|CHAPTER 15|
Temperament: Communicate that You’ve Got the Right Disposition
“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.”
Here are the temperament items from chapter 12:
Humility: Admits and learns from mistakes. Seeks and values others’ ideas and involvement. Listens with respect. Shares credit.
Command: Takes the lead. Speaks up. Asserts oneself skillfully, without either aggression or undue concern for being liked or agreed with.
Optimism: Takes a positive approach to problems and tasks. Imagines and communicates a positive, credible future state.
Composure: Demonstrates calm under pressure. Handles stressful situations well. Thinks on one’s feet, improvises. Uses humor appropriately.
Different organizations define temperament differently. Your organization, for instance, may strongly value humility—or not at all.
And we could add 100 other items to temperament (e.g., the Myers-Briggs dimensions, the “Big 5” personality traits, or anything involving “emotional intelligence”).
But let’s keep it simple. What is it about your presence that makes others listen—or not listen? These four items suggest different possibilities.
Humility and command have a yin-yang relationship. The art is to avoid getting stuck in either.
When do you step back and involve others (humility), and when do you assert yourself (command)? People may tune you out because you’re too tentative (excess humility), or too bossy (excess command). So balance is important.
You communicate optimism by how you talk about the future. It’s about hope. But the goal is not to be optimistic 24/7—overdo it, and you’ll lose credibility. Plus, there are certain jobs and certain situations where imagining the worst-case scenario is smart.
Composure is how you act under stress. That’s a moment of truth, especially if others are stressed too—they’ll remember your behavior.
Presence Action #7: Humility
Make Others Feel Important
“I’ve got to get to Boston tonight!” the airline passenger yelled at the gate agent.
American Airlines had just cancelled his evening flight out of Philadelphia. There was only one flight left, and he was trying to get on it.
“That flight is oversold,” said the gate agent.
“What if I told you,” said the passenger, still yelling, “that I’m a heart surgeon and have to be in Boston for a critical operation?”
The gate agent looked unimpressed.
“Suppose I told you,” the passenger continued, now red in the face, “that I’m the president of American Airlines?”
Another passenger muttered: “I guess the medical career didn’t work out.”
I was standing nearby, intrigued by the heart surgeon/president of American Airlines and his motivational technique. He pretended that he was important and that the gate agent wasn’t. Generally, that technique doesn’t get you off the ground.
Consider the opposite approach.
The former CEO of JetBlue Airways, David Neeleman, used to help clean the planes once a week. He also helped unload luggage. And if he was on the flight, he served snacks and beverages.
All this makes an impression. Another airline CEO, the former head of (now defunct) People Express, used to say that when a passenger boards a plane and sees clutter, that single impression makes the passenger assume sloppy engine maintenance (optics).
What do you assume about David Neeleman? If he helped out once a year, you might assume it was a gimmick. But cleaning planes on a regular basis makes you assume something else, aside from “those planes must be extremely tidy—and have great engines!”
All jobs are important, his actions said, and so too are the people doing them.
“Let’s just treat people nice,” he told an interviewer. “Sometimes people don’t deserve to be treated nice. But let’s just do it anyway, because that’s just the way we want to do business.”2
p.s. Back to the heart surgeon/president of American Airlines. Somehow, he made it onto the plane that night. There were probably other important people on board as well. But due to bad weather, we never made it out of the airport.
The universe didn’t seem to care.
Use the Law of Agreement
“That is without a doubt the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard,” said the CEO of CBS, Leslie Moonves.
The idea was for a new show, Survivor. Moonves eventually aired the show and made a fortune. Later, he freely admitted his initial reaction.3
How do you react to others’ ideas and concerns? Be careful, if you want to survive.
You may be tempted to mask what you really think. Big mistake. If everyone at a meeting does that, you get groupthink—a disaster when bad ideas aren’t stopped (see page 145).
Then there’s the opposite approach. “I have a bad reputation at my company for speaking my mind when I hear something dumb,” an executive confided. “Any advice?” he asked.
I suggested the law of agreement, which comes from improvisational theater. If you’re on stage and someone tosses out an idea, your first move is to welcome it.
