Category: fairness

Mean Bosses

This blog has frequently advocated that it is beneficial for all if we treat others respectfully. At times we focussed on a respectful way to provide negative criticism–no glares, insults, threats, or shouts, and with enough details so that the criticized person, if he or she wills, can improve the behavior, idea, or appearance. At other times, we focussed on the best way to respond to negative criticism–listen in a supportive, warm, friendly style, and then make it clear that we fully understand what was said by providing a summary.

Although posts like these were generally well received, some comments argued that they didn’t apply to work settings. “A good boss doesn’t have time to be nice!” claimed one person. Another argued that “A boss has to be tough or he or she will be taken advantage of, and the whole organization will end up suffering.”

Well, an excellent article once appeared in the New York Times that delves into this issue. Titled “No Time to Be Nice,” the author, Christine Porath, tells us that how we treat one another at work matters. “Insensitive interactions have a way of whittling away at people’s health, performance and souls.”

Early in the article, Ms. Porath reviews research demonstrating that stressful jobs increase the risk of a cardiovascular event by 38 percent, and a major source of work related stress is how the boss treats employees.

Bosses produce demoralized employees through a string of actions: walking away from a conversation because they lose interest; answering calls in the middle of meetings without leaving the room; openly mocking people by pointing out their flaws or personality quirks in front of others; reminding their subordinates of their “role” in the organization and “title”; taking credit for wins, but pointing the finger at others when problems arise.

Although in surveys people say they are afraid they will not rise in an organization if they are really friendly and helpful, research evidence indicates the opposite is true–behavior involving politeness and regard for others in the workplace pays off. Those seen as civil were twice as likely to be viewed as leaders.

Ms. Porath tells us:

Civility elicits perceptions of warmth and competence….these two traits drive our impressions of others, accounting for more than 90 percent of the variation in the positive or negative impressions we form of those around us. These impressions dictate whether people will trust you, build relationships with you, follow you and support you.

The reason that some people don’t believe the research findings is that they see mean bosses who seem to succeed despite being rude and thoughtless. Whereas it is true that some bosses can be highly successful while being mean, it is not being mean that makes them successful. They succeed despite their incivility, not because of it. If they happen to have highly talented people working for them, or their company is particularly profitable because their product is much better than the competition, the boss may get the credit. But studies reviewed by Ms. Porath demonstrate that the No. 1 characteristic associated with an executive’s failure is an insensitive, abrasive or bullying style.

Power can force compliance. But insensitivity or disrespect often sabotages support in crucial situations. Employees may fail to share important information and withhold efforts or resources. Sooner or later, uncivil people sabotage their success — or at least their potential. Payback may come immediately or when they least expect it, and it may be intentional or unconscious.

There is far more in the “No Time to Be Nice” article worth studying, and I highly recommend giving it a thorough read. Ms. Porath’s article is a breath of fresh air to all of us who advocate that treating people respectfully is in all of our best interests.

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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

Tags bullying, disrespectful, disrespectful bosses, insults, mean bosses, mean employers, respect, stress

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Women and Criticism

On this blog, I often discuss immature and mature ways to deal with criticism. The advice that I offer is designed to be helpful to males and females alike. But recently, in an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times, Tara Mohr argues that when it comes to criticism, women can benefit from advice specifically targeted to the unique cultural situation that they find themselves in.

The New York Times Article

Ms Mohr, in her thoughtful article titled “Learning to Love Criticism,” tells us:

Criticism stings for all of us, but women have been socialized to not rock the boat, to be, above all else, likable. By the time a girl reaches adolescence, she’ll most likely have watched hundreds of films, television shows and advertisements in which a woman’s destiny is determined not by her own choices but by how she is perceived by others. In those hundreds of stories, we get the message: What other people think and say about us matters, a lot.

In addition to these messages in the media, for centuries women have had less rights than men. Being likable, or at least acceptable to stronger, more powerful men, became a primary survival strategy. For many women around the world, this is still the reality.

Given this history, we might think that women have mastered the skills to insure that they are liked, but in the business world there is some evidence that problems exist.

A Recent Survey

In a recent survey that looked at 248 performance reviews from 28 different companies, both men and women gave more negative feedback to the women being reviewed. Here are a few examples:

“You can come across as abrasive sometimes. I know you don’t mean to, but you need to pay attention to your tone.”

“Your peers sometimes feel that you don’t leave them enough room. Sometimes you need to step back to let others shine.”

“The presentation ultimately went well. But along the way, we discovered many areas for improvement. You would have had an easier time if you had been less judgmental about R—‘s contributions from the beginning.”

This kind of negative criticism showed up twice in the 83 critical reviews received by men. It showed up in 71 of the 94 critical reviews received by women.

There are three possibilities that present themselves here:

1. The women received more negative criticism despite not acting in any distinctively different way than the men because of distinctively different expectations of how women “should” act;

2. The women who received more negative reviews actually acted distinctly different in certain ways than the men and it is these differences that led to the additional negative criticism;

3. It is a little of both.

An Informal Survey

Interestingly, from my perspective, are the results of an informal survey of someone I know who was intimately involved in evaluating and promoting personnel. Here, early criticism was about equal between men and women, but more women took the negative criticism they received to heart and made changes prior to their following evaluation. This ultimately led to their promotions. The majority of the men who got negative feedback seemed uninterested in making any changes and subsequently lost their opportunity for promotion.

