Tag: wisdom

THE MOST MATURE LEVEL OF PROVIDING POSITIVE CRITICISM: TWO EXAMPLES

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date January 6, 2014
2 Comments on THE MOST MATURE LEVEL OF PROVIDING POSITIVE CRITICISM: TWO EXAMPLES

Last week I provided readers a post on positive criticism—that is, criticism that points out what we like about someone’s actions, possessions, or appearance. There, I explained that I think that just as there are immature and mature ways to provide negative criticism (see PROVIDING NEGATIVE CRITICISM: FIVE LEVELS OF MATURITY), there are immature and mature ways to provide positive criticism. When it comes to providing positive criticism, getting familiar with just three levels of maturity is usually enough to help us to design helpful feedback for people. I described the three levels as follows:

Level 1, the most immature form of positive criticism, is described as either:

a. too much positive criticism for something that is just too minor to warrant positive criticism

b. vague flattery.

Level 2, the more mature way to provide positive criticism involves providing enough detail so that the person being criticized ends up knowing what is viewed favorably, and it avoids giving too much positive criticism for minor efforts.

Level 3 individuals seek to provide positive criticism in a manner similar to the level 2 individuals but first consider the situation, the person who is the target of the positive criticism and others who are likely to hear about it.

Although in my earlier post I gave an example of individuals using each of the three levels, one of my readers asked for more level 3 examples. That’s a reasonable request.

A Linus and Lucy Example

Here we see Linus as he begins to write a letter designed to provide positive criticism to his grandparents. He is very specific about what action that they did that he likes–sending him a dollar for Christmas.

In thinking about what rating that Linus deserves, in addition to noting that his positive criticism was very specific rather than vague flattery, I also considered the following:

I’ve been reading the Peanuts comic strip for years, and I’ve never gotten the impression that Linus gives out too much positive criticism for minor efforts. This, along with how specific his positive criticism was to his grandparents, led me to think Linus deserves at least a level 2 rating.

In this example, as Linus begins to provide his positive criticism to his grandparents, he begins to consider his situation, noticing that his sister is becoming angry with what he is doing. He could just ignore her. Instead, he wisely decides on adjusting his letter in a manner that provides the positive criticism to his grandparents, and at the same time, eliminates Lucy’s anger. Nice!

For all of the reasons mentioned above, I’m giving him a level 3 rating.

Another quick example

Recently the New York Times publicly provided some positive criticism to Edward Snowden. Referring to him as a heroic whistle-blower who exposed wrongdoing by U.S. government spy agencies, the Times went on to say,

“When someone reveals that government officials have routinely and deliberately broken the law, that person should not face life in prison at the hands of the same government. President Obama should tell his aides to begin finding a way to end Mr. Snowden’s vilification and give him an incentive to return home.”

The Times declared that Snowden’s disclosures — the largest unauthorized publication of national security secrets in U.S. history — had proven that the NSA has “exceeded its mandate and abused its authority.”

In considering what level the Times deserves, I noted that it does frequently publish too much positive criticism for minor accomplishments, but only for the products and services that occur in advertisements. Readers can distinguish pretty well what is being said by the newspaper’s advertisements and what is being written as news and editorials. And so, leaving this advertisement issue aside, the positive criticism of Snowden is, in my opinion, specific enough and major enough so that the Times deserves at least a level 2 rating.

I really don’t know what went on behind the doors of the Times editorial staff as they thought about publishing their Snowden editorial, but for educational purposes, let’s pretend that I do and this is what took place.

“Before we publish this,” said the chief editor, “let’s consider the situation. Many of our readers will become angry, and some of them might cancel their subscription.”

“We might lose some but gain some new readers,” said one of the chief’s staff members.

“Perhaps,” said another staff member. “What if we also include in the same edition that we publish our editorial, a piece that presents the other side of this issue, something that brings out all of the arguments that Snowden should be treated like a traitor? That way, we come across to our readers as a newspaper that provides them with a full and balanced overall position so we enable them to make up their own minds on the issue.”

“I like that,” said the chief. “New York Congressman Peter King has been calling for the harshest penalties to be leveled against Snowden. Let’s include an article featuring King’s position in the same edition as our editorial.”

If this type of conversation indeed occurred at the Times, then the paper deserves a Level 3 rating.

Conclusion

In both the Linus and Times examples, those who plan to provide positive criticism don’t only avoid giving too much criticism for minor accomplishments, they provide very specific positive criticism. Additionally, they take into account the situation and people involved, and are open to adjusting how they go about providing the criticism so it better achieves their desires.

Becoming a master at providing both negative and positive criticism requires the consideration of many, many examples of people using the highest levels of maturity. In future posts, I’ll be, from time to time, writing posts to provide these types of examples. In the meantime, I want to encourage readers to provide their own examples in the “Leave a Reply” box that appears below each post.

Have a great week!

Jeff

———————
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 conflict management, criticism, Edward Snowden, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, Linus, New York Times, Peanuts comics, positive criticism, positive criticism rating system, wisdom

Blondie comic strip conflict management conflict resolution criticism emotional intelligence free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum positive criticism types of criticism wisdom

PROVIDING POSITIVE CRITICISM: THREE LEVELS OF MATURITY

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date December 29, 2013
2 Comments on PROVIDING POSITIVE CRITICISM: THREE LEVELS OF MATURITY

Earlier on this blog, I provided a post that describes what I view as the five levels of maturity for providing negative criticism. Now let’s turn our attention toward providing positive criticism.

With positive criticism—that is, criticism that points out what we like about someone’s actions, possessions, or appearance—our task of distinguishing mature responses from immature ones is considerably easier than when it comes to doing likewise for providing negative criticism. That’s because people are far less likely to become defensive when you inform them that you like something related to them. I think just three levels of maturity are sufficient.

Level 1, the most immature form of positive criticism, is described as either:

A. too much positive criticism for something that is just too minor to warrant positive criticism

B. vague flattery.

In the above Sally Forth comic, the coach is giving so much positive criticism about good hustling for the girls’ slightest efforts that they are becoming sick and tired of hearing it. Thus, this is an example of positive criticism that best matches level 1.

If, instead, the coach just cried out, “Great job” to one of the players without saying anything more specific about what she had done that was great, his positive criticism would also match the level 1 description.

Now oftentimes it is so obvious why someone is saying “Great job” that there is no necessity to explain the reason for the compliment. For example, if one of the girls just hit a home run and the coach then says, “Great job,” everyone is quite clear why he is saying it. In such cases, the positive criticism would be rated higher than level 1 even though he didn’t explain his reason for his comment.

Level 2, the more mature way to provide positive criticism, involves providing enough detail so that the person being criticized ends up knowing what is viewed favorably and it avoids giving too much positive criticism for minor efforts.

To say to an actor, “Your performance was divine!” might be pleasant to the actor, or it might be viewed as shallow—something said to flatter, and nothing more. It is simply too vague to be really helpful. Better to say something like, “During your performance, when you are supposed to be upset, the way you wring your hands and the way you twist the muscles in your face, they really dramatically capture your anxiety; well done!”

Level 3 individuals seek to provide positive criticism in a manner similar to the level 2 individuals but first consider the situation, the person who is the target of the positive criticism and others who are likely to hear about the criticism.

Consider this Big Nate comic:

What does Nate mean by a Q score?

When Nate provides Teddy with a Q score of 96 and Francis a score of 93, these are pretty positive ratings. But because Nate provides a higher score to Teddy in front of Francis, a conflict begins to erupt.

In the future, Nate might decide that it would be wiser to provide his Q score only in situations in which he has privacy. He also might want to consider that within his school situation, even if he shares his Q ratings in private only to fellow students who promise to keep their score a secret, some will probably reveal the secret. Once this happens, he may find himself in heaps of conflicts.

