People Skills_How to Assert Yourself, Listen to Others, and Resolve Conflicts

by Robert Bolton PhD

  There is a high probability that the other will alter the troublesome behavior. That is, the method needs to be effective in protecting my space.

  There is a low probability that I will violate the other person’s space.

  There is little likelihood of diminishing the other person’s self-esteem. While I cannot control how another person will react to what I say, I can discipline myself not to use blaming, put-down, or other derogatory kinds of language.

  There is low risk of damaging the relationship. Of course, if a relationship is very fragile, even the most tactful assertion may be the final act that severs it. In fragile relationships, however, submission is often as dangerous to the relationship as assertion, or even more dangerous. In most healthy relationships, effective assertion strengthens the relationship over the long haul. It is normally a bonding factor between mature people.

  There is a low risk of diminishing motivation.

  There is little likelihood that defensiveness will escalate to destructive levels. An assertion message can be phrased in ways that are less likely to provoke excessive defensiveness in the other person. And defensiveness-reducing methods can be used when the other person does experience greater stress.

  The three-part assertion message meets the above criteria. It begins with a description of the offending behavior and includes a description of the consequences on your life and how you feel about those consequences. Each part of the message is important to the success of the assertion. Beginners at assertion usually send more effective messages when they use the formula: “When you [state the behavior nonjudgmentally], I feel [disclose your feelings] because [clarify the effect on your life].” The three parts of the assertion message are stated as succinctly as possible and are contained in one sentence. For example, in one family, two children frequently made snacks and did not clean up the kitchen counters when they were finished. The mother sent this message:

  Behavior When you don’t clean the counter

  after making snacks,

  +

  Feelings I feel very annoyed

  +

  Effects because it makes more work for me.

  EFFECTIVE AND INEFFECTIVE

  WAYS OF CONFRONTATION

  When participants in our communication skills courses learn about three-part assertion messages, they often contrast the way they recently handled confrontations with the way they would do it after having learned assertion skills. With virtual unanimity people had previously used “shaming or blaming” or some of the other roadblocks described in Chapter 2. Dr. Thomas Gordon’s experience is similar; “It is no exaggeration that ninety-nine out of a hundred parents in our classes use ineffective methods of communicating when their children’s behavior is interfering with the parent’s lives.”

  Brenda Judson said that five minutes before the school bus was scheduled to arrive, and seven minutes before she had to leave for work, her nine-year-old son, Brad, said he couldn’t find his shoes. Brenda said, “How can you do this to me? If you would only put your clothes away, you’d know where they are now. How can you possibly expect me to find them in your messy room? If you don’t find them right away you’ll be punished.”

  As Brenda thought about what happened, she said, “In that situation I used the following roadblocks: moralizing, judging, and threatening. While this was happening the clock was ticking away and neither of our needs was being met. Because of our argument the shoes were not found on time and we now had another problem—he missed the bus. I was under even more pressure. Brad went to school in a bad frame of mind and I allowed my whole day to be ruined by that incident.”

  Brenda then stated how she would have related differently with Brad that day using some of the skills learned in class. “In the first place,” she said, “I wouldn’t have confronted him when neither of us had the time to talk about it. I would have said something like, ‘You look in your room and I’ll look downstairs.’ Later, after school I would have used the following assertion message: ‘Brad, I’d like to talk with you about what happened this morning. When you can’t find your shoes in the morning, I feel very irritated because I am under a lot of pressure trying to get to work on time myself.’” Within a few days, the situation occurred again and Brenda followed the plan she outlined to the class. “It really worked,” she said later. “The missing clothes hassle occurred about once a week until I sent the assertion message. In the nine months since then it has only happened once.”

  WRITING THREE-PART

  ASSERTION MESSAGES

  Three-part assertion messages look deceptively easy to write; in actuality, most people find that it is hard, time-consuming work to make up an effective message. For that reason we will examine each part of the message in some detail.

  Nonjudgmental Descriptions

  of Behavior

  When a person violates your space, the behavior to be altered must be described very accurately and objectively. Otherwise, the other person may not clearly understand what behavior you find offensive.

  People often find it hard to believe that the trespasser may not know what behavior you want modified. They repeatedly tell us, “Don’t be ridiculous. He knows it bugs me. He just doesn’t care enough to stop doing it.” Sometimes, of course, the offending party was well aware of his actions and the negative effects those behaviors had on the other person. Even in those circumstances, a well-executed assertion message will often prevent a repetition of that behavior. Frequently, however, people who were certain that the intruder was aware of how a specific behavior violated their space learned differently when they sent an assertion message. Many are surprised to find that the trespasser had no idea that he had intruded on their space and stressed them. People often report to us that after asserting, the trespasser says: “Gee, I didn’t know that bothered you” or “I guess you’ve tried to tell me about this before, but I never really understood until now.”

