How to productively channel your judgmental instincts -- get curious!
We’ve all been there:
A client is a moron and can’t make up his mind — eye roll
A supervisor is a terrible person, and I must take them on
I don’t want people to think I’m an idiot
Your body is wired to react to these irritants with a defensive “judgment” of the offending person (moron, terrible, idiot). Our reptilian brain efficiently labels these dangers with one-dimensional words, clearly identifying the danger and toxicity!
However, this automatic/reflexive judgmental coping system may have side-effects. You may:
withdraw to avoid the offender
fight against the offender to survive, or
become obedient to try to hedge against further hurt
These coping tactics may be efficient in the short term; however, they are incredibly costly over the long term:
withdrawing from the ring causes you to become passive, silent and unheard. In your silence, you quietly build resentment (which may one day explode), and feel isolated and disconnected.
fighting takes a lot of energy, may engage you in a recurring battle, and you might get hurt if you take on the wrong person.
acting obedient comes at the cost of your true self; you become a pretend person and forget your own opinions. You come across as low conviction and diffident.
The Solution (for satisfying your defense instinct, while remaining engaged, present and full of energy)
“Getting genuinely curious” is a strategy for helping you suspend your feelings of judgments, get your opinions out of the way, and stay present with a counterparty whose ideas may seem off the reservation of reality.
As a coach or a service provider, it’s my job to separate my view of the world from that if my client. A client sees the world in a unique way, which is informed by the summation of all of their life experiences: upbringing, schools, friends, travels, work experiences and pleasurable memories and traumas. From their vantage, they have a problem that they need help with. So if I hear what they’re saying and think “wtf is wrong with this guy,” my capacity to see it from his perspective and help him move forward is compromised.
Similarly, your #1 client is your boss(es), and you are a coach to all the people who work under you.
How to become curious, and get your reactive judgment system out of the way
Method: before an interaction with someone who has historically annoyed you, remind yourself
“I’m an alien from Mars and I just landed on earth. I don’t know how anything works or why people think the way they do. I listen with infinite curiosity and I try to piece together the meaning of things.”
As you are listening to the other person who’s view you’ve historically felt judgment towards, use phrase like:
tell me more about that…
How did your thinking process go to arrive at that conclusion?
What other thoughts do you have?
How else could we think about it / what’s another way this could make sense?
Mirror as you listen:
“So you’re saying ‘the sky is pink’ - did I get that right? Is there more?”
When practicing curiosity, it is really important to make sure you’re breathing, and not feeling defensive or annoyed. It’s especially important to not take what people say personally. Or become exasperated with their stupidity (there’s the judgment again).
No sarcasm should creep into the tone of your voice!
Obviously you’re going to
with underlings, use your own experience and judgment to say “have you thought about x or y. Have you thought about it this way. How can we improve this?
with your boss, pick your spots. Best to mirror what you’ve heard and ask something innocuous like “ok I hear you saying Xyz. I’m curious, how did you decide that / how did you come to that view”
By practicing curiosity, you will find that it allows you to stay in the ring with even the most out there of people. As you begin to understand their point of view, you sometime learn that your own views were preventing you from understanding them. You may also learn that the person is batsh*t. Nonetheless, that person is our client, and it’s our job to make them feel heard and help them forward their agenda — and as we pick our spots, we can help them adjust their approach away from fatal decisions to ones that might be a little more productive as we see it from our reality.
Why try this? What’s in it for you?
As you Learn to suspend your own sense of judgment,
you will create space for those under you to articulate their own thinking process and improve it with your coaching
you will be able to stay in the ring with your boss as he gives you feedback and orders, many of which may sound like “the sky is pink”
Let me know your thoughts? And please try practicing this. Even with your spouse or kids!
#executivecoaching #emotionalrecovery #privateequity investmentbanking