As I pointed out above, in addition to considering the situation in which positive criticism is provided, it is also important to consider the person whom you wish to provide positive criticism before deciding on how to provide the criticism.

Nate attempts to provide Mrs. Godfrey positive criticism by letting her know that he is pleased to see her. His style of doing this is to provide her a friendly greeting that includes a chuckle. It turns out that Mrs. Godfrey is very sensitive about being laughed at. Now that Nate has learned this, in the future, whenever Nate wants to provide positive criticism to Mrs. Godfrey, he would be wise to take her sensitivity about being laughed at into consideration and avoid any sounds that might come across as a laugh.

Let’s take a little time to practice using this three-point providing positive criticism rating system.

PRACTICE

Consider the following Blondie comic.

What rating do you think Blondie’s comment to Dagwood deserves?

If you gave Blondie a rating of 1, you matched my own rating.

Here’s a Luann comic that has Mrs. Horner offering Luann some positive criticism. Do you think Mrs. Horner’s comment in the first box matches the level 1, or the level 2 description?

I think Mrs. Horner’s comment best matches the level 2 description. If she had just said, “Luann, you are so sweet,” I’m pretty sure a young lady like Luann would experience the comment as pleasant, and most likely she would know why the white-haired woman was saying she was sweet. Nevertheless, when Mrs. Horner makes it clear that she thinks Luann is sweet for “taking her to the store” this type of communication, as a general rule, is less likely to lead to confusion and doubts.

Here’s a little tricky one. In the last panel of the below comic, Quill provides Luann some positive criticism. Would you say it is at level 1, 2, or 3?

If I didn’t know what happened before the last panel, I would think Quill deserves a 1. After all, he just says while providing the positive criticism, “And now you sound it, too,” implying she now sounds pretty. But, by knowing what came before his statement that provides the positive criticism, I think he deserves a mature rating of 2. That is, at first he provides Luann some negative criticism. He does so by giving her very specific criticism. She has been singing to her toes, which has led her to sing through her nose. He then provides some specific advice about what she can do to correct the problem. When Quill ends up giving her positive criticism—indicating Luann now sings pretty—she is perfectly capable of putting together what he had just said moments before during his negative criticism with the positive criticism. She therefore no doubt understands that Quill thinks she sounds pretty because she now plants her shoulders back, chin up a bit, while singing. Given the context of his positive criticism, I think Quill deserves a mature rating. Quill doesn’t show us any clear signs that he has considered any situation or person variables before providing his positive criticism, so I’m going to stick to a 2 rating.

In this Big Nate comic, the principal provides Nate with some positive criticism. Do you think the principal’s comment best matches the level 1, 2, or 3 description?

In this context, the principal’s comments best match the level 2 description. Nate had just mentioned some very specific thing that he did, and when the principal says, “wonderful,” he is obviously referring to that specific thing. The principal, moreover, goes beyond Nate’s own description and adds some details about what he likes—initiative and leadership. This is quite clearly a level 2 style of providing positive criticism.

Let’s try another Big Nate example. The bald man with chin whiskers is Nate’s dad. He provides Nate some positive criticism. Does the criticism match the level 1, 2, or 3 description?

I think the father’s positive criticism is specific enough for me to say it matches the level 2 description. If he had just said, “I’m very proud of you,” a boy like Nate probably would experience these words as pleasant, and he probably would know what specific behavior of his that they relate to. Nevertheless, I contend that it is a good habit to get into the practice of being specific because it decreases the likelihood of confusion.

Nate’s dad adds to his positive criticism the statement about a celebration. Positive criticism is often designed to encourage someone to continue to do something. Did Nate’s dad add to his positive criticism the celebration after considering what works best to encourage his son? If so, Nate’s dad would deserve a rating of 3.

Okay! There you have it–some of my thoughts on positive criticism. Any thoughts? I’d love to hear from you.

Have a great week and a wonderful new year.

Jeff

Tags conflict management, criticism, dispute management, feedback, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, positive criticism, positive criticism rating system, psychological maturity, wisdom

ABCs of Personal Power anger Blondie comic strip conflict management conflict resolution Dagwood dig for the conflict emotional intelligence fairness free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum interpersonal conflicts Negotiations respect social intelligence wisdom

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.

———————————
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 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

conflict management conflict resolution emotional intelligence free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum guilt Hope psychological maturity respect Romeo and Juliet social intelligence wisdom

NELSON MANDELA AND THE ART OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date December 8, 2013
7 Comments on NELSON MANDELA AND THE ART OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION

“Great anger and violence can never build a nation. We are striving to proceed in a manner and towards a result, which will ensure that all our people, both black and white, emerge as victors.” (From Nelson Mandela’s speech to European Parliament, 1990.)

As I write this post, we are in the middle of South Africa’s 10-day mourning period for Nelson Mandela. Although I myself have never set foot in South Africa, I, along with millions of Americans, and millions more around the world, find our hearts merging with those of his country’s citizens. It is, of course, a period of remembrance of a man who learned to forgive his oppressors; a man who in his later years developed a smile full of wisdom and kindness; a man who could fill up Yankee Stadium with thrilling cheers; a man deeply respected.

For me, Nelson Mandela provided us an enduring inspirational lesson on conflict resolution.

Nelson Mandela and Conflict

When we attempt to come up with a brief description of a conflict, it helps to have a good definition of “conflict” at hand. On this blog, we have been using a definition derived from the DIG Conflict Model.

A conflict exists whenever the following three conditions exist:

Party A desires an act will occur.
Party A perceives that another party is likely to act in a manner that interferes with the desire.
Party A perceives that the other party would be guilty of doing something wrong if he or she carries out the interfering act.

Notice that each of the three conditions has a key word italicized—desire for the first condition, interferes for the second, and guilty for the third. If we take the first letter of each of these key words and put them together, they spell DIG; hence the DIG Conflict Model’s name.

Party A, in the above definition, indicates the individual who is theoretically engaged in a conflict and from whose perspective the conflict will first be described.

For most of Mandela’s life, the major conflict that existed in his country can be briefly described as follows:

The large majority of people living in South Africa desired to have basic civil rights but interfering with this was the government’s apartheid laws and policies. The majority of the people felt that those supporting the laws and policies of apartheid were, and would continue to be, guilty of doing a terrible wrong.

Many of the people who participated in the conflict experienced its guilt condition as so large that their attention was focused mostly on that particular condition, and it became hard to focus their attention on solving the desire-interfering problem. To understand this better, we have to take a couple of minutes to see how each of the three conditions of a conflict can vary in size and how that affects efforts to resolve a conflict.

The Three Conflict Conditions Can Vary in Size

The three conditions of a conflict (desire, interference and guilt) are not just present. Each of these conditions, like the sides of a triangle, can vary in size.

The Variability of Desires. People have different desires, some not as strong as others. We can get a feel for this by considering the following scenarios:

Over the course of a few months, Juliet meets four young suitors at different times. First she meets Tom, spends an hour with him at a nice café, and the next day she has no desire to ever see him again. A few weeks later she meets Dick at a play, and the next day she has a small but not overwhelming desire to see him. The following week, during a stroll through a lush park, she is introduced to Harry. The next day she finds that she wants to see him even more then she wants to see Dick. And then she meets Romeo. Juliet’s passion leads her to follow Romeo through the gates of death.

Let’s say twenty-four hours after each of these four meetings, Juliet is asked to rate on a zero to ten-point scale how much she wants to see each. Zero indicates she has no desire to see the guy, and ten indicates the greatest desire she can imagine. For Tom, she provides a rating of zero; for Dick, a three; for Harry, a six; and for Romeo, a ten.