From this, I think that it is not only possible, but perhaps even probable, that despite the pattern suggested in the more thorough survey, there is great variability across settings.

Some bosses may have an archtype that a great leader is a tough, no nonsense person who only projects a demanding sense of profits. Such an attitude will provoke a very different style of criticism around the office than one that supports the idea working for profits doesn’t have to mean that we must abandon basic principles of human dignity.

Let me just add that the person involved in providing and promoting personnel in the informal survey happened to be a master at providing very specific feedback. Consider the example provided above in which someone stated in a review:

“You can come across as abrasive sometimes. I know you don’t mean to, but you need to pay attention to your tone.”

Such a statement potentially can be helpful as one looks within and seeks to come up with a less abrasive way to respond in situations. However, the feedback would be far better if a supervisor, let’s call him Bill, invited a subordinate, let’s call her Mary, to a one-on-one meeting shortly after an abrasive incident occurred. At that meeting, Bill does several things. He gently explains that he is about to imitate how Mary had acted, using her tone of voice and what was said. Then, after imitating for her how she acted, he displays for her in a role-play how he would prefer she act when a similar incident arises. He then proceeds to ask Mary to imitate what he just acted out. Then he goes through this process with Mary until she can actually copy the less abrasive style to his satisfaction. If Bill provided this level of specific feedback, it would be potentially far more helpful then the two-sentence feedback that was actually provided.

Advice

I very much support the recommendations that Ms Mohr provides in her New York Times piece. For example, at one point she writes,

If a woman wants to do substantive work of any kind, she’s going to be criticized — with comments not just about her work but also about herself. She must develop a way of experiencing criticism that allows her to persevere in the face of it.

How can this be done? “A woman,” says Ms Mohr, “can identify another woman whose response to criticism she admires. In challenging situations, she can imagine how the admired woman might respond, and thereby see some new possible responses for herself.”

I won’t go into all of the recommendations of Ms Mohr, suffice it to say her article is well worth reading. But I do think it is essential to point out that a single article will not do the trick for most of us, women or men, who want to learn to become a master at dealing with criticism. It takes several months of regularly bringing before our minds examples of criticism, followed by a discussion of how to transform each specific example into something better. My blog provides one way to go about doing just this. Readers can begin with the introduction to this blog, and move forward at their own pace by clicking on the next newer entry post. Additionally, by reading the trilogy of novels that I’ve written, people become immersed for a few months in adventures that illustrate the struggle to seek respect even under the most trying circumstances.

Well, that’s this week’s edition of From Insults to Respect. Here’s to hoping you’ll join us again real soon.

Jeff

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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

Tags conflict, conflict management, criticism, dispute management, disrespectful, insults, negative criticism, negative feedback, New York Times Op Ed, psychological maturity, respect, Tara Mohr, types of criticism, women and criticism

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Providing Criticism with Shouting, Insults and Threats: Is There a Place for It?

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date June 13, 2014
7 Comments on Providing Criticism with Shouting, Insults and Threats: Is There a Place for It?

“Left turn!” hollers the drill sergeant to his new recruits.

Private Smith begins to turn right, but catches his mistake as he notices the other recruits turning in the correct manner. He manages, although a bit clumsily, to end up turning left.

“Boy, don’t you know your left from your right?” the drill sergeant shouts in Private Smith’s face.

“Yes, Drill Sergeant.”

“I’m so glad to hear that, boy!” shouts the drill sergeant. “Now listen-up you stupid maggot! If I order you to turn left, you turn left! Do you got that, boy?!”

Yes, Drill Sergeant.”

“If I catch you turning right again when I order you to turn left I’m going to have you scrubbing the latrine with a toothbrush for a week. Do you got that, boy?!”

“Yes, Drill Sergeant!”

In the above scenario, we see an example of a sergeant providing criticism, and as he does so, he shouts, insults and threatens Private Smith. The army leadership believes that for this type of situation this style of providing negative criticism is helpful.

How does the army’s views on providing negative criticism compare to mine?

Providing Negative Criticism: Comparing My Approach with that of the Army’s

Regular readers of this blog know that I have presented a post titled, “Providing Negative Criticism: Five Levels of Maturity.” If you check that post out, you will see that the sergeant’s style appears to most closely match the level 3 description, which is as follows:

3. The criticizer clearly states the criticism with enough detail so the criticized person, if he or she wills, can improve the behavior, idea, or appearance, but couples it with glares, insults, shouts, or threats that are not about bodily harm.

Here’s an example of a style of providing negative criticism that matches level 3:

A level 4 style of providing criticism, that is, one level more mature than level 3, is described as:

4. The criticizer states the criticism without bodily attacks, damaging property, glares, insults, threats, or shouts, and with enough details so that the criticized person, if he or she wills, can improve the behavior, idea, or appearance. If the person receiving the criticism becomes defensive or angry, the criticizer empathizes without returning glares, insults, threats, or shouts.

Here’s an example of a level 4 style of providing negative criticism:

You are not likely to see anything that looks like a level 4 style of providing negative criticism coming out of a drill sergeant’s mouth during a training situation if he or she is speaking to a private.

