Anger is NOT an Emotion. The emotion that triggers anger is fear. Slam goes the gateway in the Safety Brain, turning us on to complete defence mode: how do I get safe? Anger is our attack - whether we attack physically, emotionally, intellectually - whether we attack others or attack ourselves - anger is our physical attack.
Here's the big question:
So, your most difficult person is standing in front of you right now and he is absolutely at his worst - his very worst. If you could remember that he is scared would that change how you deal with him?
In my experience, teaching this information to tens of thousands of people over the past 15 years, my information research shows:
- 62% of the group says YES remembering that he is scared would totally change how they deal with him.
- 25% of the group are in the Maybe category
- 13% of the group are emphatically NO WAY! The guy is a jerk and if he's going to treat me that way...
We're going to come back to that question. First, I want to walk you through a situation where it just won't matter. There are some people who, regardless of how you treat them, they will never change.
How many of you are dealing with a really difficult person - a really, really difficult person?
Dr. Joseph Ledoux, in his continued research into the amygdala and fears, showed that there are some people who, if they start early in their childhood being defensive a lot of the time, and they carry that behaviour with them through their teens and into adulthood, by the time they reach around 40 years old, they will have lost access to their Thinking Brain. Their Safety Brain will be in control 100% of the time.
Have you ever looked at another family and thought "Man, that child is spoiled rotten." This would be a child who carried a lot of fear with her and never learns to let the fear go; never learns how to deal with the fear. And No, this isn't necessarily a child who had been abused. I've met a lot of adults who were abused as children, and they grew up to be loving, caring adults. No, this is a child who takes everything personally and doesn't know any other way except to get defensive and go on the attack. So this will be a child who can be quite aggressive, very demanding.
The problem is if this child never learns another way. If she carries these fears and ways of dealing with issues with her into adulthood and never changes, by the time she hits 40 years old, she will have permanently lost access to her Thinking Brain. Do you remember the behaviours on the Thinking Brain list? Calm. Happy. Playful. Learn new things. Set goals.
Let's look at behaviours to see if you are dealing with someone like this. Think of your most difficult person. If the person is now living permanently in his Safety Brain:
- You can say something to him one minute and he's fine. You can say exactly the same thing to him the next minute and he goes off! So it feels like you are walking on eggshells around him. You're never quite sure what approach will work.
- It's her way or the highway. There isn't any other way. There is no compromise. No negotiation.
- This person will get along with new people (new coworkers, new friends) for about 3 weeks; in fact for those 3 weeks, the new person is their very best friend. And then something happens and it's over and they want NOTHING to do with that person ever again. So you are looking at someone who does short term relationships. In the workplace, she will go from group to group to group until finally she runs out of new groups, and nobody want to have anything to do with her.
- Here's the biggest indicator of all. If this person is involved in a situation, It is NEVER HIS Fault! Never! Never! It is always someone else did something wrong, said something wrong, acted the wrong way. It is ALWAYS someone else's fault, because for this person, in his own eyes HE IS PERFECT.
Does this sound like your difficult person? If it does, then you have a problem. The biggest problem is that this person CANNOT LEARN new things. Not won't learn. It's can't learn. There is a big difference here, for you, in how you think about, and deal with, this person. If you think he's doing it on purpose, he won't learn you get resentful and defensive with him. When you realize he CAN'T learn. He has no access to the part of his brain that learns you will find your thinking changes and you are dealing with him differently.
I had a principal of a high school in one of my workshops on "How To Deal With Difficult People"and he shared that he had a teacher who seemed to be like this. She was about 60 years old and her behaviour had gotten worse over the years. But the biggest frustration for the administrative staff what that this teacher wouldn't touch a computer. She wouldn't go near a computer. She would actually write things out by hand instead of sitting down at the computer. At report card time, she would cut and paste report cards together.
We need to reframe this. It's not that she WOULDN'T learn how to use the computer, she COULDN'T learn how to use the computer. She was a woman who had lost access to her Thinking Brain about 20 years ago - before computers where common place. She probably grew up using a typewriter. At this point, she can't learn new skills.
It gives us a whole different perspective of people like this.
Interestingly, these difficult people are often very good at what they've always known how to do, and can be very, very productive in areas that are familiar to them.
One airplane mechanic manager shared that he now realized he was dealing with someone like this. He had a mechanic who was older and certainly fit the bill behaviour-wise. The issue was that in today's mechanic shop, there is a whole bunch of new technology for fixing airplanes. This mechanic couldn't do it. He couldn't learn the new technology. He was extremely good at keeping the shop clean and everything in it's place, but he wasn't doing the job of a mechanic anymore. I was really, really proud of the manager because he was trying to figure out a way to keep this mechanic and justify paying him mechanic wages for janitorial work. The mechanic had been with the shop for over 30 years and was close to retirement. And the manager did figure out a way to make that happen.
I've only every had one person like this attend a workshop with me. It was a private, in-house workshop for a large law firm. The workshop was Business Perfect Grammar and Proofreading (I have a B.A Honours, English Major!)
At the beginning of the day, as the attendants were arriving, Glenda (I have changed the names in all my stories to protect the guilty!) said or did something as she arrived. I can't remember what she did. What I do remember is thinking huh, she's going to be a difficult person today. This is not a normal thought for me. I don't try to categorize people as they arrive. It was just one of those things that whatever it was she said or did really dinged on my radar. Then I forgot about.
The workshop has now started, and I take the time to introduce myself properly at the beginning of the day and give my credentials. I say "I have a Bachelor of Arts, English Major from the University of Saskatchewan" and Glenda pipes up, nice and loud and sarcastic "Well La-De-Da!"
