SECTION I
The Problems That Wonât Go Away
If youâve ever dreamedâin a weak momentâof herding the exasperating people in your life onto an ice floe and pushing it into a warm sea, this book is for you. Iâll show you a simple three-step solution for changing anyoneâs irritating, offensive, obstructive, lazy, nonproductive, combative, self-serving, infuriating, and otherwise troublesome behavior.
In Section I, youâll see annoying behavior from a new perspective and discover what needlessly prolongs your struggle to change it. Youâll learn how to reclaim your appreciable influence over the annoying people in your life, even over a belligerent manager. Then youâll take the first step toward getting your difficult person to changeâidentify and target the specific trait or habit you want changed.
ONE
The Care and Feeding of Problems: How Difficult Behavior Gets Reinforced
What do you do about impossible people? You know the kind:
⢠The manager who hands you a rush project and insists that you drop everything to get it done. Then the completed report sits on her desk for a monthâjust the way it did the last time.
⢠The ambitious colleague who frequently criticizes your work in front of the boss.
⢠The otherwise good assistant who is chronically late. She always apologizes, but the excuses are as annoying as her tardiness.
Itâs the chronic offenders like these who drive you crazy, not the people who occasionally irritate. You can cope with your managerâs bad day from time to time. Itâs when sheâs having a bad life and taking it out on you that the frustration sets in. When people continue to annoy you no matter what you say or do, thatâs when you begin to believe that they will never change or that you will never copeâthat the troubled relationship (or your job) is doomed.
Not only can you get these people to change their habits, but you can do it with surprisingly little effort and without confrontation. Sound impossible? Itâs notâonce you know the right approach. Youâre about to learn the method that will take the trial and error out of changing anyoneâs troublesome behavior.
The (Not) Impossible Dream
This method is a result of four decades of research at the Mental Research Institute (MRI) in Palo Alto, primarily the work of the Brief Therapy Center project. In the beginning the founders of MRI studied all types of communication. Then, while analyzing how people handle problems, they discovered that people often get stuck in problems because they pickâand then inadvertently repeatâa solution that doesnât work. Their solution was, in fact, prolonging the problem. The researchers figured that the problem would disappear if they: 1) focused on these ineffective solutions rather than on the original problem; and 2) convinced their clients to try something significantly different. So they put aside the traditional diagnostic labels and techniques of psychotherapy and set out to test this hypothesis. Calling their work âbrief therapy,â the researchers challenged themselves to resolve clientsâ problems in a maximum of ten one-hour sessions. Over the years they developed and fine-tuned a unique formula that is extraordinarily successful in resolving impossible problems quickly.
Dr. Richard Fisch, John Weakland, and Paul Watzlawick, the senior team members, were curious to see whether their method would be as effective with business problems as it was with the problems of families and individuals. In 1984 I was invited to join the Brief Therapy Centerâs research team. At that time I had worked for twelve years as a management consultant in a variety of organizations, primarily helping teams function effectively and coaching managers on how to handle difficult and nonproductive behavior. We began to collaborate on business problems, blending the centerâs techniques with my consulting tools. For instance, if a protracted conflict in an organization was the result of a âsystemsâ problemâlike inadequate definitions of peopleâs goals or roles, ineffective communications channels, inappropriate decision styles, or work-flow bottlenecksâthen traditional consulting practices sufficed. Remove the cause of friction and the friction ceases. At other times, good management practices were already in place but the conflict persisted, perhaps due to individuals finding each otherâs habits intolerable. Then the centerâs three-step model was the better tool. When the cause of the trouble was a combination of these forces, then we used a blend of the methods. In the course of working on a number of problem situations, we discovered that the centerâs method worked as well with business problems as it had with individual and family difficulties. In fact, the process saved my clients a great deal of time, trouble, and expense.