And so, it looks like my level 5 model for providing negative criticism runs counter to the army’s view, at least in some situations. But before we conclude this, let’s first take a quick look at how a level 5 style is described:

5. When the criticizer provides criticism, he or she does so in a manner very similar to a level four response, but beforehand, the criticizer considers the person who is the target of the criticism, and the situation that he or she is in. As a result of such considerations, the criticizer may decide to alter the criticism.

As we can see, people who provide criticism in a manner consistent with level 5 are apt to do so in a manner that is very similar to the level 4 description. However, before they actually provide the criticism, they consider the person who is the target of the criticism, and the situation that he or she is in.

In this regard, I think it’s worthwhile to point out that as tough as sergeants may be on privates, they act very differently when speaking to someone who has a higher military rank, such as a lieutenant or general.

That is, sergeants first consider who they are speaking to before deciding on how they will provide negative criticism. This is one of the hallmarks of a person who tends to provide negative criticism in a manner that is consistent with level 5.

The Army’s Reasons for Supporting the Drill Sergeant’s Style of Providing Negative Criticism

The army’s leadership believes that those who hold a higher military rank are better qualified to make tough military decisions than those who hold a lower rank. They based this belief on their process for selecting who is invited to get training for a higher rank, the quality of the training that is provided, and the fact that only those who successfully complete the training are promoted. Those who do not perform well after they are promoted are demoted.

In a number of military situations, quick decisions are necessary to achieve military objectives while minimizing the number of casualties. If platoon leaders see enemy troops rapidly advancing, with their guns blasting and bombs going off, there simply is not a lot of time to discuss how to respond. Those with the most training for dealing with this situation rapidly cry out orders and those with a lower rank rapidly obey.

Now, with all of the gun firing and bombs going off, military leaders are probably going to shout out their orders to be heard. If some of the privates suddenly feel offended because their leader has yelled at them in a tone of voice that strikes them as unfair criticism, without proper training perhaps they might start yelling back, “How dare you talk that way to me!” Perhaps they might even physically attack the leader for the perceived insult. Such actions would seriously delay the carrying out of orders and thereby risk the military objectives and the lives of the soldiers.

During battles, there are times when even the best trained personnel may become irritable. Perhaps a captain might have lost a soldier she was very close to. If the captain, in her irritable state, was to slip up and accidentally speak to someone who is at a lower rank with a tone of voice that seems a bit disrespectful, would valuable time be lost because of an argument over the perceived insult? To avoid wasting time on these types of arguments, the army leaders have come to support training soldiers to respond immediately to orders even if it comes with criticism that might not be viewed as ideal in more typical situations. I think their position is reasonable.

Applying a Drill Sergeant’s Style of Negative Criticism to Situations Beyond the Military

Many people who have been in the army, having experienced basic training, come to believe that what worked well in the army should work just as well in all other situations. And so they begin to provide negative criticism in a style that matches that of a drill sergeant.

Some parents try this with their kids, and when the kids are young it often seems to work. But too often the drill sergeant approach leads to a building up of bitter resentment. Some teenagers end up running away from home, while others essentially end their relationships with their parents as soon as they are old enough to live on their own.

I know someone who was given the job to coach a women’s college basketball team. He had in the past, coached a boys college team and found the drill sergeant approach had worked, in his estimation, fairly well. Occasionally a good player would quit the team, but he felt that this was just the cost of maintaining good discipline. But when he tried the same technique with the women’s team, more than half quit. In order to field any team at all, he had to go to the women who had quit and apologize. In the end, he found that there were alternative ways to provide negative criticism in his new situation that worked much better for him. The incident reminds me of a great scene in the movie, “A League of Their Own.”

In the army, if someone thinks about quitting, there are very serious consequences. The army can put the quitter in prison for a time, give him or her a dishonorable discharge, etc. Moreover, there are a number of positives for hanging in there even under the most trying of circumstances. There is the honor that comes from helping your country, a military salary, VA benefits, etc. When we raise children or coach a team, the consequences for quitting or staying in the relationship are very different.

And so, for those who think it makes a great deal of sense to use a drill sergeant’s approach for providing negative criticism in non-military situations, I urge caution. People have strong desires to be liked and to escape from situations in which someone seeks to interfere with their freedom to make their own decisions. A drill sergeant’s approach runs counter to these desires. It is only in rare situations where rapid action is required, the available leadership is well trained, and other desires are so strong that shouting, insults and threats may make sense.

Tags conflict management, conflict resolution, criticism, dispute management, disrespectful, drill sergeant, drill sergeants, insults, name calling, negative criticism, respect, threats, wisdom

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DEALING WITH SUBTLE FORMS OF CRITICISM

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date December 22, 2013
7 Comments on DEALING WITH SUBTLE FORMS OF CRITICISM

If you have been following this blog, you know that from time to time I have been discussing insults and criticism. In earlier posts, we looked at situations in which people end up feeling insulted because someone provided negative criticism.

I have argued that rather than to feel insulted, it is possible to learn to welcome criticism, as well as words that might come off as insulting. When we learn to respond skillfully to negative criticism and insults, we develop a confidence in these types of situations. This dramatically reduces our defensiveness.

An important step toward mastering this skill is to learn to clearly recognize when criticism is occurring. If you can’t identify when a red light is flashing, you won’t be able to know when to apply the brakes on the car, and you are likely to end up in a serious accident.

Illustration by Lois Hubertz

Similarly, if you can’t identify when criticism is occurring, you won’t be able to know when to begin to put in place the plans that effectively deal with criticism.