Once a person desires something a certain amount, over time it can change. We all know cases in which both the bride and groom swear at their wedding that they desire to be together for the rest of their lives, and then after a few years, they have no desire to be with one another for another minute, let alone for the rest of their lives.

The process of asking people to rate from one to ten how much they desire something allows us to measure this kind of variability. A similar process can be used to measure the other two conditions for a conflict—interfering and guilt.

The Variability of Interfering Acts. Recall that in a conflict an interfering act refers to a party doing something that gets in the way of Party A’s desire. With that in mind, consider the following scenarios:

Juliet wants to marry Romeo. Her father gives his blessing and says, “Marry him whenever you want.” Juliet is asked to rate on a zero to ten- point scale the degree she perceives that her father will act in a manner that is interfering with what she wants. Zero indicates “not at all interfering.” Ten indicates “completely interfering.” With a delightful smile, she indicates a zero.

Let’s change the scenario a bit. Juliet wants to marry Romeo. Her father says she can see him as much as she wants six days a week. He goes on to say that on Fridays she can also see Romeo as much as she wants, but only during the day. From suppertime to bedtime on Fridays she will meet some other eligible men in the city. If after three months of this plan, Juliet still wants to marry Romeo, her father tells her he will give his blessing. Although Juliet wants to marry Romeo right away, she indicates that it appears to her that her father’s plan will not be completely interfering with what she wants by giving it a rating of three.

How about this scenario? Juliet wants to marry Romeo. Her father forbids her from ever seeing Romeo and has hired some thugs to kidnap and transport him to Australia, thousands of miles away. Juliet indicates that it appears to her that her father’s interfering act is a ten.

These three scenarios illustrate that, like desires, interfering activities can be perceived as varying on a scale from zero to ten. So too can the guilt condition.

The Variability of Guilt. Like the desires and incompatibility conditions of conflicts, people don’t perceive guilt as just present or absent, but rather they perceive varying degrees of it. For example, let’s say Juliet passionately desires to marry Romeo, but discovers that the prince has ordered that anyone marrying Romeo will be beheaded, along with all of her family. Under this set of circumstances, Juliet may not blame her father at all if he refuses to give her his permission.

What about a different set of circumstances? Juliet passionately wants to marry Romeo. In this case, the prince is not involved. Juliet’s father earns a meager living running a grocery store in town. Many of his customers hate Romeo. If they were to hear that Juliet’s father gave his permission for her to marry Romeo, they would stop shopping at his store.

The whole family depends on the income from the store. Juliet believes her family would somehow survive, but they would lose the house that they love and have to make other major sacrifices. In this case, Juliet may blame her father for refusing to give his permission for her to get married, but perhaps just a little bit.

In our final example, Juliet’s father refuses to give her his permission to marry even though everyone in town likes Romeo and thinks he would make a great husband for her. When Juliet asks her father for an explanation for his refusal, he replies, “Because I said so!”

Under this set of circumstances, Juliet may believe her father is completely to blame for his interfering act. In the case of so large a guilt condition, Juliet may begin to focus on doing something terrible to make him “pay” for his guilt. Her angry emotions can make it difficult to think rationally and creatively.

Back to the Mandela Conflict

In 1980, when Nelson Mandela was still in prison, I spoke for over an hour to a person of color about his views on South Africa’s apartheid policies. The entire time he was very angry and he spoke about all of the awful things that those supporting apartheid were guilty of doing. Each time I tried to get him to discuss what the country can do to move forward in order to achieve his desire to obtain civil rights for all of the people of South Africa, he would begin to answer me, but before he could finish his first sentence, he switched back to talking about another set of actions that supporters of South Africa were guilty of.

I believe this type of discussion was typical of many of those embroiled in this conflict until Mandela was finally released after 27 years in prison. Mandela spoke with authority when he modeled for his people a very different form of discussion, a form of discussion that was less angry, less blaming of who did what, and more on how to achieve the desire for civil rights and how to end the interfering acts of apartheid supporters. He spoke with authority in part because the people knew that if Mandela could forgive after how he suffered in prison for so long, perhaps they could find a way to do so as well.

Oh, there were those who wanted revenge despite hearing Mandela’s approach. Would have more violence bred even more violence?

In the end, the South African people decided overwhelmingly that Mandela’s approach was the wiser of the two paths that laid before them. Yes, there remains many serious problems that remain for the South African people to solve. But the people have spoken, and there are many signs that exist to say they were right. Today, according to a recent Gallup poll:

In closing, I want to leave you with the words of former President Bill Clinton. Upon being interviewed about the death of Mandela, Clinton said:

“His enduring power is that he showed us that there is truth and freedom in forgiveness and in the mental and emotional discipline to live in the present and think of the future.”

Tags anger, apartheid, conflict resolution, dig for the conflict, emotional intelligence, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, Nelson Mandela, psychological maturity, respect, South Africa, violence, wisdom

anger cold shoulder conflict management conflict resolution criticism emotional intelligence fairness free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum insults interpersonal conflicts MATURITY psychological maturity respect social intelligence wisdom

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

anger bullying child discipline conflict management conflict resolution criticism dig for the conflict emotional intelligence free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum insults interpersonal conflicts MATURITY Name calling respect stress taunting teasing wisdom

RESPONDING TO INSULTS BY IGNORING

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date November 24, 2013
5 Comments on RESPONDING TO INSULTS BY IGNORING

If you have been following this blog, you know that I have often discussed different ways to respond to insults.

For example, some people respond to negative criticism that is designed to be constructive as if it was an insult. They then become angry, defensive and end up storming away. In a post titled CRITICISM AND WISDOM, I encouraged people who respond in this way to this type of criticism to learn to change their attitude. I explained that this type of criticism does not have to be viewed as an insult, but rather, as something potentially helpful and something that can lead toward wisdom. Rather than becoming defensive, we can learn to welcome this type of criticism and even encourage the criticizer to feel free to provide additional criticism in the future. This takes practice, but it can be achieved.

Sometimes people begin to throw insults at you because they are angry about a conflict they have with you. In this type of situation, rather than to respond to the insults by becoming defensive and returning the insults, I advocated in an earlier post learning a plan to DIG FOR THE CONFLICT in a friendly, assertive manner.

More recently, I mentioned that in certain types of situations RESPONDING TO INSULTS WITH QUIET SADNESS can be helpful. This type of response is most helpful when the insults are being provided because the insulter is in a stressed-out mood about something that has nothing to do with you, or because the insulter is jealous of you.

When I engage in discussions about the above types of responses, people sometimes ask me what I think about just ignoring an insult.

In the above Luann comic strip, Delta tries to get Luann to consider ignoring Tiffany. I wonder if it would be better to ignore her insult but not ignore Tiffany.

This ignoring insults strategy has been with us for a long time. I remember a principal many years ago advocating that kids should learn to ignore insults because tossing insults at someone is a lot like a game of tennis. That is, in tennis, if Ron serves a ball to you, if you refuse to hit the ball back, Ron will quickly become bored and find someone else to play with. Similarly, if Ron throws an insult at you, if you ignore it, rather than throw the insult back, Ron will soon become bored and leave you alone.

There are times when I have used the ignoring approach fairly successfully. I remember a time when I was about 12-years old. I was passing three guys who were hanging out on a street corner. They appeared to be around 18. When they started insulting me, I ignored it and just kept walking. They let me pass with just one more insult. It was all over in a matter of seconds and no physical harm had occurred to me. And so, the ignoring strategy worked pretty well.

However, when I got home, my imagination took flight. I wondered if my sense of being a “true” man had gotten roughed up just a bit. Maybe, I thought, if I really had guts, I should have told those guys a thing or two even at the risk of being beaten to a bloody pulp. Then I imagined being Superman, and I used my super powers to beat all three of them up.

