Chapter 9
SHAKING OFF THE EMOTIONAL INFLUENCES OF OTHERS
INTROVERTS FIND IT EASY to feel others’ emotions; for highly sensitive people, this is especially true. Introverts have the advantage of being able to read between the lines by observing others’ words and nonverbal cues. They can make a decision or a judgment with the tiniest of hints; however, a drawback to this is that introverts are more likely to be affected by others’ emotions. I think that introverts are mostly quiet when they talk and they don’t like intense phrasing and expressions. They’re calm when communicating and they’re practical and realistic in what they talk about. The opposite type of person (an extrovert) is around as well, of course. They might have a quick-tempered personality and a booming voice and be full of guts and vim; often such extroverts are explicit with their expression of their good and bad moods. I like this kind of person most of the time because they’re candid, have big hearts, and are often pretty loyal friends. But I’m not as great as they are in their mastery of being able to “talk things over.” This is what they define as their communication style; in my mind, it is just arguing or yelling.
One time, coworker S from the next department over and coworker M from my department were having a heated discussion in the hallway. As M’s manager, I asked both of them and S’s manager to go into the conference room with us to clear things up. When they trudged into the conference room, S started to go off the rails and berate M and me. Even though I was a manager, and I was supposed to mediate the situation, I was completely incapacitated by this behavior and was unable to think. It was like I was facing off against a massively stimulated psychological shield mechanism. All I could think about was trying to seek shelter from this emotional bomb that was going off next to me. But where in this meeting room could I go to duck and cover? I could only stand where I was and listen. S continued shooting off a continuous barrage. I couldn’t find any opening in which to insert my two cents.
Because this whole situation was flooded with a massive influx of irrational behavior from my perspective, I found myself wondering whether S really wanted to express anything or just blow off some steam. I waited for S to stop going off like a machine gun, and then, with a gentle tone, I turned my head towards S’s manager and said, “Excuse me, but could you tell me what the situation is now?”
After the incident, I was told that those twelve words completely changed the atmosphere in the room. Originally, S was being condescending and blaming me the whole time. My response, however, had gently and resolutely expressed two things: firstly, it should be the manager who explains what is going on calmly and not a huge cacophony where everyone is yelling; second, it’s OK to express your emotions, but at the end of the day, we’re going to have to communicate reasonably.
In actuality, I wasn’t thinking about much at that moment. I was just shut down by S’s voice. But my comments let S’s manager know that allowing their subordinate to continue going on their tirade wasn’t helping anything. After the communication style returned to a pace I could deal with, I understood the ins and outs of the whole situation; I also found out what the whole crux of the problem was: people had different interpretations of the language of an email. Finally, I suggested improvements, such as creating a systematized communication mechanism for the group so they could avoid possible misunderstandings that arose from private negotiations. In the end, the conflict was smoothly defused.
When dealing with all sorts of different personalities in the office or the workplace, introverts will almost wish they could cut off their social antennae. If they could, perhaps they wouldn’t be burdened by so many emotional influences from others. Some people will either run away as a result of extreme emotion or ignore their inner voice.
Eckhart Tolle, reputed to be one of America’s most popular writers of psychology by the New York Times, once said something like this: if there’s no way for you to perceive your feelings, meaning you’ve cut yourself off from them, then you’re going to have physical problems arise later on.
When people see how quietly I respond to conflicts, they say things like, “You’re too kind. Others are just going to walk all over you. When people are talking with you in a booming voice, you ought to be yelling back in response. Otherwise, people are going to think you’re a wimp!” Responding with a counterstrike may sound like a good strategy, and many introverts have tried to toughen up, but in the end, yelling back has the opposite effect of what they were intending, including that they feel guilty for yelling, in which case they say things like, “I’m really sorry. I’m not trying to be so mean.” In addition, trying to toughen up produces an incongruous pressure that stems from a mismatch between their behavior and their personality. They wonder, “Am I really this kind of person? Why am I changing like this?” In addition, during arguments where people shout and holler at each other, it’s easy to lose the focus of the argument, which can then morph into a venting session about their dissatisfaction, and as a result, the arguments lose all their meaning.
TRY TO PULL AWAY AND DELAY BATTLE ENGAGEMENT
You don’t need to force yourself to positively address the other person’s rage. After all, this is never an introvert’s forte. First, calmly try to postpone the actual battle. Try looking at the issue from the other person’s perspective, for example, analyzing the situation to yourself: “He’s my boss. He’s really pissed right now, but I don’t know why he’s suddenly gone nuts. Has he lost his mind, or is it something stupid that one of my dumb colleagues did? I didn’t step into a minefield, did I?” Once you start imagining scenarios that explain your boss’s behavior, you will find it easier to clear up the situation.