Although some forms of criticism are as easy to recognize as a red light, some forms of criticism are far more subtle and therefore often go unrecognized as criticism. I therefore have presented posts that discuss dealing with direct and implied forms of criticism. I’ve noted that when someone makes a suggestion, this usually implies some negative criticism.

I also explained how recommending that someone get some additional education also usually implies some negative criticism.

We also took a good hard look at certain forms of levity, in which negative criticism is designed to be charmingly provocative. It seeks to get people to think more deeply about an issue. As George Bernard Shaw put it in his provocative book, Back to Methuselah:

“When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.”

Shaw, to ward off defensive reactions to his quips, often created fictional plays and had the characters in the plays say them. Great examples are:

“No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.“

“The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she’s treated.”

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”

Today we will spend a little more time practicing enhancing our skills for recognizing subtle forms of criticism. This will help to improve our ability to know when to start using our dealing-with-criticism skills.

More Examples of Subtle Forms of Negative Criticism

As we move forward, please keep in mind that for the purposes of this blog, if someone evaluates something as negative the evaluator has made a negative criticism.

FIRST EXAMPLE

In the above Calvin and Hobbes scenario, Miss Wormwood politely asks Calvin to put his tiger, Hobbes, in his locker. Calvin objects to this request by crying out—“In my locker?! He’ll suffocate!”

Calvin’s response to Miss Wormwood’s request is an example of indirect negative criticism. He doesn’t directly state he has evaluated her request and found that there is something wrong with it, or that it is bad, or something of that sort. Nevertheless, he indicates that if he did what she asked, his tiger would suffocate. To recognize this as a form of negative criticism, it helps to notice that in addition to Calvin’s statement there are other indications that he thinks there is something wrong with Miss Wormwood’s request. The exclamation marks after Calvin’s statement, the drawing of Calvin with his mouth being wide open as if he is shouting, and the fact that he is practically flying out of his seat while he is shouting, all add up to indicate that Calvin’s reply is rightfully classified as a form of negative criticism of Miss Wormwood’s request.

Although Miss Wormwood takes Calvin’s negative criticism in stride, other teachers might become defensive, and yell something like, “Don’t you talk back to me, young man!” This might silence students, but leave them seething with anger that is expressed by a rejection of the school enterprise; or it might lead to shouting back at the teacher, creating an escalation of conflict that takes valuable learning time away from the class.

If Miss Wormwood would have become defensive and started to yell at Calvin in response to his negative criticism, this would, according the the DIG Conflict Model, be rated an immature level of responding (see Responding to Criticism: Four Levels of Maturity). Instead, she steers in the direction of Calvin’s criticism by offering the compromise of putting his “tiger” under his desk where it will be at least out of the way. This, according to the DIG Conflict Model, is one of the most mature responses (see Responding to Criticism: The Most Mature Level). We see, in this example, that Calvin quickly complies and his teacher can now go on with her lesson without any further delay.

SECOND EXAMPLE

Here’s a Sally Forth comic that illustrates that whenever there is a transaction involving a request or demand, we would be wise to anticipate negative criticism will be present as well.

In this comic, because Sally is visiting her mother for a few days, Ted is left on his own to deal with his nine-year-old daughter, Hil. When Ted tells Hil it’s time for bed, she begins to reject his demand. Is Hil’s rejection of the demand a form of criticism?

Well, consider her reply to her dad: “But Mom’s not here! We don’t need a bedtime!” Hil has negatively evaluated her dad’s demand by expressing her disagreement with it. If you tell someone you disagree with what he or she has done, you have negatively criticized the person’s act.

If Ted was skillful at first recognizing that Hil was providing him criticism, he would be in a better position to say to himself, “From what I’ve learned about the different levels of maturity, let me see if I can design a mature response.” What if he came up with something like this?

“Hil, I admire the way you seek to defend your freedom. I want to encourage that. And you know I’m crazy about you. At the same time, I also love your mom, as I know you do. It seems to me that we don’t want to break her rules behind her back. The bedtime schedule is designed for you to get enough rest so you will do well in school. Both of us have seen what happens to you when you don’t get enough rest. When your mom gets home, if you want to discuss the rules, we can do it with her, you and me all altogether. That would be the fair thing to do, wouldn’t it?”

These Examples are Designed to Encourage Deeper Thought

Above, I provided two examples of someone providing negative criticism. For each example, a response was described that I think is pretty mature. Please note, however, that I am NOT claiming that they are the ideal responses. Nor am I trying to make the case that the responses portrayed in the above examples are the only mature responses that can be made. There is a great deal of flexibility that we have for coming up with high level responses. I present the above examples in an effort to challenge you to think more deeply about what mature levels of responding look like according to your own lights.

Well, that’s my post for this week. To all of you who celebrate the beautiful Christmas season, I wish you good cheer, peace on Earth, and good will toward all of our fellow human beings!

With Warmest Regards,

Jeff

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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

Tags anger, challenge, conflict, conflict management, conflict resolution, criticism, dispute management, disrespectful, emotional intelligence, emotions, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, frustration, insults, negative criticism, parenting, threats, types of criticism

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BLONDIE, DAGWOOD AND THE NATURE OF PERSONAL POWER

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date December 15, 2013
No Comments on BLONDIE, DAGWOOD AND THE NATURE OF PERSONAL POWER

We find a charming illustration of Dagwood utilizing a simple source of personal power below:

These three frames are just the beginning of a very early Blondie comic from 1932 that I found in The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics. At that time Blondie was depicted as coming from the lower classes who had recently married the wealthy Dagwood Bumstead. Many from his social circle believed Blondie married for money.