This book will show you how to use adeptly the three-step process that resolves repetitive problems. You will learn how to:
⢠cut your problem down to size (youâll find that you have less work to do than you thought);
⢠figure out what inadvertently perpetuates your problem (youâll discover how much control you already have); and, based on that,
⢠select a new approach that will get you the change you want.
These three steps may appear simple, and they areâas simple as programming your VCR. Itâs simple, that is, when youâve read the directions. And when youâve mastered these three steps, youâll know how to quickly get people to stop driving you crazy.
Youâll learn some straightforward ways to get people to quit their annoying habits. Youâll also learn some unusual solutions because, with repeat offenders, common-sense methods often donât work. For example, it may make good sense to simply ask your abrasive colleague to stop criticizing you in front of your boss. It is a logical approach and worth a try. But if it doesnât work, there is no point in trying it over and over. As you will learn, a significantly different approach will now be needed if you want your peer to change. Imagine telling him that you find his criticism useful and would like him to do it even more, especially in front of your boss. Sounds crazy, but a client of mine did exactly that and quickly got her peer to back off. Youâll learn how to use such unusual but effective solutions, and many simpler ones as well.
If youâve tried unsuccessfully to change someoneâs behavior, you already know what doesnât work. Youâre about to learn what does. Hereâs a preview of the first step in the process: identifying specifically what behavior needs to change.
Yes, Virginia, People Really Do Change
When repeatedly faced with a managerâs or a spouseâs irritating behavior, I have often heard people give up, saying, âWhatâs the use? People canât change.â Itâs how we console ourselves when we canât get someone to change. In effect, weâre saying that our efforts didnât fail, but rather that the irritating person is like the tiger that canât change its stripes. While comforting, it doesnât do much to change those aggravating spouses and thoughtless co-workers.
The fact is, people change all the time. For instance, many of us change our behavior quickly when the CEO walks into the room. We probably behave differently with our colleagues than with our spouses. And itâs not likely that we treat each of our children exactly the same (just ask them). We change our behavior all day long. But, you protest, thatâs not the same as the tiger changing its stripes; however, as youâll see, itâs not usually the stripes that need changing.
The problem with saying âpeople canât changeâ is that the statement isnât specific. People canât change what, precisely? Letâs say that youâre frustrated with your hyperactive assistant who is still bouncing off the walls despite your efforts to change him. Before you declare that he canât change, you need to ask yourself: What specifically did you try to change about him? What problem does his hyperactivity create? To succeed at changing him, you have to work on the problem his troublesome behavior creates, not vaguely try to transform his personality. You probably donât really care that he has so much energy; you just wish heâd stop cracking his knuckles, drumming the table, and popping up and down in meetings. In other words, while you canât expect him to become Mr. Mellow, you can get him to stop his constant interruptions in staff meetings. Once youâve attacked and fixed the specific problem his hyperactivity creates, you might find the rest of his high energy tolerable. You could even enjoy having him around.
Changing the Changeable
Clarifying the specific problem focuses you on changing the changeable. For example, a friend of mine is a nonstop talker. She can literally go on for hours relating story after escapade after travelogue. Sheâs intelligent and creative and a great storyteller, but I get worn out after hours of listening. I want conversation, not just monologue. One day, after about forty minutes, I interrupted her with a time-out signal and said: âWhile these stories are entertaining, I really look forward to our conversationsâwhen we kick ideas and theories back and forth. When do we get to do that?â Her response flabbergasted me. âThatâs what Iâve been waiting for,â she said. I guess while she waited, she was just filling in the empty space with stories.
Obviously my usual method of dealing with herâpolitely not interrupting, waiting for her to run downâhadnât worked. I have since learned to interrupt and say, âOK. I need conversation now,â or in a twist on the old phrase, âEnough about you. Letâs talk about me.â She then finishes her story and we spend the rest of our visit in satisfying conversation. Iâve noticed that she has begun to ask me about myself at the start of our time together, making sure I get my turn first, so to speak. I now look forward to seeing her.
