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GouJust 10-02-020 |
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Just
Listen Discover
the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone Mark
Goulston AMACOM,
2010, 234 pp. ISBN 978-0-8144-1403-3 |
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Mark Goulston is a psychiatrist, consultant,
business coach and author. He writes a
leadership column for Fast Company. This book includes many practical tools for
winning people over by proactively listening to them. It would be easy to use these in a
manipulative way. There are lots of
great (and perhaps too perfect) stories to demonstrate how these techniques
work. “Stop hitting your head against the wall and look
for the loose brick.” (Foreword) “Most people upshift when they want to get
through to other people. They
persuade. They encourage. They argue.
They push. And in the process,
they create resistance.” (4) Who are you trying to persuade to do
something? Almost everybody you
meet. “But here’s the challenge:
People have their own needs, desires, and agendas. They have secrets they’re hiding from
you. And they’re stressed, busy, and
often feeling like they’re in over their heads. To cope with their stress and insecurity,
they throw up mental barricades that make it difficult to reach them even if
they share your goals, and nearly impossible if they’re hostile.” (7) In the Persuasion Cycle, people move from resisting to listening to considering
to willing to do to doing to glad they did and continuing
to do so. (8) “Ironically, the key
to gaining ‘buy in’ and then moving people through the rest of the cycle is
not what you tell them, but what you get them to tell you—and what happens in their minds in the process.” (8-9) Your brain operates in three parts – flight-or-flight
reactions, emotions, and logic. These
tend to pull apart and function independently when you are under stress. At the boiling-over point memory falters,
you reason less well, and hormones take over.
In dealing with angry, fearful, or resistant people you wish to
prevent this from happening. (17) Many people feel they meet daily with apathy,
hostility, or no response at all. This
may explain why they feel overwhelmed when someone acknowledges their
feelings. A powerful technique is to
mirror (acknowledge and express empathy with) their feelings. (19) Understanding a person’s hunger and
responding to it is a powerful tool. (21) “In almost every case…the people you’ll meet are
willing to be touched if you can just break through the walls they’ve erected
to keep from being hurt or controlled.” (23) “Getting your emotions under control…[is] the
most important key to reaching other people….” (28) Move your brain from panic to control. You need to move quickly through these
steps.
It helps to say out loud what you are feeling as
you go through the steps. “Rewire yourself to listen.” Get rid of the filter, the stuff you think
you already know about someone, like “lazy,” “loser,” “whiny,” “hostile,”
etc. These filters block out what you
need to know. (38) We all have subconscious filters,
particularly gender, age, ethnicity, education level, and emotion. Your brain builds on your past experience
and instinct to make quick decisions.
“So being a quick study isn’t a bad thing. It only becomes bad if your quick study is
inaccurate and leads you to the wrong conclusions. Unfortunately that happens to us every
single day, because our brains are far better at leaping to conclusions than
at stepping back to analyze them. The
solution? Think about what you’re thinking.” (40) We often do not know what make people tick. We mistake insecurity for arrogance, fear
for stubbornness, and anger for ‘he’s just a jerk.’ (41) You probably know a lot less about the
person you want to reach than you think you do. There is a reason why they behave like they
do. “Open your own mind and look for
the reasons behind the behavior, and you’ll take the first step toward
breaking down barriers and communicating with an ‘impossible’ person.” (43) “If you want to open the lines of communication,
open your own mind first.” (43) “Making someone ‘feel felt’ simply means putting
yourself in the other person’s shoes.
When you succeed, you can change the dynamics of a relationship in a
heartbeat.” (48) “The way to truly win friends and influence the
best people is to be more interested in listening to them than you are in
impressing them.” (57) “You can’t fake
interest, either, so don’t try.” (59)
[Reminds me of the joke: Sincerity is everything: when you can fake
that, you’ve got it made.] Your goal is to learn as much about the other
person as you can. Go into the
conversation knowing that there is something very interesting about the
person, and be determined to discover it.” (59) Ask questions that demonstrate you want to
know more. [Good sample questions are
listed.] Ask questions that will cause them to talk about what they feel,
think, or did. Ask another question
that shows you heard and cared about what they said. Summarize.
“Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from
their neck saying, ‘Make me feel important.’” (64, quoting Mary Kay Ash) Find ways to show the people you value how much
they matter. Go out of your way to
make annoying people feel important too.
They don’t feel important or special.
They’re starving for attention.
They need to matter: satisfy that need. Give people what they need and they’ll give
you what you need. “If you’re trying to reach people in a state of
distress, adding to their stress can be disastrous.” (70) If they are on the brink help them to exhale. Help them to relax and open their
mind. This builds a mental bridge to
you. “Get a person to uncross his arms physically, and you can get him to
uncross his arms mentally.” (73) Give
him plenty of time to vent. Don’t take
issue with anything or become defensive.
When he finishes he’ll be exhausted and then you ask him to tell you
more. This has several positive
effects. He will finally begin to
exhale. You may help him by telling
him to close his eyes and just breathe.