But now that I’m quite a bit older and I have a far more secure sense of my manhood, I think that under the circumstances that I found myself as a 12-year old, my actions were indeed reasonable. I’ve learned over the years that nothing I could have done differently would have been really likely to have had any real positive impact on those three guys.

To create real change with boys like that requires an intervention that a typical 12-year old could hardly be expected to create. It would have to involve, for example, someone the older boys genuinely respect, or creating a coalition of citizens working together to take the type of nonviolent actions that was used to put a stop to the disrespectful treatment of blacks during the civil rights demonstrations of the 1960s.

For young children and those individuals who have trouble learning words, the great benefit of the ignoring approach is that it is perhaps the easiest strategy to learn. Not even a single word is required, and it indeed can often produce better results then returning insults with insults.

Close cousins to the ignoring approach, is to learn to use a particular word or phrase in response to the first insult followed by ignoring any following insults. The most popular of course is “Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never harm me.” Others are:

“So.”

“Good one.”

“Nice try.”

“I’m not going there.”

This “word or phrase approach” can give the person using it the experience of doing something to stick up for oneself. The word or phrase is meant to convey to the insulter that you recognize the game that the insulter is trying to play, and you are smart enough to know how to refuse to play it if that’s what you wish to do. There is a sense of empowerment that comes with being involved in a choice and taking some outward action to exercise your choice. Ignoring, or covering your ears to pretend to ignore, without saying anything may seem “weaker” to you than at least saying something on your behalf in a pleasant, self-assured manner.

This strategy works best when the word or phrase is uttered in a pleasant, friendly tone while looking squarely into the eyes of the insulter. If you instead say the word or phrase with a sneer or with any other action that tries to convey that you are somehow better or smarter than the insulter, the strategy is likely to make the situation worse. You don’t want to do anything that makes the insulter angrier than he or she may already be. That might lead to an escalation of any underlying conflict and violence. A sneer amounts to returning the insult, when that’s just what you want to avoid. Any action that comes off as returning the insult will most likely motivate the insulter to try harder to make you feel bad.

Now, although ignoring or using a quick word or phrase followed by ignoring is easy to learn and often much better than returning the insult, for most situations trying to first find out why the person is throwing out insults is a much better course of action (see INSULTS: A COMIC STRIP LOVER’S GUIDE). By asking the insulter in a concerned manner the reason for the insult can lead to a quick fix for some underlying problem. And of course, if this “asking in a concerned manner” approach doesn’t work, you can always use the ignoring approach or one of its cousins afterwards.

Well, that’s my post for this week. I’m hoping readers will take some time to post a comment about these ideas. What has worked for you? What has been your experience in trying any of these strategies? I’d love to hear from you.

Have a great week!

——————————-

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 anger, conflict management, conflict resolution, criticism, dig for the conflict, dispute management, disrespectful, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, Ignoring, insulter, jr, Martin Luther King, psychological maturity, respect, violence, wisdom

anger bullying conflict management conflict resolution insults jealousy Mickey Mantle Name calling respect social intelligence wisdom

How I Met Cool Steve

Regular readers of this blog know that to illustrate an idea, I usually utilize a comic strip or a brief parable. To fully integrate all of the ideas that appear in the blog, I’ve created a coming of age trilogy of novels that is set in Brooklyn that my students over the years have coined The Cool Steve Stories, because one of the main characters is “Cool Steve.”

Novels are perfect for illustrating subtle ideas but the vast majority of blog readers have no desire to read a post that long. And so, to deal with this challenge, from time to time I post a short story based on a chapter from one of my novels.

Today’s short story is an abbreviated version of a chapter from the second novel in the trilogy, Fights in the Streets, Tears in the Sand.

How I Met Cool Steve

When I graduated from Boody Junior High back in the sizzling summer of 1965, I had one major problem—every time I tried to get the kids to respect me I ended up making more and more enemies. If you would have asked me back then why respect was important to me, well, I guess I would have muttered a few of my choicest Brooklyn curses and then, well, I guess I would have said, “All I know is that when people treat me with respect it feels good, and when people treat me disrespectfully it feels like I ate something rotten. So there! Ya wanna make somethin’ out of it?!”

* * *

That summer, I moved to a new neighborhood and I was going to start a new school—Lincoln High. I figured no one knows me there, so this is my big chance to turn myself around.

My new neighborhood was pretty cool. It was just a few blocks from the beach and Coney Island. In ten minutes I could walk to the Cyclone, far and away the greatest roller coaster ever.

And so, I began summer vacation feeling hopeful, but as the new school year began to close in on me, I started getting pretty nervous. And when the day before school arrived I’m sitting in my room strumming my guitar while thinking about getting real sick for a few years. I wonder how long I could play up that angle to avoid school altogether. My stomach’s been out of whack for the past few days anyway, so it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to take it up another level.

Each lick of my guitar is a pounding of my old enemies, and then, all of a sudden, notions of respect get thrown in as well, creating a wild, pounding drum beat in sync with my wild, pounding heart. My strumming gets louder.

Hey, maybe I can get some respect for my musical talent.

“Jeff, quiet down in there!” Mom screams. “For crying out loud, you’re giving me a headache!”

“You’re giving me a headache!” I scream back while throwing my guitar down on my bed. I storm out of my apartment and pound the elevator call button. When it arrives, I punch the lobby button and then start kicking the walls.

* * *

Once in the street, I walk aimlessly as steam hisses out of my ears. Along Ocean Parkway I pass Lincoln High and shudder. Under the Belt Parkway overpass I notice pigeons up in the beams hiding in crevices. As I continued on with my walk, slowly I begin to settle down.

* * *

Well, you can kiss that summer vacation goodbye, I say to myself while setting my alarm clock so I won’t be late for my first day at Lincoln. Within minutes of shutting my light, worries begin to invade my mind, buzzing about like flies. Man, school’s gonna suck!

Sleepless minutes go by like hours, and hours stretch out into eternities. I check my alarm clock at midnight, again at one and two.

And then, suddenly, an idea explodes upon me, followed by madly rushing thoughts. That’s it! That’s it! At Lincoln I’ll first play a real quiet type and not reveal anything about myself. And while I do that, I’ll secretly carry out a careful investigation to determine who the kids at Lincoln already respect. By keeping my eyes open and my mouth shut, I bet I can learn something useful before the kids get to know me.

But moments after this plan has rolled in with its initial high hopes, a dark cloud of doubt begins to cast its dismal shadow. Yeah, well if I carry out that stupid plan everyone’s gonna think I’m just copying the guy everyone respects. I’ll be nothing but a rotten copycat.

More tossing and turning. Three o’clock comes and goes.

And then, suddenly I sit up in bed fully awake, and my mind cries out, Wait! There was this director I worked with in a play once and I remember him saying how a great actor takes what he learns from other actors and then brings something of himself to a role, something that makes it fresh and unique. Maybe I can create something new based on someone else. Maybe.

* * *

I arrive on my first day at Lincoln at seven-twenty a.m., with a pencil, a loose-leaf notebook, and a sensationally queasy stomach. Out front students are gathered together in clusters. So far I don’t see anyone I know. Good.

Most students are dressed in outfits that appear more freshly bought than what is seen by mid-school year. The stores offering back to school sales must have had a banner year.

The first bell rings and resonates deep in my unsettled bowels. In unison, students head for their homeroom. I look down at my class schedule that I received in the mail a few weeks ago. It indicates in distinct black typewriter letters that I have to go first to HOMEROOM 324. Okay, I guess that means I better find a stairway up to the third floor. Man, I thought my junior high had big crowded hallways. They were minor league compared to this!

Here’s an up-stairway. As I traipse along, I try to listen to the conversations going on around me to see if I can find some clue about who the kids respect. There are a couple of cute girls in front of me.

