For example, are you sure just what to say and do in these cases?
In this series, I will show you how to communicate effectively even in such situations. You'll learn how to protect yourself from your own damaging instincts, prepare intelligently for best results, conduct a focused discussion that leads to an agreement, and follow up to make sure any agreed-upon actions are carried out.
In my experience, people-including those you might view as difficult-usually respond well if you treat them with honestly felt friendly respect. Regarding them merely as predictable obstacles to your goals or comfort is not a respectful attitude at all-but it underlies most of the popular strategies of manipulation. Your tricks might succeed once or twice; in the long run, however, communication will not improve.
If you want to make real progress in your relationships and communications, forget about difficult people. Instead, learn to deal with tough situations involving basically decent people-and chances are they will respond like decent people.
Think about that for a moment. What happens when you are plunged into danger? Your instincts take over! It's a great time saver, because you can short-circuit all the time-consuming higher functions of thought-but is it going to be effective?
What instincts are available to you? Usually there are just two: fight or flight. If the enemy is smaller or the struggle central to your sur vival, you strike out; if the other guy looks bigger, you run. The arrangement seems to work out for survival in the jungle; however, in civilized society, a third instinct-namely, to "reason it out"-would be much more useful. Just go through your list of past communication blunders: From how many disasters would such an instinct have saved you?
Unfortunately, by some oversight, we seem to be born without that third instinct of reason. Consequently, you need a simple routine that protects you from your rash instinctual responses in tough situations.
This routine must meet two requirements: (1) It must be easy to learn and use even when you are surprised and upset, and (2) it must work in situations involving your boss and others with greater power and influence than you.
Much popular advice is either too complex or too aggressive to pass this double test.
For instance, you cannot possibly learn ten strategies for dealing with ten types of difficult people and hope to remember the right one in the heat of a sudden attack. Neither can you put a superboss firmly in his place for interrupting you with an irrelevant or sarcastic remark.
A routine for yourself, not manipulation of others, is the key to dealing with difficult situations. It focuses you on the one person over whom you do have control.
Let me illustrate the reasons for this four-step approach with an example. Imagine this scene: Four days before you are due to go on an expensive two-week vacation with your family (all tickets nonrefundable!), your boss comes into your office and declares, "Cancel your vacation! Nobody takes time off until the Xenix trial is finished!" Quick: What do you say to persuade him to leave your vacation alone and save your marriage?
You'd be a very unusual person if you came up with anything much more intelligent than "Oh, no!" or "What do you mean, cancel my vacation?" Furthermore, there is no point in my offering you strategies for generating more persuasive verbalizations; you'd be much too upset to remember them. In fact, the only safe strategy is to think before you speak and then say either nothing or the minimum that will let you postpone the discussion, without agreeing or disagreeing at this point.
You might simply say, "Hmm." Note that this verbal grunt means neither yes nor no, so you have not given anything away. And it certainly is simple enough to learn and produce!
Having gained time, you can now prepare intelligently for a fruitful discussion. The key here is to think up win-win proposals and then anticipate likely responses to them. How will you deal with these responses so as to walk away with some acceptable agreement?
In my example, it might occur to you to point out that canceling your vacation amounts to taking a $4,000 pay cut-something the boss surely would not accept for himself. When you play it out in a scenario, it might not look that good, however. The boss might just say: "Sure I would-in fact, I did more than once in my career! I don't give a hoot about your vacation-all that matters is that this project be finished as planned. It's your fault it's not on track." What do you say then? Not much, probably-you've maneuvered yourself into a dead end, because you pushed a win-lose proposal.
Logically, the boss wins if the Xenix trial runs successfully and on schedule, and you win if you can go on your vacation. Suppose you make a few phone calls and then put together a memo showing exactly how the Xenix trial would run successfully in your absence-complete with names, responsibilities, and completion dates. You might then say: "John, I fully appreciate that you want the Xenix trial to be on track and a success. I would like to show you a plan I worked out with Bill and Linda to make this happen. I would stay in touch with them by phone and e-mail to make sure everything works as planned, and I'd also do the data analysis while on vacation. It would save me $4,000 because all my tickets and reservations are nonrefundable at this point." How might this play? It would probably go quite well, although you should anticipate some grumbling and blaming: "This project is a mess, and it's all because you let the schedule slip!" Are you ready for tha! ! t on e?