Delaying your battle engagement is quite helpful to an introvert. If the other person continues to give a berating barrage, you don’t need to push yourself to refute or explain immediately; by waiting for the person to finish their tirade, you buy yourself more time to think. If the engagement is imminent and the other person demands that you give an answer immediately, then you need to do your best to stall to gain time. For example, you can say, “I don’t have the information you need on hand; let me work on it right away. I’ll go talk to the such-and-such department supervisor to sync all the information together, and I’ll get back to you in twenty minutes. Would you also like someone else to join us when I do?”
WHEN ANALYZING SITUATIONS, TAKE CARE OF YOUR EMOTIONS
When you are using the time you’ve won and are analyzing conflicts of interests, remember to take care of your own emotions.
A few years ago, I had a coworker who was really fantastic at her job. The boss really liked her go-get-’em work ability and would even give her his own clients, and with both great skill and ease, she never let her boss down. At one point, however, her boss suddenly started to become very picky and determined to find problems with her work. He would pick apart the errors in her internal application sheet, but he didn’t seem to care whether others submitted it; he would also blame her for having long conversations with clients over the phone when she was cultivating them, even though, months before, he used to shower her with accolades and compliments for the same behavior. When this sudden change started, colleagues would jokingly say that the boss was going through menopause and would be back to normal after a bit; however, his behavior became more and more volatile as time went on. The boss would often lash out at my coworker and make her very uncomfortable.
As soon as she realized that the situation wasn’t right, she began analyzing whether there was a problem with her work or her communication skills. After doing some simple deduction, she felt confident that everything was correct with her own performance. But then why had her boss started to shoot her down? Her coworkers were easy to get along with, so she felt she could rule out the possibility of them having reported her for some unknown reason. After she eliminated the potential problems one by one, what she was left with was that her boss might be having a control-relinquishment issue. She figured out that her boss didn’t actually like handing off his best clients and connections to her, and that her performance may have threatened the boss’s authority.
After calmly judging the situation, she asked herself, “Which of these things makes me more uncomfortable? The boss being on my case all day or that I will no longer get the thrill and glory I feel from work I do on my own? Do I want to quit? If I quit my nine-to-five and start up my own business, do I stand a good chance of succeeding?” After evaluating all the possibilities, she believed that if she’d be nagged and dragged down by her boss over every little thing, she’d rather quit; but considering the current reality, she didn’t think she was yet capable of leaving and bringing the clients with her. In the end, she decided to take a step back so she could move forward.
First she told her boss privately that she was fine with cutting back on the amount of responsibility she had with many clients; secondly, she decided that regardless of which client order she was negotiating, right after she closed the deal, she’d immediately give her boss a report and thank him for his guidance. She’d say that it was all thanks to the boss that the clients decided to place their orders, even if the boss was actually praising her for these feats during meetings. It all came down to how she framed her work. After a lot of adjustments, her decisions paid off and her boss stopped nitpicking at her. She went from being torn down every day to getting back into her boss’s good graces, and she discovered that her performance was still hinging on decisions she made herself.
After she related this whole matter to me, I asked her how she knew her boss didn’t want her stealing all his thunder, and she replied, “The boss was a superstar when it came to business development. Very few people like him would be able to let go of this kind of prominence.” It was just a matter of textbook-level empathy analysis.
ARE INTROVERTS REALLY INCAPABLE OF GETTING ANGRY?
Many people mistakenly think that introverts can’t get angry. The reality is that an introvert’s way of expressing anger is a bit less raw or obvious. Someone who’s really not that great at picking up on signals might not even pick up on an introvert’s anger. On the other hand, introverts often think other people are too quick to fly off the handle or don’t think deeply enough and therefore end up hurting their feelings pretty easily.
Physiologist Walter Cannon proposed the fight or flight response back in 1929. Cannon explained that when organisms face a threat, the threat incites a series of neurological and physical responses, which ultimately lead to a decision to either stay and fight or run away. This theory is broadly used in many different applied areas. When introverts are faced with large amounts of stimuli, such as high-pressure situations brought about by negative emotions, they have this fight or flight response. They can choose to hunker down (eliminate the source of stress and knock out the angry party) or flee (leave their stressful situation in some way, either by putting in their earbuds or by leaving the physical space of the conflict).
However, I really like what psychiatrist Ilis Sand wrote in her work, Highly Sensitive People in an Insensitive World: How to Create a Happy Life. She put out a method—a middle road between blaming others and taking responsibility. By adopting this middle path, we can stay in a high-pressure situation but still strive to decrease stress and tension. When we try to solve office conflicts, both parties often seek out who is ultimately responsible for the mess, but Sand suggests that we abandon this dichotomy and instead put the emphasis on having the two sides try to understand the other’s opinion or thinking on the matter. This is especially important for introverts; if we don’t like getting angry or having shouting matches, and we’re always silently going along without expressing our own thoughts and feelings, not only will this not help our interpersonal communication in the long run, but it might also lead to and create physical and mental illness if we’re not careful. A decent way of expressing where you’re coming from is to carefully and calmly talk about how you’re involved in the situation and provide neutral information about possible solutions. For example, if you are talking to a group of customer service reps, you might say, “I know your instinct is to respond to the client and solve the issue as quickly as possible, but it will take about an hour to fix each document. If you all send in what you’re working on right before you get off work, I’ll be swamped and there will be no way I’ll be able to get any of it done on that same day. If you need it done before you get off work, please get it to me before noon.”