“Did you see the Beatles last night on the Ed Sullivan show?” asks one.

“Definitely!”

“Who do you like better, John Lennon or Mick Jagger?”

“Oh, John’s my dreamboat!”

“Don’t you think Mick’s cuter?”

It looks like the ladies go for rockers, I think to myself. Maybe I ought to start practicing guitar more.

* * *

A couple of periods later, I’m heading to biology and some guy behind me says to someone next to him, “Hey, Cool Steve’s in my health class!”

“Cool Steve! Really?!

“Yeah! He sat right next to me.”

“Damn! Hey, tell him I say hi.”

There’s an excitement that accompanies this dialogue that somehow has me going, hmmm.

* * *

Lunchtime. I’m not really hungry, but my schedule says that’s where me and hoards of others are supposed to go so we find the down stairwell and dutifully march along.

Harsh smells of recently mopped floors, day old tuna, sour milk, low grade cheeseburgers, and the like kick my appetite for a loop.

Where should I sit? Remember to keep a quiet profile. There are some cool looking kids at this table. I start to sit down.

“Sorry, we’re saving these seats for some friends,” says one of the guys.

I nod and move on. Man, I hate school.

A few tables away, I spot an open seat next to a kid reading a story in Sports Illustrated with a great shot of Mickey Mantle. The Mick’s neck and forearms are bulging as he’s clobbering a monster home run.

“Anybody got this seat?” I ask while preparing myself for another rejection.

Looking up from his magazine, the guy looks me over for a couple of seconds, and then replies, “Sit down. I’m Cliff Schweitzer.”

“Hi Cliff, thanks. I’m Jeff Star.”

“Hi, Jeff. Say, who do you have for history?”

After checking my schedule card, I answer, “Mr. Lofton.”

“Is he any good?”

“I don’t know. I have him for the first time in a couple of periods from now.”

“I got stuck with Mr. Putzmeister,” Cliff says mournfully.

“Putzmeister!” I reply with a smile. “That his real name?”

“Yeah, and never was there a more fitting name for a teacher. I got to get out of there. He is so boring!”

“Well, it’s history, Cliff. How interesting can it be?”

“History is my favorite class, Jeff. My dad’s a history professor at New York University so that’s what we both love. And now to get stuck with Mr. Putzmeister!” This kid, Cliff, is digging his fingernails into his forehead like he’s getting ready to commit suicide.

“Try talking ta someone in the office. All you’re interested in is history?”

“Well, to me, a branch of history is ‘The world of sports,’ and I love sports. In fact, I’m writing a column for the school newspaper. It’s called the ‘Sports Scene.’ The first issue comes out on Friday. Check it out. Let me know what you think.”

While we’re talking, we hear a kid from a nearby table, yelling, “Ya wouldn’t dare do this ta Cool Steve! Why ya doing it ta me?”

I turn to Cliff. “That’s the second time I heard this name, Cool Steve. You wouldn’t happen ta know him?”

“Yeah, from Cunningham,” he answers, referring to one of the junior high schools that feed into Lincoln. “I guess most of the kids who know him, know him from there.”

“There seems to be some kind of respect thing connected to him.”

“Respect? Steve? Well, yeah.”

“You respect him?”

“Oh, yeah!”

“How come?”

“Well, I guess for me it’s got something to do with the fact that he’s the best athlete I’ve ever personally known. In baseball he’s got explosive power and a rocket arm, and in football he’s got lightning speed and incredible hands. He’s… he’s history in the making. He’s just incredible, I mean incredible! But, um… I got a feeling people would respect Steve even if he wasn’t so great in sports.” Then Cliff’s voice kind of trails off and he looks like he’s searching for a more complete answer, but before he gets to it, a guy sitting beside him asks to borrow his Sports Illustrated.

“Let me just finish this story,” Cliff responds, and he quickly buries his nose in his magazine.

* * *

After school lets out, I walk to Rocco’s Pizzeria over on Brighton Beach Avenue. Rocco is fixing up a new pie. I take in deeply the familiar aroma of baking dough, oregano, cheese, and Rocco’s underarms.

With two slices in hand, I discover none of the tables are empty. At one of them is this guy Brainy George sitting by himself with his blond hair looking like it hasn’t been combed in months. I had met him earlier in the day in my gym class and noticed he sat at the same lunch table as Cliff Schweitzer, the sports writer. “How come they call him Brainy George?” I had asked one of the guys in gym.

“Da guy’s a freakin’ genius,” came the reply.

With nowhere else to sit, I ask if he’d mind if I sat across from him.

He looks up with these large thick glasses and nods his okay. “You were in gym today,” he says as I sit down.

“Yeah.”

“I hate gym.”

“You do?”

“Can’t stand it—all the idiots trying to prove they’re Mr. Atlas.”

“Hmmmm.” Personally, to me gym is a whole lot better than the rest of the garbage we gotta take at school. Rather than saying this I maintain my quiet portrayal. The pizza is still a bit hot so I blow on it and take my first bite. Mmmmm! “What junior high did you go to?” I ask.

“Cunningham.”

“That’s the same junior high as this kid Cool Steve. I guess ya think he’s an idiot since he’s into sports.”

“Steve? Naaa. Steve’s different than the guys I’m talking about.”

“Izzat so?”

“Yeah. I like Steve because, well first of all, he’s not one of those idiots who pick on me because I can’t run as fast as the other guys. And I like the way Steve’s gutsy. He’s not afraid to stand up for what he believes in. And it’s the way he carries himself… the way he moves. I don’t know… I… I just have a lot of respect for Steve.”

There’s that word again—‘respect.’ Well, being gutsy shouldn’t be too hard, I think to myself. Hell, I was gutsy enough to get into lots of fights in my old school. But I don’t quite know what to make of this stuff about the way Steve moves.

* * *

My second day at Lincoln—the wide-eyed exuberance of students on day one has turned into a ‘Do I really have to be here?’ look.

After finishing my lunch, I go sit on the steps of Lincoln’s main entrance. It’s warm and the sun is shining. Several students including Cliff Schweitzer, the sports writer, and Brainy George, the genius, come by and sit down next to me. With them are these two attractive girls.

I find myself magnetically pulled toward the girls. How can I get introduced? Be careful. You don’t want to blow the quiet image.

I nudge George and conspicuously look at each of the girls.

First, he points to the one closest to him, “She’s Sandy.” Sandy’s cute, with apricot-tan shoulders, a peachy complexion, and long, wavy, sandy-blond hair. She glances at me and smiles.

Then George, he points to the girl sitting next to Sandy. “That’s Mysterious Jane.”

“Mysterious Jane?” I ask.

“Well, they call Mysterious Jane, Mysterious Jane, because she’s strange,” George explains.

She might be strange, I think to myself, but she’s gorgeous. She has long, straight, glossy black hair that slightly covers her prominent cheekbones, and falls freely upon her voluptuous shoulders and breasts. Her green, almond shaped eyes have a thin line of black mascara and perhaps within these glimmering eyes there is a hint of some sort of mysteriousness.

Jane looks at me, gives me a slight nod, and resumes a conversation that she is having with George.

All of a sudden something catches Sandy’s attention and she cries, “Who’s that gorgeous guy?”

Mysterious Jane turns with her large green eyes in the direction that Sandy is looking—down the steps and off to the right. She lets out a long sigh. “Oh, that’s Cool Steve.”

“Ain’t he built!” Sandy squeals. “You know him?”

“Yeah, from Cunningham,” Jane replies. “All the girls were nuts about him because, well, a lot of the girls say it’s because he’s so cute. And he is cute, especially his eyes. I l-o-o-v-e his eyes.” This is followed by a moan and she then drifts off into another dimension.