Yes: "It's true we are a week behind; but that's because the Fenton plant delayed phase 1 by ten days to squeeze in an extra production run for XYZ. In fact, we made up three days. But the important thing is, we will get it done on time. Let me show you exactly how it's going to work out."
The point is, this kind of solution is possible only with preparation, including discussions and arrangements with other people. You could never be as persuasive if you tried to argue your case immediately to your boss. That's why we say that four steps lead to success, while a one-step strategy leads to disaster.
In the actual discussion, your job is to emerge with some agreement that advances you toward your ultimate goal. Again, the scenario-based preparation puts you in a good position to achieve this. Finally, the all important follow-through gives promises the often necessary push into reality.
You know - if you've ever received an award - that there is little more rewarding than receiving the recognition of your peers. The Fort Worth Section offers an opportunity each year to its members nominate deserving individuals in the Section for awards in several categories. Please take time to nominate your colleagues who have contributed service to the community, to engineering/technical careers, and to IEEE. It's a simple, painless process - nominations can be submitted in an informally written email.
OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT - Recognizes contribution to the achievements of the IEEE Fort Worth Section and/or engineering progress through engineering efforts. In your nomination, include all work that has or will result in substantial improvements to the effectiveness of the section and/or engineering.
YOUNG ENGINEER OF THE YEAR - Recognizes an engineer 35 years of age or under for contributions in the leadership of technical society activities, leadership in the community/humanitarian activities, and technical competence through significant engineering achievements. Requirements are that the individual be 35 or younger on January 1, 2000 and at least one year of membership in the Fort Worth Section. Factors for selection include:
ENGINEER OF THE YEAR - Recognizes leadership of technical society activities, leadership in community/humanitarian activities, and technical competence through significant engineering achievements. Requires at least one year of membership in the Fort Worth Section. The candidate should exemplify life long commitment to his/her profession and community. Factors for selection include:
OUTSTANDING SERVICE - Recognizes outstanding contributions to a Fort Worth Section committee or chapter. Candidate must be an IEEE member.
PROFESSIONALISM AWARD - Recognizes activities that uplift the public image of engineering. Requirements are include four years of membership in the Fort Worth Section. The engineer must have made outstanding contributions in the leadership of the community, humanitarian activities and/or technical society activities. Factors to be considered include:
Send your nominations to Diane Bowen Collier, d.b.collier@ieee.org. Provide the individual's name, address, and phone number; the suggested award; and a description of the individual's service and/or accomplishments. Nominations should be received by May 1, 2000. Section Awards will be presented at the Metrocon 2000 luncheon in September.
TEXMEMS WORKSHOPS, are one-day meetings that encourage interaction and dialog among scientists and engineers to foster developments in MEMS related activities at different levels: Design, Simulation, Fabrication and Applications. TEXMEMS II will take place May 16 at SMU and is open, free of charge, to everyone who is interested in MEMS. Keynote Speaker will be Dr. William C. Tang, MEMS Program Manager, DARPA. Deadline for registration is April 15. See www.seas.smu.edu/texmems. Sponsored by SMU, IEEE, ASME, Raytheon, TCU.
GREAT ENGINEERING ACHIEVEMENTS - Nominated by 29 professional engineering societies, the top 20 list of Great Engineering Achievements of the 20th Century was selected and ranked by a distinguished panel of the nation's top engineers, working in anonymity to ensure objectivity. The top 20 list was announced as part of National Engineers Week 2000 at the National Press Club by Neil Armstrong, an engineer and astronaut whose moon landing in 1969 was listed in #12, "Space Exploration." The project was a collaborative effort led by the National Academy of Engineering, with the American Association of Engineering Societies, National Engineers Week and 29 engineering societies including the IEEE. Notably the single greatest achievement belongs to electrical engineering. See www.greatachievements.org
KEY HIGHLIGHTS OF PRESIDENT CLINTON'S PROPOSED 21ST CENTURY RESEARCH FUND include increases in biomedical research, the National Science Foundation budget for university-based research, information technology research, and biodenergy-related research. In addition, the President is proposing $497 million for a new National Nanotechnology Initiative.
