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Sunday, September 3, 2017

I Wish You Well

I can say the entire content of this piece right up front in one phrase: when you meet someone, wish them well, sincerely, without saying a word. See what happens.

I first heard this bit of wisdom from a physician from the Mayo Clinic. He spoke at our parish about stress reduction. He is a native of India, and when he came to the US, he thought he was coming to the promised land. What he discovered is that our lives are full of stress. His current research is on how to reduce stress. You can find his book and other comments below, with a link to his talk on YouTube. I just want to extend his idea a little bit. This is all based on neuroscience research, and there are books and articles below if you want to pursue it further.

Pattern Recognition
The human brain is pretty amazing. It recognizes patterns almost instantly. And it makes a decision based on that information just as fast. This is an instrument honed by evolution to enable us to survive, to quickly identify friend or foe. We respond to threats before we even realize it. We make judgments about people we meet in sub second time. If you are aware of this, you can maximize your return from an encounter right up front.

The Fast Brain
Daniel Kahneman calls this our "fast brain". It takes us a significant amount of time before our slow brain actually recognizes what is going on. When that tiger appears in the path, your body is running before you even recognize what you just saw.  You respond to it, and then you later realize what is going on. It is also unconscious and automatic. Turns out most of what goes on in our brain is not conscious to us - yet it affects what we do and how we feel. 

Talk to the Elephant
Jonathan Haidt says we are like an elephant, walking along with a driver up on top. Our emotional side is the elephant. Our thinking and reflective part is the rider or driver. The thinking part, the driver, thinks it is directing the elephant, but it is the emotional elephant that decides where we go. When the elephant sees something it recognizes, it responds with emotion - it heads toward it, or away from it, depending. We only realize the response after the fact - and sometimes we can actually change the direction, but generally not. It takes a fair amount of reflection and mental energy to deflect the elephant! This is not a theory, by the way. It is based on excellent experimental research.

Visible Emotion
When you wish someone well, you change your whole person, your voice, your face, your posture, your gestures. You change everything about you, and the person you are speaking to knows it instantly with their fast brain. Since it is emotion that you are showing, it talks to their elephant. They are not yet aware of what is happening, but their elephant responds. "This person wishes me well, so I will respond in kind." But it MUST be sincere. You cannot just fake it, unless you are a consummate actor. Coming off as a phony is not conducive to a good relationship.

When to Use It?
Well - all the time. When you meet a stranger, wish them well. When someone waits on you at a counter, wish them well. When you call a customer service person, wish them well - it will show up in your voice. Of course, it will help if you actually say things like, "How is your day going?" And if you are in a customer service role yourself, it works just as well. Wish that person well. Just walking about and wishing well to total strangers will bring you a sense of empathy, and calmness and caring that will improve your day. Try it.

Negotiating
I taught a university class on negotiation for 15 years. It was based on the book Getting to Yes, by Roger Fisher and others. This was supported by another text with hundreds of pages of actual research on what works in negotiating agreements. But the text never mentioned this simple little understanding of human interaction. It is clear that a solid agreement has to be Win-Win. If either side feels that they lost, the implementation of that agreement is at great risk, and there will be serious consequences going forward.

Build a Trust Relationship
The first priority in negotiating is always to build a trust relationship. Once the parties have a basic trust, they can accomplish almost anything. Nothing invites trust like wishing someone well - sincerely. M. Scott Peck, in his book, The Different Drum, found that if he could get the parties into a room together for three days, where they shared their values and concerns, then they could negotiate from a solid foundation of respect and trust. Three days is a lot of investment - I always wondered what would happen to our elected leaders if we confined them to a room with the other side for three days. They might be willing to "wish each other well". As it stands now, they do not even sit near each other - they never share a meal together, or even a personal chat.