I recently took an improv class, and the teacher told me to play a senile 90-year-old man. “You’ve got to be kidding,” I thought. I see myself closer to a 30-year-old neuroscientist.
But, after the scene, the teacher said, “I have no trouble believing you have severe dementia.”
(I told my wife about this later. She just nodded.)
The law of agreement, applied to work, means to first greet an idea, criticism, or question with something positive. You could say, “Here’s what I like about that,” or “here’s what your idea makes me think about.”
Then state your concerns.
Les Moonves could have said, “We’re in a creative business, and your idea is certainly original. My concern is that no one will watch the show.”
Greet an idea the way you’d greet a person. Some retail stores have professional greeters. Imagine a store with the opposite approach. They replace all the greeters with homicide detectives; instead of saying hello to customers, they frisk ’em.
HOMICIDE DETECTIVE TO CUSTOMER: Ever been here before?
CUSTOMER: No.
DETECTIVE: What about November 2, between 7–8 p.m.?
CUSTOMER: I don’t think so.
DETECTIVE: Really? Up against the wall, buddy.
You can greet an idea with respect; that’s different than endorsing it. And you can disagree without being disagreeable.
(More improv on page 153, Composure.)
Encourage “Spirited Debate”
“How could we have been so stupid?” asked President Kennedy.
When: April 1961, less than 100 days into his presidency.
What happened: Kennedy approved an invasion of Cuba. Over 1,400 Cuban exiles, equipped and trained by the CIA, landed at the Bay of Pigs. They were quickly defeated by overwhelming force.
“Most of us,” Kennedy later said, “thought it would work.”4
But that “most of us” was an illusion; in truth, participants were intimidated.
Secretary of State Dean Rusk didn’t think it would work. The plan didn’t have “a snowball’s chance in hell of success,” he later wrote. “But I never expressed my doubts explicitly.”5
“Dumb.” That’s how Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara later described the plan. But at the time, he gave his approval.
Why didn’t anyone speak up?
“One’s impulse to blow the whistle on this nonsense,” said Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Special Assistant to President Kennedy, “was simply undone by the circumstances of the discussion.”6
Schlesinger sent Kennedy a private memo opposing the strike. But he stayed silent during group discussions.
“Groupthink,” is how psychologist Irving Janis later described those discussions. No real debate or dissent. And no devil’s advocate—a role that Robert Kennedy would later champion.
Instead, false agreement. Participants wrongly assumed that everyone else in the room agreed.
Ever been in a room like that?
After the failure, Kennedy sought advice from Dwight Eisenhower, his predecessor. And then, 18 months later, during the Cuban Missile Crisis (at least partly caused by the Bay of Pigs), Kennedy’s team changed their approach.
What was Eisenhower’s advice? You need spirited debate.7
Presence Action #8: Command
Leading a Meeting? Be the Conductor
The train conductor gave us a no-nonsense warning as we approached New Haven, CT. We were early, he said, so it was permissible to step off the train.
“But,” he warned, “you’ve only got six minutes. We’ll be leaving for NYC at 9:41 a.m. And that’s 9:41 my time.”
I admired the repetition of 9:41. And also the “THAT’S 9:41 MY TIME” part, which showed a take-charge attitude, spiked perhaps with just a dollop of insanity.
When was the last time you missed a train? Or a plane? Rarely happens, right? On the other hand, people are late for meetings all the time. More about that in a second.
Back to the train. I did get off because I’m one of those people who worry every time I read the latest research about excessive sitting.
(“How did he die?” I imagine someone asking about me. “Oh, he took a train from Boston to NYC and never got up. Not once. And then, of course, he couldn’t get up. For the main reason, he was dead.”)
So I stepped off and did a few stretches, but I didn’t go far because this was a train that could leave, really, at any second, based on the conductor deciding, purely on whim, “Off we go, it’s 9:41—MY TIME!”
The next time you run a meeting, be the conductor.
What does that mean? Well, for one thing, be clear about when the meeting starts and when the break ends, and then—here’s the tough part—stick to those times.
Sure, you may feel uncomfortable starting or resuming a meeting when people are missing. But that’s what a conductor would do.
Be the conductor means to demonstrate command, to assert leadership. That doesn’t mean you should dominate the discussion.