OK. Hmmm. As a presenter, how would you deal with that? Right at the beginning of a meeting or workshop, as you open the meeting or workshop, someone is outright, and loudly, rude and sarcastic. How would you handle it?
Some would try to make a joke "Well, La-De-Da-De-Da to you too."
Some would ask what her credential are.
Some would invite her to leave.
Some would ignore her.
Best response? Don't engage. She has challenged your authority and power in front of everyone. If you engage in a negative way, you will have given the message to the rest of the pack that you aren't safe to be with regardless of whether she deserved it or not.
As it turns out, one of my standard workshop giveaways came in handy. I give out Worther's Originals hard caramel candies to anyone who can get the rest of the group laughing. So I walked over to her, handed her a candy, said something like, "You got the group laughing. You get the first laugh candy." and went on with the workshop.
I responded. I acknowledged that she had contributed. But she didn't take away any power, because I turned what she had said into a joke. As a presenter or when you lead a meeting, develop standard ways to deal with difficult people - comes in handy!
Turns out Glenda left at the 10:30 a.m. break and didn't return until the 2:30 p.m. break (she had to show she'd been in the room all day when the Vice President dropped in at the end of the day!)
Once all the attendants had left, I had a meeting with the Vice President and the Manager of Human Resources (HR). I looked at them and said, "Umm, Glenda... " That's as far as I got. The Manager HR rolled her eyes and said, "She's a very difficult person."
We talked about it for a while and it seriously looked like Glenda was indeed one of those difficult people who no longer had access to her Thinking Brain. However, the Manager of HR had intuitively figured out how to best handle Glenda.
Glenda was a legal secretary and they used her as a 'floating' secretary. She would help out when the lawyer's usual legal secretary was away. However, what they were doing with Glenda was floating her to the most difficult lawyers.
That was BRILLIANT! NO! Not because they deserved each other! And NO! not because they could create their own miserable corner and leave everyone else alone. No, the reason that it was brilliant is that Glenda and the difficult lawyer were a lot alike and they respected each other. Neither took the other's crap. And neither cared enough about the other to try to create a relationship. So it was working very, very well.
Here's the hint for how to deal with a difficult person like this!
Now, how many of you are sitting there thinking, "OK, I'm 40 years old, there's no hope for me..." First, it not JUST THE AGE that's the indicator. It's the age and ALL of the behaviours. And, actually, I can guarantee you're not! I can absolutely 100% guarantee that you still have access to your Thinking Brain. How? Because you are reading this!
People who have lost access to their Thinking Brains will NOT willing try to learn new things... new behaviours... new ways of dealing... new skills because they can't learn. Instead they will avoid all situations that involve learning. If they are invited to a workshop (or told to attend a workshop) they will deal with it like Glenda did, leaving as soon as possible. Normally, they would simply not show up. They would have excuses to not register. Their favourite excuse is "I know all that already." If they are signed up against their will, they will get sick the morning of the workshop or some catastrophe will occur at work that they have to go deal with. If they actually do come to the workshop and stay all day because their manager is there, they will sit all day with their arms crossed. No notes. No comments. Totally closed off.
So No! You aren't one of these people, because you are willingly reading this and trying to learn!
In every workshop for 15 years, I've done the casual poll of "How many of you think you are dealing with someone like this." And usually about 50% of the hands go up. So, Yes, these people are out there and they aren't rare. However, I'd say that about 1% of the population is like this. This isn't a situation that you have to focus on and try to figure out because you'll be dealing with all kinds of people like this. You may have one or two people like this, in your lifetime!
The key to dealing with them is
1. YOU have to remain calm
2. Don't every try to force them to learn new things
3. Be very clear and very strong with the boundaries for them - they need to feel safe and they will feel safe when they know what the rules are and they know the rules aren't changing.
And then I had a woman who worked at a Seniors' Care Facility figure out something that was FANTASTIC. Seniors! A lot of them are losing their ability to learn new things. And she was having the hardest time, because a few years ago, they gave all their guests these little technology boxes that held their medications. The nursing staff was taking longer than ever before to administer the medications, because the seniors just couldn't learn how to use these darned little boxes.
And this wonderful woman had a brilliant idea. She was going to go back and explain how these little techie medication dispensers were just like... the remote control for the television. That's Brilliant! Doesn't everyone know how to use the TV remote? OK, No, not everyone does. However, the on/off and switch channels are pretty easy and that's all she had to teach them to do. The majority of the seniors would be able to learn that. She may still have a few who can't do it, but it will have freed up a whole lot of time for a whole lot of her nurses.
So there is one more tip for you: if you really need this difficult person to learn something new, if you can draw a clear analogy of each step, to something he already knows how to do, the likelihood is, he'll be able to learn it. Do it slowly, small step by small step, with lots of patience.
You won't have that many of these people in your life. I started this out by asking you a question that I think you might know the answer to, now.
The question was: Your most difficult person is standing in front of you, right now, absolutely at his worst. If you could remember that he's scared, would it change how you deal with him. The answer is YES it will.
Remember, there are only 5 fears that trigger the Safety Brain to take over.
Jeanette Kasper -- Your Anger UnTangler
Defuse (or Delete) difficult people in your life. Neutralize your anger. DON'T smack them upside the head! No more bodies buried under the copier!
Go to http://angerisnotanemotion.com for Mrs. Kasper's first best-seller "Anger Is NOT An Emotion" and get thousands of tips and strategies to deal with angry people and to delete your own anger.
No comments:
Post a Comment