How to Persuade
Have you ever been in a situation where the other person just does not understand your point of view? No matter how you explain it to them, no matter what arguments or facts you bring to bear, they are simply not getting it. Based on good research, when you give someone information that is against their beliefs, it will actually strengthen those beliefs. They see your arguments as an attack. Their elephant is afraid, and it won't let the driver even consider the information. So your "attack" confirms their opinion - strengthens it. This is called Identity Protective Cognition, or more simply: The Backfire Effect. We react automatically to information that threatens our sense of who we are, the values we hold, or our group identity.

Talk to the Elephant
The elephant is the key - talk to the elephant. Focus on the emotions and values of your friend. And do call them "friend" - negotiating with enemies is almost impossible. They are not an opponent - we really are all in this together, and we affect each other with everything we do and say. If you can hold that belief, and continue to wish them well, you can speak to their emotions - not their brain.

Repeat What They Say
Literally - repeat it, just as they said it. It will generate a bond. You don't need to agree, just repeat it. See what happens.

Ask Them to Explain
Tell them that you would like to understand their viewpoint more clearly. Tell me more about that public policy that you are promoting. Help me understand it. You have to be sincere here - just pretending will not work. Their pattern recognition engine will see it immediately. Focus on the values that they are expressing, not just the ideas. Empathize with those values - work to build some form of trust relationship on your common values and beliefs. Forget about your own ideas and arguments for a bit. I find this last part very difficult.

If the issue is complicated - for example, the foreign trade balance, or the national debt - ask them to explain to you just how it works. Good research shows that most of us do not have a solid understanding of most of our basic beliefs. If we pause for a moment and try to explain just how something works, we often discover that we actually do not understand it very well. That can open us up to learn something new about it.

Reflect Back Your Understanding
This is straight out of Steven Covey, the 5th Habit. It works to repeat what they say, but it works even better to rephrase it, show that you understand it. Listen, and reflect back their emotional content, their values - not just the words they are saying or the ideas - reflect how they feel about these things. Covey used to say: "Listen with your eyes for feelings". Forget the words - focus on the feelings and emotions and values. How do they look? What is going on here? Empathize with those feelings and values. They will see that, they will feel that and they will respond. You are talking to the elephant.

Ask Them to Help You Understand the Source of Their Opinion
This is important - do not offer them your opinion. Even with a trust relationship, that will be seen as an attack. Remember the research above about how our elephant responds to information that is counter to our belief. We get defensive. Instead, explore with them the basis of their opinion or belief. Reference their family, their group, their peers, as that is the likely source of their opinions - more so than any research and thinking. Talk about your own values, what you hold dear. Try to find a common value that you can agree on. Any agreement will build up the trust relationship.

Best Hope - raise a doubt
Your best hope, maybe your only hope, is to raise a tiny question of doubt in their mind. Be positive, affirming. Ask them to help you understand. Where did their opinion come from, what kind of support do they have for it? If they can explain it, YOU might learn something. If they can't, you might raise a tiny bit of doubt. Sometimes that is all it takes. And, hey, YOU could be wrong too. If you aren't open to that, you should probably not be talking with them.

Keep It Simple
We are black and white thinkers - for or against. All that nuanced stuff just does not work for our emotional self. Talk about simple values - home and family and parent and country. Don't argue the nuances of the tax code or foreign trade - even professional economists can't get their heads around those things. Well, most of them cannot - the behaviorists get it pretty well.

Remember, we are not dealing with FACTS here - we are dealing with values and emotions. Most people are intuitive, not reflective. They actually do NOT want more information. We find it too confusing. Imagine trying to make a rational decision among the thousands of choices that the cereal aisle in the grocery store presents. Can't be done.

Conclusion
Clearly I have gone off the deep end in terms of details. So, to simplify:
  • Talk to the elephant! 
  • Respect their values, respect them.
  • Seek first to understand.
  • Find shared values.
  • Wish them well. Really!
Postscript
This still reads well, but there is a new book that does it even better:
How to Have Impossible Conversations, by Peter Boghossian, and James Lindsay.
This is a remarkable collection of the latest research, and a step by step guide to learning how to do this. 

Resources


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