Hiccup: If only I had killed that dragon when I found him in the woods! It would've been better... for everyone.
Astrid: You're right. Everyone else would've done it. So why didn't you?
[pauses]
Astrid: Why *didn't* you?
...
Hiccup: [sighs] I wouldn't kill him, because he looked as frightened as I was. I looked at him, and I saw myself.
- How to Train Your Dragon
How to Cope with Defensiveness
What if, because of the high stakes and the emotions involved when an employee's work is evaluated, I encounter resistance, anger, or defensiveness during this discussion? It is vitally important to win my employees' agreement about possible problems and commitment to solutions; that's unlikely to occur when they are defensive. Problem solving cannot occur when people are "on-guard." Remember, the anticipation of defensiveness is the number one reason managers give for avoiding or dreading the performance appraisal discussion.
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Defensiveness can be obvious or it can be subtle. It might be that the employee is continually changing the subject. I might not notice it at first, but I find myself thinking, "Wait a minute, how did we get on this topic?" The conversation is drifting, and only gradually do I begin to suspect why. I might, at that point, wait and watch for a way to make sure that's what's really happening. Now that I'm watching it, it's obvious - I ask a question, and the employee answers some other question. I say to myself, "I don't think we're in a productive mode here, I'd better do something."
The employee is starting to talk faster, scowling, or seems calm in most respects, but is tapping his or her pencil or showing some other sign of agitation.
I will not attempt to give an exhaustive list of all the non-verbal signals of defensiveness. There's no need to, because recognizing them is a skill we use in ordinary life. In your personal life you've learned to recognize tell-tale signs of anger or stress in people near to you: they're tapping their foot, or their foot is going in a circle while they're watching TV. You learn to think: "Dinner's not going to go too smoothly tonight." You recognize those signs automatically with people you know well. With your employees, however, you are on less intimate terms, so you have to make more of an effort to be actively conscious of these signs.
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Once managers see any of these tell-tale signs of defensive behavior, they can take steps to defuse them. The techniques that I'm about to suggest may seem very simple and basic to you; I hope they do, because then you should have no trouble applying them. The trouble is that managers forget to apply them, or don't think to apply them, because they are themselves under stress. Finally, they are deceptively simple.
Remember, flight and fight are primitive emotions which reside to a strong degree in all of us. I used to train police officers in family crisis intervention, which is, by the way, where 80 percent of the injury to police officers occurs. One day they may be called to the scene of a domestic dispute in a forbidding neighborhood, there's lots of trash on the street; not the kind of street where you would walk in the evening without looking behind you. When they arrive they each stand on either side of the door, tap on the door with their night stick, and announce, "Police." They're on guard, ready to deal with whatever's inside.
The next day they may get a domestic dispute call in a nice suburban area. The grass is nicely trimmed, the trees are well-kept; there are cute little ceramic knick-knacks on the lawn. The police officers are calmly talking to each other as they knock on the door on which there's a plaque that says "Dr. So & So." The door opens, and there's Dr. So and So holding a shotgun.
The point is that emotions are primitive and when people are upset they're not going to respond intellectually. There are only two categories of response possible, but of course a range of responses within each category. Cognitive logical deduction is not, however, included.
The steps here are simple but I urge you to try them. When the front desk staff of a hotel is trained in how to deal tactfully with irate guests, these steps are the core procedures; and they're also the steps counselors advise we take when dealing with children and spouses; they're basic good communication skills applied to this one special problem - what to do when confronted by another person's defensiveness.
1. Allow it
2. Restate their position
3. Acknowledge their feelings
4. Pause to allow your acceptance to sink in
5. Ask for more information on their point of view
Allow It. First of all, what do I mean by "Allow it?" In our society we have a tendency not to permit people to be upset. In supermarkets little children making a commotion are told by their parents, "Little Johnny, be a man - be quiet." "You're a big boy now, you're too old to cry."
In other words, we equate maturity with control of the emotions, and when someone loses control in our presence we tend to become embarrassed, cough, look the other way: "Well, we don't have to discuss this now. I didn't mean for it to be a big deal. Let's forget about it. We'll talk about it tomorrow."
We don't allow the person to be upset because it makes us upset. If Robert is upset, even though you don't agree with the reason, or you wouldn't have gotten upset in his place, you should allow it. The fact that he's upset is not a problem in itself. The alternative is to ignore or try to stifle the emotion. This only results in smoldering below the surface. Even though the subject is changed, Robert is still upset. Now it interferes with everything else. Don't allow the mere fact that the employee is upset lead you to push it away.
The next steps occur in quick succession.
Restate Their Position. Remember restatement as one of the types of comments we spoke about under listening skills? This is the same technique. And in this instance you acknowledge their feelings, then you pause for a second and then ask for more information on their point of view.
Here's how it might sound. Robert is upset. I say "Well, Robert, I guess based on the information you have, you feel that I've taken into account issues which are extraneous, and therefore the overall rating is unfair. Based upon that you feel not only disappointed but perhaps even a little angry at me for not having mentioned that those were the important issues." (I pause for three seconds.) "What made you think that . . " and I ask another question to draw them out a little bit more.
You may wonder what makes that pause important enough to list it above as a separate step in the process. To explain it, let me use an example from your personal life. This time you're mad, and the person you're mad at says to you, "Oh, I didn't realize that that bothered you. If I had known that that would annoy you I certainly would never have done it. I'm certainly glad you spoke up about it. I could have done it again and I wouldn't have realized. I'll be very careful next time. By the way, what's for dinner?"
"By the way what's for dinner?" tagged on the end without a pause suggests that the issue has been dismissed. A pause serves a very valuable purpose. It gives the person the sense that you're soaking it in. You're accepting it and taking it into account. "Okay I'll be more careful; I didn't realize it upset you so much." A pause. Then, "By the way, what's for dinner."
In the context of the performance appraisal discussion, the pause lets them know that you're taking their objection seriously.
Overtly expressed defensiveness occurs fairly frequently. But what does a manager do about an employee who, right in the middle of this discussion, starts giving the silent treatment? Asking questions and expressing wonderment or curiosity may be very effective in cases like that. "Well, I guess from your reaction, Robert, that you must not think that it's appropriate, fair or reasonable - you haven't said how you felt - I'm kind of guessing at it. But I am kind of curious, why did you approach it that way?" Or "I wouldn't have thought though that you would have approached it that particular way. I'm kind of curious as to why you did." Express curiosity and ask more questions; even guessing at employees positions might not be a bad idea. And then they might correct you. "Oh, well, no. It's not that I'm - I'm not really - I'm not really offended, it's just that . . ." and they start talking. That's the goal.
- Dr. William S. Swan, How to Do a Superior Performance Appraisal
