How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life pdfdrive com

Midflight Correction

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If you find it too difficult to “step back and reset” in the middle of a tense
conversation, don’t despair. You’ve got at least a couple of other options. One is
to simply excuse yourself for a few minutes. Everyone needs to go to the
bathroom from time to time, so just use that as a convenient excuse to regroup.
The second option is to perform your “step back and reset” out loud. In the
middle of a conversation, Peter was still occasionally finding himself thinking:
“Oh no—I 
know
I’m triggered, because of the way I’m behaving, but I don’t
know what to do! I must plow on!” But he discovered it was perfectly possible
to say, “I’m sorry, I realize I’m having a reaction to something we’ve just
discussed. Can we pause for a moment?” Not only does this kind of candid
disclosure give you a chance to reset your approach, but it can also—as we saw
in 
Chapter 8
 on building rapport—deepen the level of trust and openness in the
conversation.
HOW TO RAISE DIFFICULT ISSUES WITH SKILL
Occasionally, all the social intelligence and self-awareness in the world can’t get
around the fact that someone has done something to wind you up. You try to rise
above it, but every time you talk to that person there’s a cloud lingering over
your exchange. What should you do? Continue to try to smooth things over, or
tackle the issue?
You can guess where I’m going with this. There’s a strong case for clearing
the air, for several reasons. First, as long as you’re tense, your deliberate system
is unlikely to be mustering your best social skills, even as you’re supposedly
smoothing things over. Second, far from lowering the ante, trying to suppress
negative emotion has been shown to make the brain’s defensive response even
more pronounced.
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Third, confirmation bias means that you’re likely to see ever
more
sources of annoyance in this person over time, rather than being able to
move on, because your expectations of this person now have a negative slant.
Fourth, you might hope to avoid conflict by trying to pretend nothing is wrong,
but emotional contagion will have you communicating your quiet simmering in
subconscious ways. So you might think you’re protecting the relationship by
keeping your mouth shut, but there’s a good chance that you’re only making
things worse.
The challenge is that very few of us relish conflict, and “clearing the air”

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sounds like code for “awkwardness.” So here’s a technique you can use to get
things off your chest while also putting your relationship back onto a stronger
footing. I’ve taught it to CEOs to help them raise difficult issues with their
boards, but it works in lower-stakes situations, too.
As always, the starting point is the intention you set for the conversation.
Although you might be unhappy with the other person’s behavior, having a goal
for the conversation of “I want to show her what’s what!” is not going to reduce
conflict. I was once working with a real estate advisor named Simon who was
upset with a prospective client. The issue was that the client had assured Simon
that he was likely to win a project that he’d bid for, but then she had failed to
award him the work—and this had happened several times in a row. When I
asked Simon to articulate his goal for his conversation with her, the first word
that came to his mind was “revenge.” He laughed, but it was only slightly funny,
because it was obviously somewhat true. So I asked him what he 
really
wanted
from the conversation. “A good result would be if she saw me more as a person,
less as a disposable service provider. And I’d like to understand where she’s
coming from in deciding who to give work to.”
Once your collaborative intentions are set, I can all but guarantee that you’ll
safely navigate the conversation if you walk through the following steps. It helps
if you can take five or ten minutes to jot down some notes before you go into the
conversation, so you’re clear on what you want to say in steps 2 and 3 in