Conflict Resolution: To Deal With Highly Opinionated People, Give Up Being Highly Opinionated

One of the most frequent questions I’m asked is, “How can I deal with highly opinionated people?” and I always answer in the same way: To be effective with these people, give up being one of them. After all, everyone is “highly opinionated” including, of course, me (I wouldn’t be writing this if I weren’t). Some don’t express their opinions openly, but their opinions are in their minds just waiting to be expressed to a friend (“You can’t believe what John said to me. He’s so opinionated.”).

Now when presented with my answer for dealing with highly opinionated people, your tendency may be to argue which is, of course, an example of just how opinionated you are.

That’s why the best way to deal with opinionated people is to listen to what they are saying and really “get” them. Listen for what they are actually saying without all your judgments, beliefs and opinions (which, by the way, are more examples of how “highly opinionated” you actually are). Never give your opinion without first paraphrasing, to the other person’s satisfaction, what he or she has just said to you.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Aggression encourages aggression. Listening encourages listening. Go into the interaction with these highly opinionated people not with the intent to get them to agree with you but with the intent that you are going to agree with them. “Agree” in this case means understand where they are coming from and with the possibility that you will not only change your view but that you will change your behavior.

What have you got to lose? That which you resist persists. Your current way of dealing with these people hasn’t made any difference. Why not try something new?

After all, from the perspective of the other person, you’re the one who is “highly opinionated.”  

We’re Worried About The Wrong Things

“Don't listen to "experts" predicting what might happen. They have no idea what's going to happen.”

Jeffrey Gittomar

Author, “The Little Red Book of Sales” among others

If you are a parent, what do you worry most about? According to a Mayo clinic survey that was mentioned in a story in the New York Times on September 18^th, 2010, parents are most worried about, kidnapping, school snipers, terrorists, dangerous strangers and drugs.

The story was titled, “Keeping Kids Safe From the Wrong Dangers” and, as you can infer from the title, parent’s worries bear little relationship to reality. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the five things most likely to cause injury to children up to age 18 are car accidents, homicide, child abuse, suicide and drowning.

In fact, "The least safe thing you can do for your child it to drive them somewhere" according to Lenore Skenazy, author of "Free Range Kids."

British writer Warwick Cairns, author of "How To Live Dangerously" calculates that "If you wanted to guarantee that your child would be snatched off the street, he or she would have to stand outside alone for 750,000 hours."

In reality, homicide is down, kidnapping is down, traffic deaths are down. So why do we so often worry about the wrong things?

The answer lies in our brains and in what’s called our “reticulating activating system” (RAS) which basically determines what we will focus on. When we experience emotion (hearing of a terrorist attack, reading about home foreclosures or the state of the economy), our RAS goes into high alert and has us watching out for potential dangers. So when we read a newspaper or watch the news on television, we become convinced that we need to be fearful for our safety. Colloquially, we understand this when we say, “What you see is what you’ll get.”

So how fearful do we need to be? Not very. Our perception of fear doesn’t match reality. What we see on television or read in our newspapers is very unlikely to happen to us. Yet we think it will and it keeps us in a state of high arousal. Politicians, advertisers and the media know this and use it to influence our behavior.

So relax. What you see is not likely to be what you get. 

What Difference Will You Make Today?

“Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation

.”

Robert Kennedy

Here’s a “small portion of events” that represents the fulfillment of Kennedy’s aphorism:

I was putting gas in my car the other day and I noticed a man standing near the entrance to the gas station store. He was unshaven, his clothes were dirty and he was extremely thin. I thought he was going to ask me for money. He didn’t.

At that moment, an older couple approached me and somewhat frantically asked if I was familiar with the neighborhood. They were lost and asked for directions to their destination which I patiently gave them. But the more I explained, the more confused they got, asking me over and over to repeat the directions.

Suddenly, I heard a voice behind me speaking to the couple. It was the man I had seen by the entrance to the gas station store. He was correcting something about my directions. I realized that he was right and I had been wrong.

I left the couple in the very capable hands of this man. As I drove away, I waved to this man who waved back and smiled.

Cynics among us may assume that this man was simply looking for a handout but I don’t think so. He had truly made a difference for that couple and, I maintain, that was the “handout” he had been seeking. If he also got some money for making a difference, so much the better.

In fact, the “handout” we are all seeking is to know that our lives matter and that we made a difference. The reason any of us get paid for the work we do is because we made a difference.

The question I encourage you to wake up asking yourself every morning (to replace any negative thoughts that may be there as you awake) is, “What difference can I make today and who can I make it for?” The difference we will make will always be a “bending of history” no matter how large or how small the difference.