I have discussed sources of power quite a bit on this blog. The simple source of power that Dagwood used to get Blondie invited to the party is often referred to as offering a fair exchange. That is, Dagwood offered to give his mother something that she wanted, but only if she gave him what he wanted. She wanted Dagwood to come to her party, he made it clear that he would come, but only if Blondie would also come.

As we will soon see, there are six more panels to this Blondie-Dagwood comic strip. But before we get to them, let’s use the DIG Conflict Model to quickly conceptualize the events that are taking place in the first panels of the comic.

Using “DIG” to Briefly Describe a Conflict

Those who have been following this blog know that when we seek to briefly describe a conflict, the letters in the word DIG help to remind us to look for the three conditions of a conflict–DESIRE, INTERFERENCE and GUILT.

During the first frame, Dagwood clearly desires that Blondie join him at his mother’s party, but interfering with this, his mother indicates she is refusing to invite her. To be a conflict according to the DIG Conflict Model, in addition to a desire and an interfering condition, there has to also be a guilt condition as well.

In the second frame of the comic, Dagwood says to his mother, “Remember, after all she is your daughter-in law.” This suggests that Dagwood believes that his mother is guilty of being wrong for not inviting Blondie.

There are several ways in which this apparent conflict can be resolved. To illustrate some essential points, let’s first look at a couple of examples that do not actually occur in the comic. As we look at these examples, please keep in mind that when we describe resolutions using the DIG Conflict Model, we are instructed to consider not only the short term quality of the resolution, but the long term quality as well.

First Example

Here is a different outcome to Dagwood’s conflict with his mother than what we will be seeing in the actual Blondie comic strip. Take special note that this different outcome leads to a couple of post-resolution regrets.

Dagwood talks to his mother and she convinces him that because of the way she was brought up, and because of the way the other party guests might react, she is not wrong in wanting to keep Blondie from attending her party. Dagwood ends up agreeing with his mother and he does not bring Blondie to the party.

From Dagwood’s perspective his conflict with his mother was resolved at the point when he came to believe his mother is not guilty of doing anything wrong when she insists Blondie is not to come to the party. The plan that was used to resolve the conflict was his mother persuading Dagwood that she is right.

Now, let’s look at the quality of this resolution. By resolving the conflict in this way, Dagwood ends up not having his desire to have Blondie join him at the party fulfilled. Because Dagwood wants to do things more with Blondie than his parents, he begins to see them less and less. When he looks for job opportunities he feels little desire to remain close to his parents. One day he sees an opening with the Dithers Company several thousand miles from his parents. He applies and lands the job. When Dagwood and Blondie start having children, his mother begins to wish she had been more accepting of Blondie early in their relationship for Blondie has turned out to be a wonderful wife to her son.

Oh, how Dagwood’s mother regrets antagonizing Blondie during their early marriage. And that’s not all. Dagwood’s mother is often heard wandering around her luxurious home moaning. From time to time she can be heard crying out, “If only I could be closer to my grandchildren! How this would give so much meaning to my life!”

Dagwood also feels that raising children with their grandparents close by would have been a good thing, but he reluctantly feels that, with his mother so rejecting of Blondie, it wouldn’t be a good thing for the children to be exposed to such rejection of their mother on a regular basis. And Dagwood really cares about his mother who has become increasingly depressed over the years. Both he and his mother have some post-resolution regrets about how things have turned out.

Second Example

Here’s another scenario that according to the DIG Conflict Model would lead to this conflict being resolved, and this one also leads to some post- resolution regret.

Dagwood decides that there is nothing he can do about bringing Blondie to the party, and so he just doesn’t show up. The party comes and goes without his desire being fulfilled. But in time, he forgets about it. When he forgets about it, the conflict has been resolved. As for the quality of this resolution, Dagwood finds that, since the party, he frequently has waves of anger overtaking him. When he is with his mother, he treats her with little respect. This leads to angry outbursts between them. Their quality of life has thus been diminished.

Now let’s look at what actually happens in the 1932 comic.

Dagwood resolves the conflict as follows. In an effort to achieve his desire, he tells his mother that he refuses to come unless Blondie is invited, too. His mother offers a compromise; he can bring Blondie if he promises to keep her in the background. Dagwood doesn’t explicitly say that he agrees with the compromise, but by thanking his mother it appears he has tacitly agreed to her stated terms. The conflict Dagwood was having with his mother is resolved at the point Dagwood realizes his mother will no longer interfere with his desire to bring Blondie to the party.

How about the quality of this resolution? In the short run things look pretty good. Although Blondie expresses some concerns about going to the party because Dagwood’s mother is so against her, Dagwood expresses optimism when he says to Blondie, “Now, don’t worry Darling — in time she’ll learn to love you just as I do!” The comic strip goes on from here to provide us some additional information. When they arrive at the party…

In this scenario Dagwood has used some skill that leads to his specific desire being fulfilled—Blondie gets to go to his mother’s party. He has a related desire as well—that his mother will learn to love Blondie. As things worked out, this desire takes a beating.