Sandy pokes Mysterious Jane, returning her back to Earth. Jane looks over to Sandy, lowers her voice to an eerie whisper and says, “If you want to know the truth, the real reason all the girls are crazy about Steve is because he moves with the grace and power of a large panther, but he has far more power than any panther you’ve ever seen.”

I think to myself, that Mysterious Jane, she’s strange!

Watching Steve down the steps, I can’t notice him moving in any special way. I do notice that he’s tall with dark eyes and hair, like me. But compared to me, Steve is broader and has more of a Paul Newman nose.

Well, I refuse to get my nose fixed, but if I put on a few pounds and start lifting weights, I bet it might help. I’m way too skinny.

“Aaaaa, he’s nothing special,” I declare, feeling a little jealous of the way the girls are looking at him.

“All of the students sitting on the steps turn to me. “Nothing special,” says Mysterious Jane with a smile, and with that, everyone around me laughs.

* * *

A couple of hours later I’m walking out the south side exit of Lincoln heading home for the day. Man, I’m pissed! I can’t believe how much homework that stupid biology teacher gave me! Suddenly I hear, “Hey, Jeff Star!”

I turn to my left and spot Cliff calling after me. “Jeff, that guy Steve you were asking about,” Cliff calls out, “well, here he is.”

There, standing by Cliff is Cool Steve with a smile on his face. As I walk over, I’m feeling a completely unfamiliar nervousness. What’s he smiling about? I think to myself. Cool Steve! Cool Idiot if you ask me. And then, when I open my mouth, I find myself saying in a loud tough voice, “So you’re Steve. I’ve been hearing about you. The word is you’re a Jerk!”

As I glare at Steve, with his Mack Truck shoulders, my heart pounds furiously. From the corner of my eye I notice Steve’s friend, Cliff, watching on, his mouth closed so tight he seems to have no lips. His words from yesterday come to mind—“Steve’s the best athlete I’ve ever personally known.”

Big deal! I’m ready to go at him.

I’m waiting for an angry come on, or a quick jab from his right. My muscles are as tight as a hangman’s noose.

I notice several students who were walking home from school have put on their brakes, and their eyes are flashing back and forth between me and Steve.

Steve’s eyes lower, his forehead creases. Then his eyes look into mine and I see, instead of fury, sadness. “I guess,” he begins to say haltingly, “well… I was hoping… you know… starting a new school here… well, I was hoping the guys would like me.”

Those dark, glimmering eyes of his….

“Jeff,” says Cliff, “why did you say that?”

My eyes dart to him and back to Steve. Cold perspiration beads up on my forehead. The students looking on are almost drooling. What should I do?

Uncomfortably, I find myself shifting my stance as I look into Steve’s eyes…the sadness there…eyebrows down. They look like they are on the verge of becoming watery as he looks directly into my eyes, then down, and then back up into mine. My fury begins to turn into a feeling of downright stupidity. “Listen Steve, I… I don’t know why I said that… everyone I talked wit’ said you were okay.” I take a quick glance at Cliff and the other students watching on…and then hurry away.

* * *

A few minutes later, I’m pushing the elevator button in my apartment lobby. Jeez, I just made a great impression, I think to myself, a wonderful great impression. Steve’s eyes… man, who is this guy?

In junior high, whenever I started to put someone down, I got returned insults and fistfights. Such reactions would turn me into a raving lunatic. Now, with the way Steve acted, I don’t know how to respond to his quiet sadness.

——————————-

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, bully, conflict, conflict management, conflict resolution, Cool Steve, criticism, disrespectful, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, insults, John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Mickey Mantle, psychological maturity, respect, The Beatles, violence, wisdom

anger Bullied bullying conflict management conflict resolution criticism free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum guilt Name calling social intelligence suicide threats

CONFESSION OF A FORMER BULLY

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date October 27, 2013
12 Comments on CONFESSION OF A FORMER BULLY

A while ago, my wife and I went to Ithaca to see the emotionally charged play, “From White Plains.” The title is meant to suggest plain white kids from a suburb. As the lights first brighten the stage, thirty-year old Dennis hears that he has won the Oscar for his film based on the bullying he and his friend faced in childhood. When Dennis reveals in front of a worldwide audience during his acceptance speech the name of the worst of the bullies whose actions led to his friend’s suicide, the drama begins.

Ethan, the former bully, sees the telecast, as does almost everyone in his life, and his smartphone lights up. Although Ethan quickly and publicly issues a heartfelt apology for his actions as a child, the fiercely outspoken Dennis is not in the least ready for forgiveness.

“Why should a two-minute apology be enough to forgive someone that caused the death of my friend and years of my own tormenting anguish?” he cries.

But Dennis’s friend, Gregory, challenges him to think about his campaign for vengeance. Increasingly sympathetic to Ethan’s pain from the unrelenting public humiliation that Dennis is leading against Ethan, at one point Gregory emotionally declares to Dennis, “It is you who have now turned into a bully!”

The plot is further complicated by the dilemma faced by Ethan’s closest buddy, John. With so much anger being directed toward Ethan, John fears that if he continues to be Ethan’s friend, those who now hate Ethan will also turn against him. Viewers of these scenes, as they watch John, an adult, struggle with this dilemma, get a vivid sense of how much more difficult it must be for kids facing the same type of dilemma whenever they see a friend begin to be targeted by others. Should they stick with their friend through thick and thin, or join with the larger, more powerful group?

I won’t reveal the rest of the play other than to say it’s very well done.

As I left the theater, I found myself thinking about my own past. At first, I vividly recalled the times that I was bullied and how I fantasized that I was Superman and used my powers to violently put all of the bullies into the hospital with broken arms and legs. And then, with angst in the pit of my stomach, I suddenly recalled an incident that occurred when I was in junior high in which I participated in bullying a classmate.

A student in my class, let’s call him Ralph, had a head that was a bit bigger than my other classmates. Another student began to pass around a sheet of paper with a drawing of a caricature of Ralph with an enormous head standing at a microphone stand giving a speech. The sheet of paper asked for signatures to nominate Ralph to be “Head of the Class.” Although I knew Ralph was watching me, I found myself laughing when the paper arrived in my hands. Not only did I laugh, I ended up signing the petition and passed it on to the student next to me, who proceeded to crack up at the site of the caricature.

After class, while walking beside Ralph on our way to our next class, I saw from his eyes and forehead that he was feeling pretty miserable. “Ralph,” I said, “we all get crap from the other kids from time to time. It’s just the stuff that goes on at school.”

“Yeah, well it doesn’t feel too good,” he replied in a choked-up voice.

“If it makes you feel any better,” I said, “well, I like you.”

With that, I felt that I had done my good deed for the day and the incident was over. The next morning, however, when Ralph showed up in the schoolyard just before the line-up bell, the kids in my class began to once again put him down. I noticed there was a girl that I knew Ralph liked standing near by. Although this time I didn’t join in on the teasing, I wanted to speak up and ask the kids to cut it out, but I didn’t have the courage. I found myself afraid that if I said anything to defend Ralph, the bullying would be turned on me. And so, feeling like a coward, I kept my mouth shut.

Fifty years have gone by, and I still feel that I hadn’t done quite enough at times for all the Ralphs out there.

As an adult, I now believe that the best hope to deal effectively with the bullying problem is to have programs at school that change the culture so that the actions of bullies signify ineptitude rather than manliness; and that sticking up for a kid who is being bullied is a sign of a real hero (see my post “Bully and Beyond”).

But for those of us who went to schools that had no such programs, how are we to deal with the ruminating memories that continue to plague us years after we graduated? Can we ever forgive ourselves for the actions we committed in our youth? Can we ever forgive the kids who humiliated us? Why do some people, having been bullied as kids, turn into bullies themselves the first chance that they get? And finally, why do some people who had bullying experiences as kids instead of converting them into hate somehow manage to convert them into acts of kindness?