If we will just search for opportunities to make a difference for others, we will find them.  

Are Pink Elephants Keeping You Stuck?

“We are what we think, we become what we think and what we think becomes our reality.”

Source unknown

I heard a great demonstration the other day of how to deal with fear. As I recreate this demonstration, I suggest you consider a fear you have: Asking for what you want. Speaking in front of groups. Pursuing a dream. As you read, ask yourself, “What am I really afraid of?”

I was in a seminar and a saleswoman talked about her fear of calling a prospective customer because she was afraid she’d be considered “pushy.”

In response, the leader of the seminar asked her to think of a pink elephant. He asked if she had a clear image in her mind of a pink elephant. She said she did (are you seeing one?).

The leader than asked her to think of the words, “I’m pushy.” He asked if she was hearing herself saying those words. She said she did (imagine hearing yourself saying those words).

The seminar leader then asked what was the difference between the two thoughts.

Now pause for a moment and ask yourself the same question. Is there really any difference between a fictitious pink elephant and a fictitious thought?

The obvious answer is that there is no difference. Both are made up.
The thoughts we have in our heads are no more real than that pink elephant. But we behave as though those thoughts are real. Notice, for example, the thought that stops you from saying or doing something that you’d like to say or do.

Not only will we stop ourselves, we will argue with anyone who points out the unreality of our thoughts. For example, the woman didn’t immediately thank the seminar leader for pointing out that she was living in a fantasy world of thoughts that were no more real than pink elephants. She argued for her limitations and listed her evidence for believing that she will be perceived as “pushy” even though she had never been told she was “pushy” or told to never call again.

My point is we make up stories and then live as if those stories are real. We act as though our thoughts are like physical objects that are barriers we can’t get around. We made up our thoughts. We just forgot we made them up.

So the next time you’re stopped from doing what you want to do by some thought, consider that the thought is just your “pink elephant”  keeping you stuck in a fantasy world. Create your reality not by banishing these pink elephants (you really can’t control the random thoughts you have) but by recognizing that it’s just a fantasy you’ve created and it’s the fantasy, not the reality that is keeping you stuck.

Conflict Resolution: Relationship Advice From Keith Richards

“If I’m in conflict with somebody, it means somebody is in conflict with me.”

       Keith Richards quoted in Rolling Stone magazine, October 28^th, 2010

Leave it to the poster child of sex, drugs and rock and roll to give us an access to improving our relationships. As Richards suggests, consider the possibility that we are in conflict because we never quite get our responsibility for the conflict. In fact, we may not even see that we have any responsibility. Literally not see it.

Consider this tragic story that I heard on National Public Radio the other day: A man drove over some railroad tracks and was killed when he collided with a train he didn’t see. Turns out the man paid no attention to the sound of the screaming train whistle, drove around the gates that had been lowered to block access to the tracks and ignored the flashing warning lights indicating the approaching train.

How did the man miss all these signals? He was texting.

We can feel superior to this man and blame him for his irresponsibility or we can ask: When our relationships turn into “train wrecks,” what are we not seeing and being responsible for?

A friend of mine, a very intelligent and capable woman, continually complains that her boyfriend of three years never makes her feel loved. I point out the obvious (cue train whistle, guard gates and flashing warning signs): She has been complaining about this boyfriend for three years, that I doubt he will ever make her feel loved and that she should find another boyfriend. Rather than agreeing when I say this, my friend makes excuses for her boyfriend’s lack of affection.

We can bemoan this woman’s apparent blindness to the obvious or we can ask what we are not seeing and being responsible for. “What you see is what you get” is more than just a clever saying.

Keith Richards reminds us not to feel superior to anyone because they don’t see what’s obvious to us (isn’t it obvious that texting while driving is a bad idea? Isn’t it obvious that someone who has never made you feel loved isn’t likely to ever do so?). There’s plenty we’re blind to that, I’m sure, is obvious to others.

Perhaps, as Richards notes, we literally don’t see that if we’re in a conflict, the person we’re in the conflict with is also in a conflict. That maybe we are keeping that conflict going and not the other person. That our inability to see the other person’s reality is the reason we’re in conflict and not because of some “irrationality” on their part.

This is why I recommend listening without argument to every piece of feedback you receive about yourself. You may be blind to something that is obvious to others and their feedback may keep you from being hurt in a relationship that can turn into a “train wreck.”

Having Fun Yet? Lessons from “Good Will Hunting”

Have you seen the 1997 movie, “Good Will Hunting?”