But when you’re leading a meeting, sometimes you need to focus more on getting the train to the station, and less on getting all the passengers to love you.
p.s. If your meeting exceeds an hour (most meetings shouldn’t), you definitely need a break—unless you want half the room to keel over from excessive sitting.
How to Lead a Meeting without Pulling Teeth
Sometimes I help managers run better meetings.
But in my private life, I’ve been trapped at several bad meetings—the kind where you squirm in your seat—with the dentist. Luckily, the dentist wasn’t actually in the seat.
Is there a connection between good meetings and bad dentistry? Yes! It’s about control.
Mistake #1: Too much control. You talk, but no one’s engaged.
One day, I asked my dentist why he didn’t have a spittoon. I like spittoons. They let you, the patient, sit up once in a while, spit, and take a break.
“I hate ’em,” he said, almost to himself, “every single one of them.” Was he talking about spittoons or patients?
I couldn’t tell.
Before I could offer any more advice, he put a suction hose in my mouth. Clearly, this man had a schedule, and there was no time for spitting.
Fine. But you certainly don’t want dead silence at your meetings. If you’re doing all the talking, that’s less like a meeting, more like a bad dental experience.
Why are you talking so much, anyway?
Probably because you’ve got too much info, too little time. Well, why not send some of that info in advance?
Avoid using your meeting to dump data. Instead, use the meeting to discuss and debate so that you (and/or the group) can decide and act.
Mistake #2: Too little control. Everyone talks, but nothing gets done.
I once had a dentist—or else it was someone pretending to be a dentist—ask me, “What are your goals for your teeth?”
I didn’t really have any, other than to keep them. And I expected the dentist—or this person impersonating one—to provide a modicum of direction.
Same for the meeting leader. Without you steering, everyone may participate, but your meeting goes nowhere.
To maintain control, you don’t need to dominate, but you do need to drive the structure. Begin with your purpose. What is it? And what decisions need to get made, and by whom?
Be explicit.
Deputize a timekeeper—better if it’s not you—to alert the group if the conversation goes off the rails.
And set some ground rules early to prevent trouble later.
For example: no cell phones, no side conversations. And no spitting . . .
A good meeting is both efficient (uses time well) and engaging (uses people well).
To achieve both, flex control.
Push Back, without Being Pushy
I was trying to park at Logan Airport in Boston, Lot E. I love Lot E, for the main reason that it’s outdoors, so you have at least a 50-50 shot of finding your car again.
Unfortunately, there was an attendant blocking the entrance. “Go to Lot E2,” he said. “It’s right next door.”
That’s true, but to get there you have to wind around the airport, which means, if you’re me, you have an excellent chance of ending up in Rhode Island.
Ten minutes later, I wasn’t in Rhode Island, but I also wasn’t in Logan Airport. Somehow, I’d been shot out through the airport tunnel into South Boston. By the time I returned, Lot E2 was closed. The amusing part was that Lot E was now open.
My mistake. When the parking attendant said “no,” I heard nonnegotiable.
When you get a “no” at work, or encounter an obstacle, how quickly do you fold?
In sales, you learn that “no” is often just an opening gambit. It never hurts to test or probe, as long as you’re respectful. The parking attendant might have said yes, I’ll never know.
The next morning, I was staying at a hotel with guest privileges to a nearby gym. I got a gym pass, then ran over. It was raining, so by the time I reached the gym, I was soaked.
I gave the receptionist my pass. “Unfortunately,” she said, “we’ll also need a photo ID.”
But I’d learned my lesson from the day before. “Is there any way,” I asked, “to just use the pass today? My driver’s license is back at the hotel.”
“No,” she said. “You’ll have to get the license.”
I mentioned the weather.
Receptionist: “Sorry, you’ll have to go back.”
We were in the midst of “broken record,” an assertiveness technique originally invented by children to get ice cream. It sounds like this:
CHILDREN: We want ice cream.
PARENTS: No.
CHILDREN: When can we have ice cream?
PARENTS: Not until the sun comes up.
CHILDREN: When will that be?
PARENTS: Never.
CHILDREN: Ice cream, ice cream, ice cream!!!
With broken record, you calmly repeat your position. Sometimes it works, other times you end up back in Rhode Island.