**Contrasting the Blondie Example with the Pygmalion Example**

People who are powerful at achieving their desires tend not only to develop a plan to achieve some obvious desire of a conflict, but they pause to consider how each plan that they consider would impact the achieving of other desires that are associated with the obvious desire. Consider the story of George Bernard Shaw’s great play, Pygmalion, which was later turned into the magnificent musical, My Fair Lady.

There are some similarities to My Fair Lady and the Blondie story we just discussed. One of the chief characters is Liza Doolittle, who is about Blondie’s age. She too is from the lower classes.

Professor Higgins desires to bring her to a party where the upper classes will be in attendance—the royal ball. But the good professor realizes that getting Liza invited is a relatively small problem for him. What he wants additionally is that she is a success at the ball. He and his friend, Colonel Pickering, pause to consider what being a success is.

They decide that to be successful, Liza will have to improve her speech, be able to move gracefully around the ballroom, and to learn to dance as the other ladies do. Once they understand this, both gentlemen devise a rigorous plan involving training for six months before they take Liza to the ball. Although their plan doesn’t come off entirely without hitches, the viewers of the play clearly come away understanding that the thoroughness of the planning and the practicing of the skills were enormously helpful.

Now, what have we learned from these scenarios? First of all, when you try out a plan that has promise to fulfill your desire, you are attempting to increase your power. If your plan is well designed and skillfully carried out, it may succeed in fulfilling your specific desire. However, short term success of a plan to achieve a specific desire might be offset because it ends up interfering with the likelihood that other desires will be fulfilled. Dagwood fulfilled his short term desire of getting Blondie to the party, but by putting her in a situation where she had a large chance of embarrassing his mother, he may have hurt his long-term goal of getting his mother to like Blondie. If you want the quality of your resolution to be high, increasing your power requires that you become skillful at fulfilling desires in the short and long term.

Tags ABCs of Power, Blondie, Blondie Comic Strip, conflict, conflict management, conflict resolution, Dagwood and Blondie, dispute management, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, personal power, psychological maturity, respect, sources of power, wisdom

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GIVING SOMEONE THE COLD SHOULDER: WISE OR FOOLISH?

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date December 1, 2013
11 Comments on GIVING SOMEONE THE COLD SHOULDER: WISE OR FOOLISH?

Welcome to From Insults to Respect. Today we begin with a Blondie comic:

In the above scenario, as Dagwood gets into bed, rather than greet him with warm, open arms, Blondie has turned her back to him. Because she has become angry with him, all that Dagwood is going to get from Blondie on this night is Blondie’s cold shoulder.

What Does it Mean to Give Someone the Cold Shoulder?

When we are in a relationship, if someone does something that results in arousing our anger, we often seek to punish the person whom we believe to be the source of our anger. One way to do this is to act in a manner that is typically referred to as “giving him the cold shoulder.” Of course it is not just women who give guys the cold shoulder; guys do it to their spouse perhaps just as much as women.

Although when I think of someone giving the cold shoulder to someone, the image that typically comes to my mind is two people in a marriage relationship, but the fact is that a friend can do it to a friend as well.

According to Wikipedia, “the phrase “cold shoulder” has been used as a description of aloofness and disdain,^[1] a contemptuous look over one’s shoulder,^[4] and even in the context of a woman attempting to decline the advances of an aggressive man.^[6] Overall, it remains widely popular as a phrase for describing the act of ignoring someone or something, or giving an unfriendly response.^{[5] “}

Is the “Cold Shoulder” Technique Good or Bad?

I have had discussions with people who use this type of punishment and many of them are just fine with it. They report that whenever they use this approach, almost always, after awhile, the argument somehow gets worked out and their relationship, overall, has been wonderful. And they say that they know people who have had a valued relationship lasting a lifetime despite one or both parties in the relationship using the cold shoulder from time to time.

Although I agree that there are certainly worse ways to deal with disagreements than giving the person you are angry with the cold shoulder, nevertheless, I believe there is a much better alternative.

Notice that in the above comic when Dagwood becomes angry with Blondie, instead of giving her the cold shoulder, he lovingly says, “Please, Honey, I need a moment…”

Regular readers of this blog know that I have long advocated that when you see yourself becoming angry, it is wise to provide the other person in your relationship a time out signal that you have worked out when both of you were in a pleasant mood (see ANGER, STRESS AND THE SIGNALING TO BACK OFF TECHNIQUE). This postpones any deep problem solving until you give yourself some time to calm down.

In the Blondie comic that we just looked at, Dagwood’s signal is “Please, Honey, I need a moment…” Notice that he includes in his signal a sweet nickname for her. This can be very helpful. By learning to express your signal in a loving way, it decreases the likelihood that the problem will turn into a more heated problem that will be harder to solve in the future.

Also notice that Dagwood, in this example, says he needs a moment. Sometimes we need more than a moment. There is nothing wrong with taking even a week to calm down and to figure out how to best handle the problem you are experiencing. However, if you do think that it will take you more than 24 hours, I agree with the position that Thich Nhat Hanh takes in his beautiful book, Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames. Before the 24 hours are up, do your best to tell the other person why you think you are angry in a loving manner if it is a family member, or a friendly manner with others. Hanh writes, “Try your best to say it peacefully. There may be some sadness in your voice, that’s fine. Just don’t say something to punish or to blame.”

