When you feel snowed over, it's probably because of a Snow Job
(Robert E. Schrull, Philip Belove, Ed.D)
If you were
behind a one-way mirror watching Palmer in his meeting with his manager, Mr.
Llynn, you’d see evil magic! It was astounding even to Palmer. He walks into
the meeting as a solid, extremely smart and talented division director with
years of business experience and a certain level of mastery and walked out 45
minutes later feeling confused, a bit stupid, and a bit like he did on a bad
day 24 years ago when was just getting his feet wet. “I don’t know what happens when I meet with
Llynn. I feel less intelligent. I can’t follow him. I can’t respond
articulately. What he says sometimes seems quite intelligent, but I don’t have
a settled feeling about it. Weird. Frustrating. Confusing.”
Palmer has
just been snowed by one of the masters. Their goal, in this case with Palmer,
is to manipulate. Llynn is a Power Master.
Such men (and women) are everywhere in the most senior positions of
corporations. Their mastery of power
techniques often gets them there.
Power is
good. It is one of the necessary components of leadership. However, power for its own sake is not good
because it weakens others. It turns
every transaction into a zero sum game: whatever is won by one side must be
lost by the others. In good leadership, what ever is won, is won by both sides.
Palmer has
two challenges. First, to take care of
himself and be sure he isn’t undone by Llynn. Second, to somehow turn the win/lose
transaction into a win/ win transaction.
Here is how
he does it.
First he
puts his experience into perspective.
He’s not a beginner. He’s not stupid.
Palmer’s inability to understand what Llynn is saying, it is not a
problem. It is an accurate perception
and valuable information. His confusion
is a powerful intuitive reading of Llynn’s position. Palmer is a seasoned
executive. If something Llynn is saying is not making sense to him, maybe
there’s something incoherent in Llynn’s message or there may be no sense in it.
The coaching to Palmer is simple: Trust your gut reaction.
When people
talk it is going to go one of three ways:
- Coherent - All pieces fit together and
add up. The story makes sense. It
may be right. It may be wrong, but at least it makes sense.
- Chaotic - The pieces don’t fit. It’s a mash-up.
The story looks like it’s going one direction in one minute and then a
different direction in another minute. The person telling the story (or
presenting the plan) jumps from one story line to another for no apparent
reason.
- Cohesive - The presenter has jammed the
pieces together and forced them to fit together, even if they don’t fit
together.
If somebody
is doing a snow job on you, then they are not going to be coherent, they are
going to be
one of the other two as they seek to manipulate you. They will do this either by just plain
wearing you down or throwing chaos at you so you don’t know what to think. Then,
when they have you totally confused, they throw one clear simple idea at you.
It doesn’t seem to matter if it is good or bad, it’s just clear. So you go for
it for relief.
Sometimes,
in the beginning, when people are still trying to work out their thinking you
will hear things that are chaotic. Sometimes
chaotic thinking is a necessary part of the creative process. What’s important is to recognize that the
person hasn’t yet figured out what they really want to do.
With
Cohesive thinking, you are hearing a person trying to force a conclusion when
the parts don’t fit or they haven’t really thought the thing through.
However, if
someone is presenting material to you that is chaotic or merely cohesive and
they want you to buy it anyway, then you are being manipulated. You are being
maneuvered by a power player.
A power
player isn’t interested in the best result. A power player only wants to win.
If you are an otherwise experienced exec and you feel like a loser, that’s a
pretty good sign you’ve been the victim of a power player. A power player wins by making the other
person lose.
What do you
do?
First,
recognize the fact of it all. Ask yourself. Is this coherent? If not, then you
are dealing with something ill formed, in which case you have to bring
coherence to it. The way you do that is
by one of three ways.
1.
Trust
the fact you are confused: Remember you are not stupid and if you are confused
it is for good reasons. So you say for example “ I don’t understand what you
said, if you can say it differently. I’d like not to proceed further until it
makes sense to me. I’m not stupid, and it doesn’t make sense.” This is a position of strength
2.
Actively
listen. Repeat what is being said but in
your own words. “Are you saying “X?” This has several effects.
·
First
of all, it prevents an avalanche of words. It slows down the conversation.
·
It
establishes you as a co-leader of the conversation “Before you go further, I
want to be sure I’ve understood what you are saying.”.
·
Also
it allows you to highlight for later challenging some of the strange
statements. “Are you saying “X?”
3.
If
you are being actively listened to, make SURE it is accurate. Sometimes a bully will pretend to have heard
you and give a quick summary of your thoughts.
This is a chance for you to give your approval of his summary. “Thank
you for the paraphrase and I can see that, ‘No. That’s not quite what I
meant.’”
Finally,
don’t expect any of these techniques to change the person’s character. If they are domineering and bullying, they
will remain so. Beside, this isn’t a
goal you want to embrace. What these things can help you do is keep control of
your Self, your self-esteem, and most times, your division, your plans and
projects.
A
manipulative executive corrupts the corporate culture because when we are
ordinarily confronted with manipulation, we tend to either counter-manipulate
or capitulate. This dumbs down the
dialog and also makes manipulation more widespread. Better to respond with integrity. The ways listed above are all responses with
integrity.
(Rob Schrull
is President of GBLA . Philip Belove, Ed.D., is staff psychologist/coach with
GBLA)