Whether Congress will fund the President's FY 2001 S&T requests is an open question. Budget caps still prohibit significant new discretionary spending, however, Congress seems increasingly willing to look at the issue of adjusting the caps.
For more information consult the White House press release on The 21st Century Research Fund: www.whitehouse.gov/WH/New/html/20000121.html. See also reports on Nanotechnology: Shaping the World By Atom - www.whitehouse.gov/WH/EOP/OSTP/NSTC/html/iwgn/IWGN.Public.Brochure/welcome.htm and Nanotechnology Research Directions - www.whitehouse.gov/WH/EOP/OSTP/NSTC/html/iwgn/IWGN.Research.Directions/toc.htm.
FCC APPROVES LOW POWER FM RADIO SERVICE - On Jan. 20, the Federal Communications Commission voted to authorize two new classes of noncommercial low power FM radio services (LPFM). According to the FCC, these new services, LP 100 (50-100 watts and a service radius of 3.5 miles) and LP10 (1-10 watts and a service radius of 1-2 miles), are the best way to bring additional diversity to radio broadcasting and serve local community needs in a focused manner with LPFM stations. See www.fcc.gov/mmb/prd/lpfm/
COMMISSION SEEKING IDEAS FOR QUALITY MATH/SCIENCE TEACHING - The National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st Century, chaired by former Senator and astronaut John Glenn, has created an interactive discussion forum site to gather ideas on ways to ensure high quality teaching in mathematics and science at all grades nationwide. Visitors to the site have the opportunity to watch presentations from Commission meetings and offer comments about what they've heard (or not heard) and what other visitors had to say. See www.ed.gov/americacounts/glenn. The Commission invites you to return regularly to this site as new material is posted for comment.
KEY STATISTICS ON PUBLIC ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS AND AGENCIES: School Year 1995-96 offers detailed information (from the 1995-96 and 1994-95 Common Core of Data) about our nation's 16,000 school districts and 87,000 public schools. Topics include the number, size, and location of schools and school districts; enrollment and schools by student grade; selected student characteristics; high school completers; dropouts; numbers of instructional, support and administrative staff; staff ratios; and revenues and expenditures. Much of the information is broken out by school or district size and urbanicity. See nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=1999324.
SMARTGRRLS LAUNCHES THE FIRST ALL-GIRL TECHNOLOGY CENTER in Austin, TX. The center will provide hands-on learning activities, designed to develop engineering and technology related skills in middle school-aged girls and expects to serve more than 1,000 young women, aged 11 to 15, during its first year of operation in after-school programs, Saturday camps, and winter and summer camps. SmartGrrls, founded in 1997, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to encouraging young women to reach their full potential. Visit www.smartgrrls.org or call 512-916-4775.
ANNOUNCING XPLORE: IEEE PUBLICATIONS ONLINE - Beginning in February 2000, all IEEE publications go online, accessible through Xplore, www.ieee.org/ieeexplore.
HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL PRESS DISCOUNTS THROUGH BOOKSPLUS - Now you can get 30% off of Harvard Business School Press books and 35% Harvard Business Review reprints and 35% Harvard Business School case studies through the IEEE BooksPlus Program. The reprints and case studies are delivered electronically. IEEE Books Plus also includes discounts on books from Prentice-Hall. To place an order, visit: www.ieee.org/booksplus/
IEEE YEAR IN REVIEW - Overall, 1999 was a very good year for the IEEE: membership increased to all-time IEEE records and electronic delivery transformed the very foundation of publishing. The Institute increased its impact on its members and their employers, its corporate and institutional customers, and the public. See the report at www.ieee.org/about/review/index.htm.
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Jean Eason, Editor