At the beginning of this post I presented a comic in which Blondie makes it clear to Dagwood that she has no intention of telling him why she is angry. I think that keeping it a secret about why you are angry is simply not fair. And when you do something that strikes the other party as unfair, you now have created an extra reason to fuel the anger in the relationship.

If you agree with me that within 24 hours it is only fair to share in a loving or friendly way a little description of what you are experiencing, at the point that you provide your description there is no need to try to solve the problem. But Hanh and I both agree that you owe it to the person who is in a relationship with you to at least give him or her some explanation for what is going on within you. If you find that you don’t think you can say the words of this communication using a loving or friendly tone, at least try to write a brief note indicating a little of what you have been experiencing.

To help you to make the best use of the time that you are seeking to calm down and to problem solve, I hope you will read the two of the posts in which I discuss this process–Being a Wise Friend to Your Angry Self, Part 1 and Being a Wise Friend to Your Angry Self, Part 2.

Hanh aptly summarizes this process when he wrote:

When we are angry, we have to go back to ourselves and take good care of our anger. We cannot say, “Go away anger, you have to go away. I don’t want you.” When you have a stomachache, you don’t say, “I don’t want you, stomach, go away.” No, you take care of it. In the same way, we have to embrace and take good care of our anger. We recognize it as it is, embrace it, and smile…

Our practice is based on the insight of non-duality. Both our negative feelings and positive feelings are organic and belong to the same reality. So there is no need to fight; we only need to embrace and take care…. You may think that you have to combat evil and chase it out of your heart and mind. But this is wrong. The practice is to transform yourself. If you don’t have garbage, you have nothing to use in order to make compost. And if you don’t have compost, you have nothing to nourish the flower in you. You need the suffering, the affliction in you. Since they are organic, you know that you can transform them and make good use of them.

Well, that’s my post for today. I hope you find within it some food for thought. And please feel free to provide comments or ask questions by typing in the Leave a Reply box at the very bottom of this page.

Have a wonderful week!

Jeff

Tags anger, arguments, Blondie, cold shoulder, conflict, conflict management, conflict resolution, disagreement, dispute management, disrespectful, emotional intelligence, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, insults, negative criticism, psychological maturity, respect, silent treatment, wisdom

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N.F.L. Bullying: The Real Reason for it

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date November 6, 2013
5 Comments on N.F.L. Bullying: The Real Reason for it

Yesterday, my post discussed a New York Times article titled “In Bullying Case, Questions on N.F.L. Culture.” There we learned that what are being called pranks by some and humiliating behavior by others is ubiquitous in the N.F.L. What is the reason for it?

The Times article tried to throw some light on this when it stated that “Most incidents come with tacit, unsupervised approval of coaches and executives, who see the pranks as a rite of passage, a worthy bit of team building and character strengthening.” Hmmm. If the coaches and executives really believe this, what is the reason for their “tacit” approval. Why not openly encourage this type of behavior? I think it’s because they realize that there is something not quite right with this explanation. And if this explanation is not quite right, what is a better one?

We get a clue from the Times’s report when it indicates that the behavior designed to humiliate the rookies is viewed by the veterans as being done “in all good fun” is “entertaining” and leads to “a room full of laughing teammates.” What would account for the veterans enjoying humiliating the rookies so much?

Here’s what I think. Veterans recognize that the rookies are after their jobs. When Joe Quarterback sees a fresh new quarterback on the team, he says to himself, After all my hard work and effort and all of the damaging blows that I’ve taken for the team, now this young son-of-a bitch wants to take my job.

It seems to me that there is an undercurrent of resentment that comes to most players in this type of situation. Couple this with the fact that there are always far fewer guys on the team who are rookies, thus making the youngest players a clear minority. With this combination, we end up with the very same motivation of why so many southerners persecuted blacks for so many years. Many southerners realized that if blacks were to be treated equally, they would end up competing for the limited jobs in their area. When blacks were humiliated, those who were doing the persecution found it funny.

In psychology, there is a theory called the “downward comparison theory.” It posits that persons experiencing negative affect can enhance their subjective well-being through comparison with a less fortunate other, the process occurring on either a passive or active basis. When it is on an active basis, people actively try to create the conditions for others to be less fortunate. This explains why people persecute others, and it is the real reason why the majority of players are persecuting the younger ones.

To claim, however tacitly, that the humiliating treatment of some in the N.F.L. is to help those being humiliated to develop their character is no different than if white racists claimed they were persecuting blacks out of the goodness of their hearts because they were really seeking to benefit blacks.

It is high time that all of us come to understand that to persecute anyone is wrong, period! Whether we are rookies, blacks, whites, Latinos, Asians, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, rich or poor, we can all be harmed by prejudice. It is only by standing strong together as true Americans, that we can transform irrational hatred to wise understanding.

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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

Tags anger, bullied, bullying, conflict, conflict management, disrespectful, insults, jerry seinfeld, N.F.L., respect

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THE ABCs OF POWER: THE LETTER F

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date June 9, 2013
3 Comments on THE ABCs OF POWER: THE LETTER F

On this blog, for the past few weeks we have been discussing personal power. We have noted that the reason why people use insults is to try to achieve their desires. This strategy often backfires. Therefore, we have been learning plans to increase our skill to achieve our desires without launching insults.