Let it happen. (Getting your
teen to exhale can save the sanity of your household.) Tell them sincerely that you didn’t know it
was so bad. “Dissonance occurs when you think you’re coming
across in one way but people see you in a totally different way.” (78) For example seeing yourself as wise when
others see you as sly. But it also
occurs when you see others inaccurately, when you don’t listen deeply
enough. People behave at their worst when they feel most
powerless. So when people are yelling
at you, they often feel they aren’t being heard or considered. The dissonance keeps you apart. To know how other people perceive you, ask
them. Give them a list of ways you
perhaps rub them the wrong way and ask them to mark the top 3. Or you can ask them how you can do better
in the future. “People will forgive you and even try to help you
if you’re honest about a mistake.
…it’s not telling the truth that makes people angry or disappointed in
you. It’s all the things you do to
avoid telling them the truth.” “Owning
up to your feeling of vulnerability is empowering.” (90) “…when you find the courage to say ‘I’m
afraid’ or ‘I’m lonely’ or ‘I don’t know how to get through this’—the other
person will immediately mirror your true feelings.” “…a desire to help leads to a solution. Interestingly this is true even if you bare
your vulnerability to people who don’t like you very much.” (91) There are ‘toxic’ people. When you find one, perform a
“jerkectomy.” Get them out of your
life. “Needy people demand constant
help and attention, use emotional blackmail to get it, and offer gratitude only
if it keeps you on the hook.” “They
lean on you until they crush you. And
once they latch on to you, they’ll almost never leave.” (95-6) “Bullies come after you because they think
you’re easy prey. Refuse to follow
their script, and they’ll usually give up and seek an easier target.”
(100) There are also takers,
narcissists, and psychopaths. But if everyone
is a problem, better look in the mirror and see if it’s you! “Ignore a slacker, and the problem will continue
and probably escalate. Confront the
person, expecting to receive an apology and a promise to reform, and you’re
likely to create an enemy who’ll look for every opportunity to covertly work
against you. But do the unexpected by
apologizing yourself, and something very different occurs: you shift a person
instantly out of defensive mode and cause the individual to mirror your
humility and concern. Taking
responsibility for your actions and committing to correct your faults in the
future also demonstrates a tremendous graciousness, generosity and poise, and
turns you into a person worthy of respect.
As a result, that same person who’s always circumvented or ignored or
sniped at you will dramatically shift course.” [I can imagine this backfiring pretty
easily. Dlm] Hmmm…. If
someone starts out angry or defensive, let them go on. When they stop, thoughtfully encourage them
to go deeper with “Hmmm,” “Really,”
“And so,” “Tell me more,” “Then what happened?” Each time they will calm down a little
more. It defuses the anger, shows them
you care, and puts you both on the same side.
By the end of the talk, instead of them telling you why it won’t work,
they are working hard to convince you it will succeed. Hmmm is a potent deescalaor. It is a relationship deepener. And it commits you to nothing. “Don’t go defensive: go deeper.” (148) “Frequently we can invest a great deal of energy
in hiding weaknesses even when they’re clear to anyone who meets us. The results: we make people
uncomfortable….” (140) They are thinking, “Don’t trust this
guy. If he’s hiding one thing he’s
probably hiding something else.” Admit
your weakness in a confident and unselfconscious way. Get in quick, neutralize the problem by
explaining how to handle it, and get out – move on to the next topic. “These days, we don’t relate—we transact.”
“Transactional communications don’t create traction in a relationship because
they’re impersonal and shallow.” Move
beyond transacting to relating “by asking questions that let the other person
tell you: ‘this is what I think,’ ‘This is who I am,’ ‘This is what I want to
achieve,’ or ‘this is how you can play a part in making my life better.”
(156) When I ask people questions that
let them open their minds and express their intelligence, they want to spend
more time with me. “I’m truly
fascinated by these people as human beings, not just cogs, and I let them
know it—often with a single question.” (157) Here are a couple of those kinds of questions;
“Sitting people down and lecturing them rarely
works, because it makes them defensive—and when they’re defensive, they hide
things from you. Work side by side
with them in a cooperative activity, however, and you’ll lower their guard
and get them to open up.” “Questioning
works better than telling.” “When you
allow one revelation to lead to another without getting in the way, you learn
even more.” “These elements of the
Side-by-Side approach—asking questions during a shared moment, and then
deepening the conversation with more questions—are as powerful as
communication gets….” (165) “When you
ask people questions, respect their answers.” (167) When you get a ‘no,’ ask, “I either pushed too
hard or failed to address something that was important to you, didn’t
I?” He’ll nod. “You sure did.” At that point he is nodding and beginning
to say ‘yes.’ You say, “And the point
where I went too far and the deal points I failed to address were
___________________ .” The client
feels in control the entire time.
“Until someone says ‘no’ to you, you’re not asking for enough.”
(179) The Power Thank you. Part 1.
Thank the person for something specific that he or she did for
you. Part 2.
Acknowledge the effort it took for the person to help you. Part 3.
Tell the person the difference that his or her act personally made to
you. “If a person performs an extraordinary act of
kindness or assistance and all you say is ‘thanks,’ …emotionally you’re not
giving back as much as you received.”
The person feels a little bit cheated.
(182) A Power Apology consists of remorse, restitution,
rehabilitation, and requesting forgiveness.
That is, you really do change your behavior. (184)
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