Matt Damon plays a troubled, self-educated genius (Will Hunting). He falls in love with a Harvard student played by Minnie Driver (Skylar).

In one scene, Will and Skylar are having coffee at an outdoor café. Will stares lovingly at Skylar who is absorbed in her organic chemistry book. She really needs to study, she tells him, because she wants to get into medical school.

Will asks if he can help and Skylar asks if he has ever read about organic chemistry. “A little,” Will replies. Skylar thinks he’s joking. “No one reads organic chemistry for fun,” she says. Will doesn’t reply.

It occurs to me that Will might be thinking, ”Of course some people read organic chemistry for fun. I do.”

Indeed, some people study calculus for fun. Others have fun reading English or French literature. What one person finds boring another finds to be a blast. I had the insight that fun, as well as every other emotion we experience, is created, not discovered. Reading organic chemistry is fun if one chooses to see it that way. There is nothing inherently boring or exciting about anything. Anything.

Consider the possibility that this is true of all our experiences. We think that one experience is inherently more fun or enjoyable or exciting than another. Just the opposite is correct. We create the feeling and then attach it, incorrectly, to the experience.

That night, I had a conversation with a woman who was worried about money because she had less money than she would like and she was suffering because of it. She dramatized her worries by saying she was “in survival.” Her circumstance of having less money than she would like describes the condition of every human being on the planet no matter how much money they have. She chose to call this condition being “in survival.”

I’m not saying poverty is preferable to riches (or that riches are preferable to poverty). But consider what becomes available if we accept that our happiness is independent of our circumstances and that we can be happy no matter our circumstances. Not because those circumstances are inherently happy or unhappy but because we choose how we will be in the face of our circumstances.

We think our circumstances have to be great for us to be happy. This is a trick we play on ourselves to keep us trying to fix our circumstances and then wondering, with each fix, why we aren’t yet happy (certainly a new car, new house, new relationship, new job will change everything. Right?).

Until we recognize that our happiness is independent of our circumstances, we are doomed to live the saying,”The more things change, the more they remain the same.”

Change Management: We Aren’t Creating A Future…We’re Recreating A Past

Have you noticed that history repeats itself? Have you noticed that today’s news is exactly the same as the news from 100 years ago? The settings for the stories have changed, but the stories are the same: What’s happening in the latest war? What scandal is grabbing our attention? How’s the economy doing?

On a personal basis, are you in a relationship where you are in conflicts that never gets resolved? Are you in a job that has grown boring because nothing ever changes? Or are you in a job where change is constant but you’re unhappy because you look into the future and can’t see how things will ever change? Have you noticed that life isn’t quite as exciting today as it was when you were 7 and hated to go to bed and couldn’t wait to wake up?

Why does our human history and our personal history keep repeating itself? It’s because we don’t really create a new future. We simply repeat the past and call that the future. Instead of creating a new future, we recreate a past that has already happened and call that the future.

Consider these decisions from the past that create our behavior in the future: We didn’t like spinach in the past, so we decide to never eat spinach again in the future. We didn’t like a ballet we went to, so we decide we’ll never go to another one in the future. We’ve been on diets, lost weight and put it on again, so we decide we’re never going to go through that frustration again in the future.  We trusted someone in the past and got burned, so we decide we’ll never trust again in the future. We resisted change in the past so we resist change in the future as well.

Change, by definition, occurs in the future. But what evidence do we tend to use to decide what to do in the future?  Don’t we, in fact, tend to look for evidence from the past

and then make decisions about how we’ll behave in the future?

We look to our past experience, project that experience out into the future and imagine that the future will be just like the past. And, guess what? It usually is. In fact, the future can’t be anything other than some variation of the past. We’ve created that future by predicting it from our past. Case closed!

Now you know why history keeps repeating itself. Organizations often create futures (called “strategies”) based on the past and then live into that past...not the future. Individuals create futures (called “visions” or “dreams”) based on the past and then live into that past…not the future.

It’s a self fulfilling prophecy: We create a future based on our past and then wonder why the past is just like the future.

But to create a truly new future we have to let go of the past. It no longer exists. But we also have to recognize that the future doesn’t yet exist either. We can look back and see that we’ve created our past. What’s not as obvious to us is that we’ve already created our future by filling it up with so much of our past.

You know why the saying, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life” is a cliché? Because it’s so obviously accurate. But today won’t be the first day of the rest of your life is it’s already filled up with what you did yesterday.

Today, when you create your to do list, really create it. Not from your past, but from what you choose for your future.