Over the next few weeks, I hope readers will help me to make sense of all of this.

——————————-

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, bullies, bullying, conflict management, disrespectful, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, From White Plains, insults, suicide, violence, wisdom

anger conflict management conflict resolution criticism free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum interpersonal conflicts MATURITY social intelligence touching wisdom

TOUCHING WHILE TRYING TO RESOLVE CONFLICTS: IS THERE A PLACE FOR IT?

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date October 20, 2013
12 Comments on TOUCHING WHILE TRYING TO RESOLVE CONFLICTS: IS THERE A PLACE FOR IT?

The chief executive officer (CEO) in the Dilbert comic strip is the bald-headed guy. He has been having quite a few conflicts with his workers. After trying some new approaches to resolve these conflicts, he decides to see if touching might help:

Apparently, one of the CEO’s workers likes the way it feels when he is patted on his head. I don’t think I would like my boss to pat me on my head. Nevertheless, I do wonder if touching someone in certain ways during a conflict may be helpful at times.

When I was growing up, my mother and some of my male acquaintances would use physical contact during a conflict with me in the form of hitting. They did this to try to force me to do whatever they wanted me to do. But in this post, I’m not going to discuss that type of physical contact.

I also received some forms of physical contact in a few non-conflict situations. Affectionate close relatives would hug me when saying hello. In my early days my friends and male cousins would roughhouse in a fun manner. These occurred without any real conflict. Today, I have something very different in mind.

One of the ways I recall someone touching me during a conflict occurred when I was sixteen years old. I was on the Lincoln High baseball team and I happened to show up a little late for practice.

Soon after I arrived, my coach took me off to the side so we could talk in semi-privacy. The other players could still see us, but they were far enough away so that what my coach had to say was just for my ears.

He first looked down at the ground for a long 30 seconds or so, and then he looked squarely into my eyes while putting his hand softly on the back of my shoulder. In a soft voice, he said, “Jeff, I see you as one of the leaders on this team. I’m hoping this is the last time you come late for practice. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Coach,” I replied. “I’m real sorry about being late.”

He then patted me on my back and said, “OK, Jeff, now go take some fielding practice, and I want to see you hustling out there.”

“You bet, Coach!”

Now, at the time, it never even crossed my mind that my coach had done anything that anyone could possibly think of as wrong. When I was growing up, in sports touching occurred all the time. A coach might put his arm around you while he gave you some instructions.

If you made a nice play, the coach and your team mates might pat you on the arm or back, or even on your rear end.

And both male and female athletes and coaches would give each other enthusiastic hugs.

My baseball coach had done something a little different when he touched me. Usually touching in sports occurred during the rough and tumble of a game or as a sign that you did something good. My baseball coach had touched me, not for any of those two reasons, but because he was trying to work out a conflict he was having with me. And it worked. I never came late again, and not only did I not think he did anything wrong, I found that I had an increased amount of respect for him because of the way he handled the situation.

Soon after, I found myself reflecting upon what he did. He spoke to me in relative privacy. When he began, he looked down in a way that I could tell that what I did led to him feeling unhappy. And then, when he looked into my eyes and said that he felt that I was viewed as one of the team leaders, there was something about what he said and how he said it that led me to feel that he genuinely liked me. At the same time, he told me what he wanted me to do in the future in very clear terms–to be on time for practice.

After that incident, I found myself often using a similar approach, and I found it very helpful. As a result, I didn’t think there could be any problem with it. But as the years went on, from time to time I have heard individuals complain about someone touching them in similar situations and not liking it. And so, I began to ask some questions to see if I could come to understand the reasons for our experiences being so very different.

One teenager whom we will call Judy told me that a guy at school made a suggestion to her that made her very angry.

“Then what happened,” I asked.

“How did you feel about the way the guy handled the situation?” I asked.

“I didn’t like the way he touched me,” Judy replied. “He squeezed my shoulder and it felt threatening.”

“Hmmm,” I replied. “Something about the way he squeezed your shoulder felt uncomfortable. I see. What if he just touched you gently in the back of your shoulder while saying what he said? Would you have felt more comfortable with that?”

Judy thought about this for a few seconds and then looked up at me and smiled. “That would have been okay,” she replied. “There was something about the way he actually touched me that felt creepy, and I didn’t like it at all.”

Although Judy said that if the boy would have touched her gently on the back, she would have felt okay about that, I have heard some other folks say that they don’t like to be touched at all.

So what do we do about this? Do we stop touching everyone in these types of situations because some people feel uncomfortable with being touched? Do we begin to think about what kinds of touching might be okay, and what types of touching is not okay?

I really can’t answer this type of question for everyone. It would be very helpful if readers over the next few weeks share with us their thoughts about this, so we have more information to judge. In the meantime, I will say this. If you do try the touching approach with someone, I think you would be wise to watch carefully how the other person is reacting. If the person begins to appear tense, with a crinkling of the forehead, a stiffening of the body or by pulling away from the touch, I encourage you to back off and offer an apology. Perhaps saying something like this might be helpful, “I sense that you don’t like me to touch you. I’ll keep that in mind in the future and respect your feelings. I’m sorry I made you feel uncomfortable.” Then, a gentle smile might ease some of the tension.

Well, I hope this post gives you some ideas to think about, and, as always, I hope to be reading your comments real soon.

Have a great week,

Jeff

——————————-

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 coach, conflict management, conflict resolution, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, insults, psychological maturity, respect, touching, wisdom

anger challenge conflict management conflict resolution emotional intelligence free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum interpersonal conflicts psychological maturity wisdom

OPENNESS TO THE OTHER: BYPASSING ANGER BY REMAINING CONFIDENTLY ENGAGED

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date October 13, 2013
8 Comments on OPENNESS TO THE OTHER: BYPASSING ANGER BY REMAINING CONFIDENTLY ENGAGED

This week we have a special treat, a guest blog post by Dr. Robin Lynn Treptow, PhD. Dr. Treptow describes herself as a peace psychologist who lives in Montana with her family. She believes that sustainable world-wide peace is achievable via psychological wisdom, and she labors one-on-one in each human interaction towards this goal.

Here’s a little background to Dr. Treptow’s post:

A couple of weeks ago, I published a post titled FROM ANGER TO CHALLENGE: A STEP TWO EXAMPLE. That post provided a parable in which Audrey, a young woman, has just graduated from law school. When her father begins to urge her to begin her career at his Wall Street firm, Audrey becomes angry, and cries out, “Dad, we discussed this already! I’m going to get a job in the Department of Justice!”

Dr. Treptow, it just so happens, believes that it would be helpful for my readers to see the character in my parable act in a different way, one in which Audrey displays the principles of “Openness to the other” (The Virtue of Multiculturalism Personal Transformation, Character, and Openness to the Other, by Blaine J. Fowers and Barbara J. Davidovin, September 2006, American Psychologist, Vol. 61, No. 6, 581–594). I feel my readers could benefit from this point of view, and so I now turn this post over to Dr. Treptow.

Below, I will use blue letters when I am using Dr. Rubin’s words in his original post describing his parable of Audrey. Whenever I want to insert a comment into his parable or change his words to illustrate bypassing anger by remaining confidently engaged, I will use red letters.

Audrey is at a fine restaurant with her parents celebrating her law school graduation.

[This scenario involving primarily Audrey and her father has been adapted herein using a novel strategy for managing one’s emotions in a proactive manner: bypassing “anger” or other negative emotions altogether and moving towards a wholehearted focus upon “openness to the other.” Some aspects of the original script have been omitted as irrelevant and unnecessary to the more effective and streamlined process.]

“Well, your mother and I are so proud of you, Audrey,” says her father.

“Thanks, Dad!”