This time, the receptionist let me in. Our conversation had stayed friendly, but I decided not to ask for ice cream.
Your Job Isn’t to Get Everyone to Like You—Do What’s Right
The other day, I realized something alarming about myself.
I’d been thinking about U.S. presidents and their low approval numbers. “If I was interested in polling,” President Obama once said, “I wouldn’t have run for president.”
Hmm. Is any U.S. president really immune to polls? George W. Bush, near the end of his presidency, was asked: “You’re leaving as one of the most unpopular presidents ever. How does that feel?”
“I was also the most popular president,” Bush said.8
That’s true, Bush’s approval numbers ranged from 25% to 90%, according to Gallup. Imagine a job where, Monday, everyone loves you; Tuesday, no one even likes you.
I definitely couldn’t be president; that’s obvious from a recent Saturday yoga class I attended.
“Is there anyone here,” the teacher asked, “who’s never done yoga?” She seemed to linger on the word never, as if the very idea was preposterous.
I was the only one. “Very unusual,” she said to me. Then, during the class, she praised just about everyone: “Exactly right, Lisa,” she’d say, or, “Lovely, Michael. You’ve really got it.”
I was hoping she’d say, “Paul, I can’t believe this is your first class, you’re so natural!” But no, whenever she looked my way, she seemed to frown.
I pictured a besieged U.S. president, say, Abraham Lincoln, in my situation. Lincoln was reviled and ridiculed—he might have benefited from yoga. I imagined Lincoln standing on his yoga mat in the warrior pose, while his yoga teacher frowned. Would Lincoln have cared? Doubt it.
But I did.
“Care about what other people think,” said the ancient philosopher Lao Tzu, “and you will always be their prisoner.”
Maybe. But maybe part of you never stops caring. Maybe the trick, as in yoga, is simply not to get stuck in that position.
p.s. Of the last 11 presidents, Eisenhower through Obama (as of 2013), the American public now only rates three as “outstanding/above average.”
Kennedy gets high scores from 74%; Reagan, 61%; Clinton, 55%. Two of those men were shot; the other impeached.9
Presence Action #9: Optimism
Check Your Expectations and How You Communicate Them
If you ask my wife about my best traits, flexible won’t be on her list. So I couldn’t wait to tell her, one day, what a long-time client said.
“Apparently,” I said, “I’m the most flexible consultant she’s ever worked with.”
“Apparently,” my wife said, “she’s never had lunch with you.”
My wife has a point here. I’m the sort of person who orders salad “with dressing on the side,” a tuna sandwich “without extra mayo,” and iced tea “with very little ice.”
But my client wasn’t talking lunch. And she wasn’t just complimenting me, she was subtly influencing me. “I value flexibility,” she was basically saying. “Keep doing that.”
How do you communicate expectations?
There’s a big difference, for example, between saying to a child “if you go to college” versus saying, “when you go to college.”
Suppose, as a manager, you believe in Theory X. That’s what psychologist Douglas McGregor, years ago, called the expectation that employees are lazy and unmotivated.
Theory Y, according to McGregor, is the opposite expectation. And a Theory Y manager will create a different climate and get different results than a Theory X manager.
Sometimes you and I convey our expectations nonverbally, without even realizing it.
One disturbing study (take a breath here) involved rats. Lab technicians were given some rats, and then told they had to learn to run a maze.
To be clear, it was the rats who had to run the maze, not the lab techs. Although if I were a lab tech, I’d definitely learn to run the maze, or run the hallways, or run for my life—anything to escape the rats.
Some lab techs were told their rats were super-smart and would learn the maze quickly. Other techs were told the opposite. And, sure enough, the smart rats outperformed the stupid ones from day one.
But both groups of rats were the same. The only difference—in a Theory X, Theory Y way—were the lab techs’ expectations.10
Your expectations influence behavior, yours and others, more than you think.
p.s. McGregor’s point wasn’t to be a Theory Y manager 24/7. Sometimes Theory X is justified.
p.p.s. For lunch, California Pizza Kitchen makes an excellent tortilla soup. But hold the extra tortilla chips.
Don’t Screw Up
I was about to step on stage and give a keynote speech, when my client offered some last-minute advice:
“Don’t screw up,” he said.