  If you are to protect your personal space, you must communicate what the other does that violates your space. This is not easy. People seldom describe behavior accurately enough so that the other has no problem understanding what he is doing to bother us. These guides will help you develop an effective behavior description:

  First, describe the behavior in specific rather than fuzzy terms. Some assertion messages are inexact. The language is general rather than specific; the other person does not know precisely what you mean. If your assertion message does not accurately describe the other’s behavior, it is unlikely that your needs will be met.

  Specific Behavior Description Fuzzy Behavior Description

  When you don’t shovel the snow from the

  driveway before going to school … house …

  When you don’t do your part around the

  house …

  When you arrive late for work three times this

  week …

  When you ignore company policies …

  Situation: A husband and wife drive to work together. The wife is a slow eater. They have been arriving late for work because the wife is not ready on time.

  When you are not ready to leave for work by

  7:30 …

  When you dawdle over your breakfast …

  In each of the three cases, in the left-hand column the person receiving the assertion knows exactly what behavior needed to be altered. In the examples in the right-hand column, the asserter might have had specific behaviors in mind but did not state his message accurately. The person receiving could easily be confused about what behavior was troublesome.

  Second, limit yourself to behavioral descriptions. Do not draw inferences about the other person’s motives, attitudes, character, and so on. When people try to describe another’s behavior they frequently state what they think the other intended rather than describe what he actually did. Compare the differences between the behavior descriptions in the left-hand column with the inferences in the column at the right:

  Behavior Description Inferences
>
  Situation: I am a committee chairman.

  When you talked more than any of the others at

  the meeting today and cut off several people

  before they were finished …

  When you behaved so rudely at the meeting …

  Situation: I am a committee chairman and the

  person receiving my assertion promised to

  stay until the end of the meeting to give a

  report.

  When you were so bored during the meeting

  that you left early …

  When you left the meeting twenty minutes

  before your report was to be given …

  When you left the meeting early just because

  Frank criticized you …

  The behavior in the left-hand column is observable. Anyone present who had sound hearing and sight could have noticed the same behaviors. The behaviors in the right-hand column represent guesses at what was going on inside the other person. I can know for a fact that a person left a meeting twenty minutes early without having given his report, but since that is the only data I have, I can’t be sure whether he was bored, annoyed, had another appointment to keep, became sick, or left early for still another reason. Assertions are weakened by inferences because we often guess wrongly about the internal state of another—and even when we are right, the other probably won’t admit it. Assertion theory tells us that an individual’s feelings are part of his personal space. We have no right to try to control someone else’s feelings (since that is meddling in their space), but we can try to alter behaviors that intrude on our space.

  Third, make your behavior description an objective statement rather than a judgment. An assertion statement does not imply that the other person’s behavior was immoral, stupid, naughty, bad, or wrong. It does not include “loaded” words, caricatures, sarcasm, generalizations, absolutes, exaggerations, or profanity. In fact, a unique factor in sound assertion messages is the avoidance of “attacking” and “evaluative” elements that often contaminate interpersonal confrontations.

  Assertion messages avoid character assassinations:

  Behavior Description Character Assassination

  When you say women are incapable of being

  effective managers …

  When you behave like a male chauvinist

  pig …

  When you repeatedly talk more than others in

  the class …

  When you have constipation of the brain and

  diarrhea of the mouth …

  Assertion messages avoid absolutes. “always,” and “constantly.” They do not use words like “never,”

  Behavior Description Use of Absolutes

  When you are frequently late in picking me

  up …

  When you are never on time …

  When you interrupt me before I have completed

  my statement …

  When you constantly interrupt me …

  When you park so that my car is blocked in at

  noon …

  When you always park so that my car is

  blocked in at noon …

  Assertion messages avoid profanity. Swearing during confrontations often triggers extra emotion and defensiveness in the other person.

  Behavior Description Use of Profanity

  When you do not call to let me know you will be

  late for supper …

  When you drag your ass in here late for supper

  night after night …

  When you do not have my car repaired at the

  time promised …

  You lying son of a bitch, you promised that my

  car would be ready by four.

  Even when we try to be objective and avoid character assassination, absolutes, and profanity, we are apt, perhaps subconsicously, to insert partially veiled judgments and innuendos into our speech. It has been said that we typically use language in this manner: “I am firm, you are stubborn, he is pigheaded. I am shrewd, you are a sharp operator, he is crooked.”

