles Really Describe Everyone?
3. DISC Model FAQ’s: Can Your Personality Style Change Over Time

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