As soon as I heard this, all I could think about was screwing up. “So what you’re really saying,” I replied, “is ‘knock ’em dead.’”
“No,” my client said. “What I’m really saying is, ‘Don’t screw up.’”
So I didn’t. But I kept thinking about the tightrope artist, Karl Wallenda, who plummeted to his death from the high wire.
His wife later revealed that he had been unusually preoccupied with not falling.11
The mind has trouble with negatives. When someone tells you to not do something, it’s hard to imagine the not, but easy to imagine the something.
Still, you can motivate others (or yourself) with either negative or positive outcomes.
The “don’t screw up” negative method is powered by fear; you focus on avoiding the worst.
The “knock ’em dead” positive method is powered by hope; you focus on achieving the best.
Fear or hope—which do you prefer?
When my children were teenagers, I could hand them the car keys and either say, “Drive safely,” or “Try not to smash the Toyota into a tree.”
I usually advised them to drive safely. Then, later, I worried about the tree.
Presence Action #10: Composure
Getting attacked verbally? Use verbal judo.
Suppose your boss, or a key client, is unhappy with your performance. Your instinct is to debate and defend. Your instinct may be wrong.
The technique “yes and” comes from improvisational theater, which we just discussed. If you’re an improv actor, your job is to agree.
“Be a tiger,” the audience says.
You can’t say, “No, I don’t feel like a tiger today. I’m too bloated. I feel like an elephant, a big elephant in search of a low-fat, gluten-free diet.”
“Yes and” starts with agreement.
Maybe you can agree with the facts. “You’re right,” you say. “I didn’t meet expectations” or “That’s not up to our standards either.”
Maybe you can agree with the other person’s feeling. “I know you’re frustrated with me, and I’d like to understand why.”
But if possible, agree on something.
At some point, you can also say, “I’m not sure I completely agree” (watch your tone of voice here). But listen first.
“Yes” can take many forms.
When asked a tough question: “I’m glad you asked that,” or “Other clients have asked the same thing,” or “I’d be wondering that too if I were you.”
When attacked: “I appreciate your directness. Please go on.”
All these things say “yes.” What about simply saying, “I understand” or “Got it.”
Unsatisfying. What, exactly, did you get? Suppose you get your spouse non-fat milk when she really asked for 2%. “Honey,” you say, “I got it.” But you didn’t get the right thing, did you?
Saying, “Got it” is too fat-free. Go the extra 2%; confirm what you got.
When you offer your perspective—the and in “yes and”—you can either talk about the past (why this thing happened) or the future (what you’re going to do about it). Or both.
When talking about the past: keep your explanation short. You might say, “We did underperform. Can I tell you what happened?”
Suppose there were 10 contributing factors. Just give the top two or three.
When talking about the future: say what you’re going to do, but don’t over-promise.
Avoid the word but. But is a killer, it negates everything. I agree with you but spells trouble. I agree with you and sounds better, even if you proceed to say the same thing.
You may be thinking, Wait a minute, mister. There’s no way this technique will work all the time.
You’re right! Techniques like this, done mechanically, sound hollow. You also need genuine intention—in this case, to find agreement. What can you agree on? Your critic isn’t 100% delusional. Or is he?
p.s. One more thing: if the other person crosses the line from civility to abuse, change tactics.
Take Strategic Pauses
We already talked about pausing when giving a presentation (page 50, Speed Up/Slow Down). In addition, pause:
1.When you get emotionally triggered. Suppose your manager tells you about a promotion: “Sorry, you didn’t get it. We chose Harriet.”
Harriet??? Count to 10. Still triggered? Count to 10,000. Pause before you say something unfortunate.
2.After you ask a question. Common mistake: rushing in with a dozen more questions before anyone has answered the first.
“How come I didn’t get the promotion?” you ask your boss. “Is it because of my leadership ability? My collaboration skills? Do you dislike my hair?”
3.Before sending an email, especially an angry one: “Re: Harriet’s promotion: I’m repulsed and deeply nauseous.”
Pause. Is “deeply” the right word? Did you spell-check? Do you really need to “reply all”?
4.Before answering a phone call. Who’s calling? Oh no, it’s Harriet! Breathe. Smile. Then answer the call.