Did she change? You bet. She can and does still talk nonstop, but the problem I had with that is resolved. I get to be heard too, we spend a good deal of time in first-rate conversation, and Iâve learned how to get her to stop when Iâve had my fill of monologue. Has she altered her style for others? Only for those who have changed their way of dealing with her. For everyone else, I recommend earplugs.
So itâs not whether people can change, but whether we can get people to change what we want them to. After all, even an insufferable boss is nice to someone. The question is not whether that person can change; the question is: How can we make sure we are the ones that boss is nice to?
To succeed in getting people to change their irritating behavior, itâs useful to recognize what drives people to behave as they do. Once you see behavior from this new perspective, a world of options opens up.
The Predictable Element inâUnchangeableâ Situations
When youâre struggling to get your manager or co-worker or daughter to change, you probably see your own frustration clearly. But what you might not see clearly is what actually is going on between the two of youâwhat keeps you from succeeding. Itâs not easy to step back and observe the show when youâre one of the actors. But if youâre having trouble getting your manager to change, you can count on two things: 1) your perception of the situation will be quite different from your managerâs, and 2) these differing perceptions will complement each other. For instance:
TOM: âMy manager, Murray, micromanages everything. Heâll rewrite even the most trivial memo. Itâs so frustrating. Heâs got to have the wording his way. So why bother to put in any effort? Now I just send him my first draft and let him have at it!â
MURRAY: âTom just doesnât care. He would mail out trash if I let him. Iâve got to check everything, even trivial memos. He has no quality standards. And the more I correct him, the worse he gets.â
How frustrating for Murray. The more he tries to improve quality, the more he receives junk. And Tom isnât faring much better. Each man is getting more of the very thing he detests.
Claudia and Mandy tackled the problem of quality differently, but arrived at a similar impasse:
CLAUDIA: âMy team leader, Mandy, canât be pleased. She thinks she has a better way to do everything, so sheâs always making me redo things. And such a temper! Iâve begun asking more questions, to make sure Iâm going to do something exactly the way she wants it. But when I ask, she barks, âNot that way! Here, let me do it.â Then she grabs the file out of my hand and I stand there feeling like an idiot. Iâm afraid to do anything! The harder I try to do it her way, the more she treats me like a stupid little twit.â
MANDY: âMy new assistant, Claudia, drives me up the wall. Sheâs so hesitant and tentative. Every sentence out of her mouth is a question, like âDo you think we should do X now?â or âWhere do you want me to keep this file?â I was told she is smart, but youâd never know it. I may as well do everything myself.â
The more careful and hesitant Claudia gets, the more Mandy yells at her. The more Mandy yells and grabs things away, the more hesitant Claudia becomes. Their interactions are like a well-rehearsed dance: Yell, hesitateâhesitate, yell, cha-cha-cha.
The curious thing in both of these examples is that each personâs way of handling the otherâs annoying behavior ends up encouraging more of that behavior, not less. This is the predictable element in seemingly unchangeable situations: When you canât get someone to change, the way you are going about it is probably making things worse.
Once caught up in that dance, your situation may feel hopeless. But itâs not. When you learn to recognize the steps of your particular dance, you can then learn how to change them. So before you fire that technician, yell at your friend, or quit your job, let me show you how to take the lead and change the dance. You have all the influence you need. You just have to learn how to use it.
Youâre More Influential Than You Think
When we canât get someone to change, we may say it is because Tom needs to throw his weight around or Mandy is an incurable perfectionist or Claudia lacks initiative. In other words, we say itâs because of that personâs character or personality. This traditional view presumes that problems reside within individuals, separate and distinct from the personâs environment. It presumes that our actions donât influence othersâ behavior. Once a jerk, always a jerk, so to speak.
Of course people do have different personalities and habitsâsome annoying. Thatâs not the issue. The issue is that you either reinforce...