“Now you know, Audrey, I think it best that you begin your career in my Wall Street firm,” says her father.

[Audrey very momentarily takes an inner assessment of her emotional, cognitive, and behavioral resources—she had decided about a month ago to try a novel approach to relationships, an approach that keeps in mind that two people can communicate openly with one another even though they do not have the same backgrounds, heritage, and life experiences. A major goal with this approach is to clarify that others have ‘legitimate commitments to their own ways of life that are worthy of respect.’]

Having heard her father’s comment about beginning her career at his firm, Audrey’s thoughts follow in this line: “Emotions: I am pretty upbeat because this is my law school graduation celebration; though sometimes I can be vulnerable to reactivity to others’ comments at times of an ’emotional high,’ I think that in this case it will be ‘okay’ to honor my father by remaining open to whatever he should wish to say. Cognitions: Though it will certainly be reasonable to avoid agreeing to any immoral thought or actions, I do not realistically think that my father would put me in that type of position now or at any other time. I certainly ought to be able to listen openly to my father’s points of view as his daughter and as a competent law school graduate. Behaviors: I am an adult; I am fully capable of listening to my father’s statements about a matter close to his heart: it will be simply a matter of sitting here, looking at him as he speaks, and expressing agreement with anything about which I can concur.” Audrey’s mental evaluation—comprising something like 30 seconds—meanders to a close as she hears herself gently intone…

“Hey, dad, that is a sweet idea! Why don’t you go over again the primary reasons that you would like me to work there?”

[Audrey is quietly cognizant of her primary goal: to be in a relationship with her father; she has set aside for this conversation any needs to justify her desire to work at the Justice Department—realizing that she is an adult and is fully capable to make that decision with or without her father’s input. In fact, it is this very confidence in her own ability to act wisely without her father’s direct counsel which enables Audrey to set aside any perceived need to convince her father that she has made (or will make) the best choice. Audrey remains aware that this approach is based in authenticity; that is, it will backfire if it is used as a “tactic” or “strategy” just to get her way or to convince her father that she is a capable adult: its purpose is to keep oneself in pleasant and amiable harmony with the other.]

“Dad, we discussed this already.”

[Here, in Dr. Rubin’s original script, Audrey is beginning to become angry and defensive. But in this revised approach, Audrey, instead gives her father a warm smile and pats him on his arm.]

“As I mentioned to you before, Dad, I’m going to get a job in the Department of Justice,” says Audrey. “I made some connections there and that’s where my heart is.”

[While Audrey’s words are almost identical to those she had said in Dr. Rubin’s scenario, with her new “openness to the other” approach, she is quietly conscious that her voice tone and facial affect are markedly more congruent to her inner feelings than they would have been if she had started to become angry. Specifically, Audrey notices that her voice is soft and connected: there is no harsh tone as she relates the truth of how she feels and the action that she is hopeful to take.]

“We discussed that several months ago, and just briefly,” her father replies.

Audrey nods quietly with deep affection in her eyes. Because she has assessed her inner resources and found them to be fully ample for the task of remaining in a caring and a loving relationship with her father, she is free to fully acknowledge his side of the relationship.

“Now that the real decision is right before you,” her father says, “it’s time to get serious. I want to make sure you really think this out thoroughly to prevent you from doing anything foolish.”

Audrey smiles. She fully appreciates her father’s reasons for speaking with her about her career choices: he loves her very much!

She is consciously aware of the spontaneous pleasure welling up inside of her for being able to listen to and appreciate why her father might be so motivated to engage her in this discussion.

“Thank you, Dad,” Audrey says, and she leans over and gives her father a kiss on his cheek.

Audrey nods from time to time with deep respect as her father begins speaking—keeping her heart decidedly open to his.

Audrey inwardly celebrates her success: despite so much well-meaning advise from law school colleagues and others in her social circle to be “assertive” and “tell your father that you have made up your mind…” she had tried a novel approach with wonderful results. Not feeling at all anxious as to how the course of the conversation might turn out—knowing at that very deep place within her heart and soul that the Justice Department job was most likely going to remain solidly in her sights—Audrey prepares her whole person to be fully engaged with whatever her father might have to say. She makes a mental note that she has researched her job options well; there is absolutely no reason to become defensive in discussing them with her father who obviously is highly invested in her prospects as a lawyer: “Why wouldn’t he be? He is a lawyer himself!”

When her father is done, Audrey carefully summarizes what he had to say.

Audrey notices that her “summary” is more than just repeating back her father’s words as if she did not really care about his feelings: “It has gone to a deeper level. I find myself wondering how my father might be feeling: ‘Does he think, I do hope she still takes the job with me? I really like her—she is a strong young woman and would be such an asset to my firm…” or ‘Might he wonder if I will grow away from him if I take another job—one that has differing ideas about a lawyer’s hands-on practice…what needs to be done and why…?’ She is pleasantly surprised and pleased to discover that her actions are not a “staged pretending to take my father seriously” but a genuine and honest interest in her father’s viewpoints on the matter.

She pauses for a good few minutes, showing her dad she is really thinking over all the information she has gathered.

Now Audrey decides to openly share with her father some of the thought process that has gone into her career choice—conveying by the congruency of her affect, words, and behaviors that she has indeed given her career a great deal of thought. She impresses her Dad with her knowledge of what it takes to thoroughly consider her job options, the type of research that supports the procedure she had chosen, and the information that she had gathered on the specific options that she considered. She then asks her father for his input.

Again, Audrey is pleased with her new approach: she is genuinely interested in her father’s advice, ideas, and practical approach to the job-search situation. “This is rather fun,” she thinks.

[Audrey is not at all detached from her father and his needs during this exchange: rather, she is so confident in her own inner resources as to be fully available emotionally to her father during this difficult moment.]

Then she announces her decision that she is going to stick with her initial choice, a job with the Justice Department.

Her father once again objects, making a few final pleas for her to reconsider.

With a few moist tears in her eyes, Audrey gently reassures her father of her devotion and love for him as her father.

[Having adopted at her innermost core a commitment to be “open to the other” throughout their interchange, she now can fully understand the mix of emotions that her father might be experiencing.]

Audrey’s father observes his internal thoughts: “Wow! She’s a smart one: I am so pleased that she knows what she wants to do. Yes, I am sad that she won’t be working for me—but she will be a dynamo for the Justice Department… I wonder if she might agree to have an informal ‘father-daughter lawyer’s lunch every Thursday when I seldom have pressing matters at hand…”]

After summarizing what her father had said, using her most loving voice, Audrey says, “Dad, you make some very good points. Here’s what we’ll do. After one year of my job at the Department of Justice, you and I will meet again to discuss my career. I’ll have a lot more information by then about what I like and don’t like about that job. You’ll have a whole year to think up some new reasons for me to go into your firm. I’ll only be 26 by then, and so it won’t be too late to change my career path. And if I do decide to change, I bet at least some of the stuff I’ll be learning at the Justice Department will be helpful for a Wall Street lawyer to know.”

Audrey’s father looks a little sad as she tells him of her final decision. Still, he nods, and says that he appreciates that she will remain open about the possibility of changing her decision after a year. And then he adds,

“And do you think that the Justice Department’s new stellar appointee will grant her leave every Thursday for a leisurely lunch—“lawyer networking”? We can pick a place nearby the Justice Department—I have some flexibility to travel across town—and maybe one or more of those times you could invite some Justice Department co-workers to join us. I would be eager to hear more about how their branch of lawyering differs in both concrete and more theoretical ways from what I have done thus far in my career.”

“Sure, Dad,” Audrey replies with a smile, and they conclude their meeting with a sweet hug.

———————

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, arguments, conflict management, conflict resolution, dispute management, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, Justice Department, openness to the other, wisdom