One valuable way to come up with plans to achieve our desires is to become familiar with various sources of power. And so, I have begun to build an alphabetical list of sources of power. So far, it looks like this:

THE ABCs OF POWER

A=Advancing Skill (see The ABCs of Power: The letter “A”)

B=Breaking Down a Conflict into its Three Conditions: Desire, Interference and Guilt (see The ABCs of Power: The Letter “B”)

C=Coalitions (see The ABCs of Power: The Letter “C”).

D=Discussions or Debates (see The ABCs of Power: The letter “D”)

E=Encouraging Caring (see The ABCs of Power: The Letter “E”)

Today we add to our list a source of power that begins with the letter “F.”

F is for Fairness

Fairness is a fascinating subject. Consider the following Blondie comic.

Here we get the sense that Dagwood believes his boss’s request is unfair.

Human beings and capuchin monkeys have what some biologists believe is a fairness instinct. In one intriguing study, primatologists Sarah F. Brosnan and Frans B.M. de Waal trained capuchin monkeys to perform a certain task for which they received cucumber slices. The monkeys performed the task just fine until they were permitted to see others being rewarded with grapes, a higher-value payment. Suddenly many of the cucumber-receivers stopped performing the task, sometimes even throwing those measly, unfair cucumber payments out the cage. Behavioral economists call this “inequity aversion”—the tendency to turn down a perfectly good offer if others are getting a better deal.

In studies with human beings, a similar tendency has been observed. People insist on fairness, even at the apparent cost of their immediate best interest.

In this comic, Dilbert, the guy with glasses, begins to shout at his boss even though staying on the good side of your boss is a pretty obvious principle of advancement in the business world. But Dilbert’s sense of fairness has been violated, and he ends up losing his temper. The comic ends by implying to the reader that if the boss would learn to act fairly the workers would get more done.

There is no question that the cry of “NO FAIR!” ranks as one of the most common complaints.

The good news is that this sense of fairness can be used to increase your power.

As a simple example, suppose that you want to play chess with your friend Alfred and you desire to always make the first move. Alfred says he’ll only play if he gets to go first. What can you do? Well, you can say firmly, “You can go first for the first game, but the next game I get to go first. After all, that’s only fair.” Although you don’t get to go first on every occasion, with this resolution you at least get to go first half the time and you enhance your reputation as someone who is fair.

Another fairness strategy is to suggest flipping a coin to see who goes first.

Although the flipping the coin strategy doesn’t work out too well for poor Hammie, it often can be very effective.

An even more powerful strategy to try when someone like Alfred tries to always go first is to say, “Alfred, I’m willing to let you pick between taking turns or flipping a coin to see who goes first.” This gives Alfred a choice and helps to feed his need for power.

The following fairness strategies may be used when someone wants to do something that is incompatible with your desire:

People will do things for you if you give them something in return that they deem as a fair exchange and resist doing things that they deem as not a fair exchange.

People who always want to do something that is incompatible with your desire may be persuaded to do the incompatible act only half the time if you agree to use a game of chance, such as a flip of a coin, to decide if the incompatible act will or won’t occur.

Taking turns often strikes people as fair.
Splitting rewards or chores evenly is one way to settle a dispute.

People may be persuaded not to do an incompatible act if both parties agree to an open discussion followed by a vote. Consider the following comic.

Here Luann and Quill are disagreeing over which of two names to call the album they are working on. One simple way to decide would be to flip a coin, but let’s say they don’t want to decide the matter in that way. Another approach they could use is to agree to come up with five different names that they like, and then get ten of their friends together to discuss which name they like best, and then they could all vote for their favorite one.

By pointing to a precedent, people may be persuaded to resolve the conflict in a similar manner.

In the above cartoon, Charlie Brown’s use of this strategy doesn’t go too well. A more successful use of this strategy is illustrated with the following example. To decide who will go first in a chess game, you first seek out a precedent by finding out how neighborhood chess tournaments decide which players get to go first. You discover that this is decided by one of the players hiding behind her back a pawn and then the other player attempting to guess which hand it’s in. If the opponent guesses right, she gets to go first. You then explain to your chess partner that because this is done at the tournament, you think it’s a fair way for you and your opponent to decide. This strikes your opponent as a fair and fun way to decide.

By pointing to a court decision that is similar to your own conflict, people may be persuaded to resolve the conflict in a similar manner.

Letting an unbiased person choose. There are several variations of this procedure. The parties can agree to submit a particular question to someone they agree is an expert for advice or a decision. They can ask a mediator to help reach a decision. Or they can submit the matter to an arbitrator for an authoritative and binding decision.

In this Blondie example, the kids have a desire to play a new game using the equipment they have. They could have argued for hours over the rules and never actually played. By getting the neutral Dagwood Bumstead to quickly decide on a set of rules, they can more quickly get to playing.

These fairness procedures will not always produce an ideal outcome for you.

You may always want to go first. You may always want to choose something that is much better than what the other party will be left with. Sometimes there is a difference in opinion about what is fair.

Nevertheless, a reputation for fair dealing can have long term payoffs. And if the other party ends up concluding you are an untrustworthy lout, the cost to you may not be limited to just the deal you have managed today to work out. Keep in mind that sometimes to lose is to win.

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Tags ABCs of Power, conflict, conflict management, emotional intelligence, Fairness, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, insults, psychological maturity, sources of power, wisdom