TIP 6

PROTECT YOURSELF GRACEFULLY

       No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

A simple four-step communication model that I learned at Coach Inc. will help you protect yourself from unpleasant comments. Whenever people do something that hurts you or bothers you, you are allowing it. Here is how to stop this behavior in a graceful and effective manner. (Ladies, pay attention; we tend to be particularly weak in this department.)

   Step 1. Inform. “Do you realize that you are yelling?” or “Do you realize that your comment hurt me” or “I didn’t ask for your feedback.” If they continue with the unwanted behavior, then take it up to step 2, but only after you’ve tried step 1.

   Step 2. Request. Ask them to stop. “I ask that you stop yelling at me now,” or “I ask that you only give me constructive feedback.” If they still don’t get it and the behavior continues, try step 3.

   Step 3. Demand or insist. “I insist that you stop yelling at me now.” If they still persist, take it to the next level (step 4).

   Step 4. Leave (without any snappy comebacks or remarks). “I can’t continue this conversation while you are yelling at me. I am going to leave the room.” If you are in a relationship and the other person doesn’t change his or her behavior after you’ve tried this model numerous times, you may need to leave the relationship and/or get a therapist. The people who really love you will respect your boundaries.

The key to success with these four steps is to say them in a neutral tone of voice. Do not raise your voice. Keep it calm and flat. You know when you’ve got a little charge, fire, judgment, or anger in your tone. Remember, you are informing the other person. Think of going through the four steps in the same way you’d say, “The sky is blue.” No emotion, no excitement, just a neutral tone of voice. You can say just about anything to anybody if you say it in a neutral manner.

Now Susan (from Tip 5) had some ammunition ready for the next time her boss yelled at her. She used this four-step model to inform her boss in a neutral tone of voice. Be careful here. You could risk your job if you don’t have this tone of voice down pat, so practice on friends and family until you are sure you can do it. Susan made a small mistake at the office the next day, and as usual, her boss began to rant and rave. Susan very calmly, without the slightest hint of sarcasm or judgment in her voice, replied, “Do you realize that you are yelling at me?” This stopped her boss right in her tracks. Then Susan said, “I really want to do my very best work for you, and find that I work best when you point out my errors in a calm voice.” Susan’s boss immediately calmed down, apologized, and later took her out to lunch. This is a very powerful and attractive way to communicate.

At this point, you are probably thinking, “Well, that’s fine for Susan, but I could never speak to my boss that way.” Quite frankly, that is what all my clients say when I tell them that they need to inform their bosses they have just crossed a boundary. The key to dealing with your boss is to use a completely neutral tone of voice and to be extremely tactful. Never correct your boss, or anyone for that matter, in front of another person and especially not in a meeting. Being casual and subtle is also good. You don’t want to make a big deal out of your boss’s behavior.

Let’s look at an example from one client, Lee, a branch manager. Lee felt that his boss, the division executive, was always micromanaging him and had stepped over the line by scheduling a meeting with one of his employees without checking with him first. He obviously didn’t want to offend the division executive who would be determining the size of his bonus later on. At the same time, he was frustrated by his manager’s seeming disregard for his need to manage his own branch. The next day his manager called him about some reports, and Lee casually mentioned, “John, my teller, said that you had scheduled a meeting with him. It would make job scheduling easier if, in the future, you’d let me know of such meetings.” That was it. Lee used a straightforward informing tone that very subtly let his boss know she had just crossed a boundary. And believe me, he was scared to death to do it, but it did the trick. The next time the division executive wanted a meeting she called Lee first and set it up through him.

As for the micromanaging, I told Lee to find out what reports his boss wanted and, even if she didn’t want them, to type up a brief memo of the results and sales activities of the week so she would be informed of everything that was going on. I also asked Lee to set up weekly meetings with his manager either by phone or in person to give regular updates of what was happening. After one month of this, his division executive said that monthly meetings would be sufficient and that he could discontinue his weekly reports. Lee had won the confidence and trust of his manager and now had the independence to do his job.

When using the four-step communication model, most people have a natural tendency to skip steps 1 and 2 and go right to steps 3 or 4—usually not in a neutral tone of voice. The trick to staying neutral is to address things on the spot (Tip 7).

The good news is that eventually you won’t even need these boundaries—people wouldn’t think of making an unkind remark to you. There is another interesting side effect to enforcing your boundaries. We assume that enforcing a boundary will make people dislike us or think we are pushy, or aggressive, or perhaps demanding. However, it is the exact opposite. When you have strong boundaries in place, people will stop treating you like a doormat and start respecting you. You’ll be the kind of person people naturally respect and treat courteously. When I was a little girl in the first grade, a big bully of a fifth-grader (and you know how big fifth-graders look when you are in first grade) was always picking on me and threatening me. I told my dad, and he taught me how to throw a punch. One day on the playground Mark was with a bunch of his friends and started to taunt me. I spun around and punched him right in the nose. To my own shock and amazement, he fell flat on his back and had a bloody nose. His friends stood around him, jaws agape, as shocked as I was. I was terrified that they would tear me from limb to limb, and I decided to get out of Dodge and literally skipped off. The next day at school I was wary, but to my complete amazement, Mark came up to me and treated me with great respect. He stopped bullying me, and we actually became friends and went frog catching together. Once he went to buy my next-door neighbor friend, Jamie, and me a soda and he dropped one of them on the way back. He gave the dropped one to her, not to me. I had won his respect. This first-grade story is a great example of how effective and powerful boundaries are. Now of course I’m not suggesting that you go around punching people in the nose—but do start informing and requesting.

At some level people know when they are doing a number on you, and they don’t really want to get away with it. If you let them get away it, not only do you diminish yourself, but you also diminish them. What boundaries would you like to put in place now that you know how to protect yourself gracefully? See if you can come up with at least five and write them down.