The Website of Dr. Mark Goulston

Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

-Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Whether or not the Bailout Bill passes, the President and Congress would do well to heed Covey’s advice.

Here is why.

When people are consumed with “fear and loathing” the upper, human part of their brain shuts down. The middle emotional brain boils over from all the tumult and does what Daniel Goleman calls an amygdala hijack. This is akin to fear acting in whatever way it can to either avoid or at the very least mitigate panic. This throws people into reacting usually in a reptilian, fight or flight lower brain way. At that point they will react as they did in other panicky situations in the past.

Imagine the process like water about to boil and then boil over. Once it boils over, it scalds whatever it touches. The solution is to raise the boiling point at which the middle brain boils over and throws us into our lower reptilian, fight or flight brain. This translates into being able to feel afraid, feel disappointed, feel angry without panicking or becoming hostile in our behavior. In essence, it means learning to “take the hit.”

Two common analogies to the President, his advisors and Congress trying to get the American people to listen to reason, are first, parents trying to get a recalcitrant teenager to do their homework or stop partying (Yeah, good luck with that one). Another analogy is a high integrity divorce attorney (yes, some do exist) attempting to get a “rich, angry and wrong” spouse from escalating an already out of control situation.

How do you get that teenager or that belligerent spouse to calm down and listen to reason? Here is a seven step approach:

1. Do a rope-a-dope. Muhammad Ali did that to beat George Foreman. That means let them vent, let them punch themselves out, don’t take issue with each and everything they say. Don’t interrupt them. If you speak too early and they keep going say: “Oh excuse me, I thought your were finished. Please continue.”
2. After they finish, pause for ten seconds. That pause will cause them to imagine you coming back at them, defending yourself, blaming someone else, making excuses, etc. If you do any of these, it will just stir them up again. They may even become anxious as they assume you will now come back at them, because that is what they would do if they were you.
3. After the pause, look them squarely in the eye and in a caring, earnest, “seek first to understand” voice say: “You’re really angry, aren’t you?”
4. If you are on target they will not fight you and instead say either: “Huh?” or “Yeah, I’m furious” or just plain “Yeah.”
5. At that point respond with: “How angry are you?” They will probably respond with: “Huh?” or “Furious” or something like that.
6. Next say: “How bad does that get for you?” They may again say, “Huh?” or “What?” If so repeat the question, “Yes, I’d like to know how bad it gets for you.”
7. At that point they will often say some something like: “Real bad” or “Awful” or “Freaked out” and will often go from venting to e-x-h-a-l-i-n-g, and possibly even begin to cry with the relief that exhaling offers. They will begin to relax and at that point open their mind to you and listen to what you have to say.

If they now do give you their mind imagine you are now speaking not to a resistant teenager or foolish spouse/client, but to a scared child who has been separated from a parent in a big department store and is standing and shaking by the escalator. If you are the department store security person, you will listen to the child’s fears and tears and begin to start to talk withthem. At that point they may start to listen to reason. If you don’t and keep talking at orover them or even logically to them, they will re-escalate and their amygdala will hijack them again and you’re back to the races and further away from having them listen to reassurance…and if you’re the American people, further away with agreeing with anything. 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 1st, 2008 at 10:18 pm and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.