This statement can be broken down like this:
I know your instinct is to respond to the client and solve the issue as quickly as possible (masterfully expresses empathy).
But it will take about an hour to fix each document (provides neutral information).
If you need it done before you get off work, please get it to me before noon (expresses a request).
Sometimes it’s all too easy to be put at a disadvantage in a work environment in which you need to quickly respond to events. But then again, as long as your position is clear, and you’re using a method of expression you’re comfortable with, then you’ve actually found your own style. After all, the important thing about communicating isn’t just about how you express things, it’s about how you get the other person to fully receive your information.
Shouting in a loud voice or beating the table is a communication method, but for introverts, it may not be the most effective. Circumspectly suggesting things after deep consideration is also a way of communication, but when the other party is an extrovert, it’s likely to be abandoned because they’re already on to the next item on their agenda. Each person communicates differently. Introverts don’t need to force themselves to become extroverts. Respecting each person’s differences and finding an effective communication method is far more important.
YOU MIGHT NOT LIKE ME, BUT YOU CAN TRUST ME
Sometimes we may place emphasis on the wrong thing. In the workplace, relationships are mostly built upon common goals. Although it’s important to build friendly relationships, what’s more important is whether or not you’re capable of helping the other person solve a problem, whether you can be relied upon, whether you can be invited to join the team to work on an important project, or whether the team can ask you to meet with an important client while they’re out of the country. Sometimes this relationship of trust is even a life-or-death affair. For example, when NASA astronauts are on an assignment in space, NASA often needs astronauts from different cultures and upbringings to build tacit relationships and understandings and have a high level of trust while carrying out missions within short time spans.
In 2011, the team on the International Space Station (ISS) needed to carry out a highly sensitive mission: they had to control a mechanical arm so it could grab hold of an incoming supply ship that was flying erratically in a zero-gravity environment. This mission was expected to be extremely difficult—equivalent to grabbing a swerving car travelling at 350 miles per hour and then touching a specific button in the car from the outside. If the team members failed, the supply ship would crash into the space station, and even if the crew didn’t die, they’d lose all their supplies. Because this was a life-or-death mission, the mutual trust between astronauts who had never met prior to being assigned together to the space station was of critical importance. Before they went on their mission, they hadn’t had a lot of time to get to know each other. What made matters more interesting was that among the astronauts, there was a Russian commanding officer who fully believed that women did not belong in space. But lo and behold, guess who just so happened to be on his team? A female astronaut!
When wilderness training and leadership expert John Kanengieter was helping the NASA training team, he emphasized using a work relationship based on the idea that “You may not like me, but in critical moments, you can trust me.” The emotions and responses we have in the workplace, such as anger and criticism, for instance, are just due to stress most of the time. The way to trigger a stress minefield isn’t the same from person to person. Some people can’t stand passive coworkers. Some people can’t deal with critiques saturated with veiled negativity. The response to workplace stressors isn’t the same for everyone either. Some people get nervous. Some people start to make excuses and blame others. Some start to pretend that whatever they do is A-OK.
Kanengieter led the NASA trainees on an eleven-day Man vs. Wild–style exercise before they went to the ISS. He wanted these NASA trainees who were going to carry out high-pressure missions to observe their points of pressure overload, their degrees of stress tolerance, and their emotional responses when they were exposed to an extremely unfamiliar environment and/or high pressure. After eleven days, this group of astronaut trainees, who might face potential death together, knew each other’s stress responses. Maybe they didn’t like each other, but they knew who was capable of taking the lead under what circumstances. The life-or-death space mission came down to the Russian commanding officer and the female astronaut working together. The Russian commanding officer described it this way: “And then Cady started moving the arm and she moved it so nicely, so controlled, and she went there like nothing and zoom! And she got it.” When the NASA headquarters in Houston congratulated the team on smoothly completing the mission without a hitch, the Russian commanding officer in charge of this harrowing mission even joked back, saying, “Houston, we have no problem.”
As introverts, when you face all sorts of stresses and pressures, instead of yelling emotionally or starting to blame your coworkers, exploit each other’s strengths and try out this kind of analysis: “He’s yelling because he thinks we might screw up this case, and the pressure’s on. I can expertly do my own part and at the same time let him know that if we both do our parts well, we still have a greater than 50 percent chance of taking care of this issue.” After all, regardless of whether you’re someone who’s just gotten their foot in the door or in a managerial position, being crowned “emotional” isn’t a good result at all.