Axletree Consulting

Just this week I had a good friend offer me his perspective on my behavior and ultimately my intent. I was not expecting the perspective. Can you guess my reaction? Yup. I was absolutely defensive! As I say to most of my clients, “I may be an expert in emotional intelligence, but I ain’t no master”.

What happens to you when you’re feeling attacked? Attacked is a strong word and I will get to that in a minute but let’s first process our reaction when we get offered some data or information that we were not expecting. In my case, just this week, I could literally feel my body recoil and then spring forward, almost as if I was physically hit and then sprang forward to hit back. Clearly I did not get hit or hit back but that is absolutely how I reacted. My friend’s words felt like an attack to me and I sprang forward with defensiveness. My style was aggressive defensive. I came out swinging, at least verbally.

Because of my experience in emotional intelligence, moments later I was able to quickly sit back and reflect on what the heck happened. We ALL have those moments where we react to something and later think, “Oh good god, that could have gone much better!”. When those moments happen take time to reflect on:

• What are you thinking? (i.e. your assumptions or judgements or stories of that person)
• What are you feeling?
• What are you wanting?

In my case, I was thinking, “he wanted to hurt me”, I was feeling judged, disappointed that he didn’t really know me and pushed away, and I was wanting to attack back and protect myself. It’s important to reflect on the moment and really get honest with yourself about your reactions. Upon reflection, I know his intent really was not to hurt me. I trust that now, even if my fight or flight response didn’t in the moment. I did, however, become aware of my own assumptions about his intent and I know I now need to check those out with him, if anything, just to build and grow our friendship. Even the great relationships need to enhance and build trust.

Alright, let me go back to my word at the beginning when I called his words an attack. They aren’t literally an attack but they felt that way to me. When I am working with people on their relationships I will introduce them to the concept of a “Hard Start”. A hard start (versus a soft one) is when you choose to start a conversation that is harder, more aggressive with words that are judgemental in nature. Oftentimes this happens when the person delivering the opinion is also feeling defensive. Before offering someone your opinion or perspective take time to:

• Be clear on your intent in delivering the opinion.
• Identify fact versus interpretation. If you are assigning judgement to someone’s behavior, identify the observable behavior and state your assumption or interpretation of it so that you can get clarity.
• Be prepared to own the impact of your words. Don’t start the conversation unless you’re ready to engage for a while. Your words WILL have an impact. Own it, stay for it and sit with your friend or colleague and sort through till the conversation is complete for both of you.

As for me, I will go back to my friend and ask that we finish our conversation. If we both care about each other and trust the intentions are good, we will strengthen our trust and our relationship.