  After you try to describe a behavior objectively, examine it carefully to be sure that no subtle judgmental words have crept in.

  Behavior Description Descriptions with Judgmental

  Words that “Creep In”

  When you don’t return the can opener to the

  same place after you are through with it …

  When you hide the can opener on me …

  When you overspend our clothing budget …

  When you waste our hard-earned money on

  unnecessary clothing …

  Sometimes people want to retain the judgmental and attack elements of their message. Then we ask them, “Do you want to have maximum likelihood of changing the other person’s behavior and maintaining the relationship through an assertive message; or would you rather tell off the other person even though you will have less chance to change the behavior and maintain a good relationship? People occasionally choose the path of aggression. Our goal is not to tell others how to behave but to help them distinguish between submissive, assertive, and aggressive behaviors and to predict with some accuracy the probable consequences of each type of behavior.

  Fourth, behavioral descriptions should be as brief as possible. The assertion message should be sufficient without sacrificing accuracy in describing the behavior that needs to be changed.

  Many people use needless words in their assertions. I try to keep the assertion as trim as possible so that the person sees my need in stark clarity. Some people try to give reasons and extraneous data with their assertion. Mine is pared down to its essentials. Some people lump several behaviors in one assertion. I typically concentrate on one behavior at a time.

  Brief Behavior Description Lengthy Description

  When you are frequently late for supper …

  When you get all involved in your football

  game and forget about the family and come

  home late and all dirty for dinner …

  What behavior does the parent in the right-hand column want changed? Does he prefer that the child not be involved when he is participating in athletic events? Or doesn’t he want the child to play football? Does he want the child to remember the family? What does it mean to “remember the family”? Is it more important for the child to be on time for supper or to be clean? What is not said is as important in an assertion message as what is said. Don’t add peripheral data to your bare-bones assertion. Relinquish side issues and explanations. The entire assertion message should be compressed into one sentence.

  Fifth, be sure that you assert about the real issues. Many people send displaced assertions. They confront on a topic other than the one that really troubles them.

  Sometimes people are afraid to tackle the big issues in their relationship and so assert on a series of less threatening matters. A husband, for example, may assert about the amount of money his wife spends for clothes when his real concern is that she has taken a full-time job while the children are still preschoolers. Even if the wife changes her behavior about the purchase of clothes, the man’s deepest concerns will not be addressed. He probably won’t appreciate her gift of behavioral change and will simply shift to another topic on which to “assert.”

  At the opposite extreme, people are often reluctant to assert about the “little things” in life. They say, “I shouldn’t be so ‘small’ and ‘picky’ to be bothered by such an insignificant thing.” Sometimes we can truly develop more acceptance of another person’s behavior, but often a pseudoacceptance develops in the top of our mind while the irritation continues to grow in the depth of our gut.

  Little things often become the major irritants of life. A man who walked across this continent from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific was besieged by reporters at the end of his journey. One journalist wanted to know, “What was the most difficult part of your trip—the Rocky Mountains, the heat of the desert, or the large crowded cities like Chicago?” “None of these things,” said t
he hiker. “The biggest problem was sand in my shoes.”

  In relationships, too, the “little things” are often more serious than they seem. Hazen Werner writes, “Most marriage bonds are not broken on the rocks in a great storm; they are worn away by the endless battering of pebbles, … the tiny conflicts and seemingly petty irritations of daily life.” Judge Joseph Sabath, commenting on the 100,000 divorce cases he has heard, reflected, “Usually it isn’t the big arguments or even physical blows, but the constant hammering and chiseling in a thousand different ways that signal the lethal warrant of their union.” In other relationships—parent-child, boss-subordinate, friend-friend, colleague-colleague—the same principle is often true: seemingly minor irritants can create major problems unless they are dealt with assertively.

  If you are frequently unable to locate the newspaper at night when you want to read it, if someone is playing his hi-fi so loud you cannot concentrate even when you are in your room with the door closed, if dirty dishes and empty food packages are left about the house from other people’s snacks and you are the one who eventually cleans them up—if these things happen to you, chances are that you will feel your space has been invaded. Unfortunately, many people tell themselves, “These are such small things. They shouldn’t bother me.” Or they may even say, “I don’t want to go through the hassle of confronting him on this.”

  Our experience of assertion training with thousands of people leads us to conclude that repeated small irritants often grow until they loom large in our feeling world. When people do not get their needs met in the commonplace trivialities of life, they build up reservoirs of resentment that diminish their acceptance of the other person, undermine the enjoyment of the relationship, and make it far more difficult to solve the “big” problems when they arise.