Why do I have to adapt my style?

When discussing adapting our communication styles to suit internal or external stakeholder I'm often met with:

• "We should I change to suit them" 
• "It's not authentic"
• "Why can't they adapt to suit my style"
• "It's manipulative"

My response is the same each time.

• "You don't - if what you're doing is working"

I agree, if the communication and relationship you currently have with the other person is as you'd like it to be then why on earth would you change. 

The issue arises when the relationship isn't as we'd like it to be - whether due to conflicting objectives, misunderstanding, conflict, power, pure pigheadedness (on their behalf obviously!) or some other reason.

To us it might feel that just like this picture we can't get the door to effective communication open.

We may even sense that the person is pushing on their side of the door not wanting to let us in.

Often however there is a way to open the door, and the solution is found by understanding this image: 

ie you're often just talking a different language.

The premise behind flexing or adapting your communication style is that until you're both talking the same language, how can you be sure that you fully understand where they're coming from and vice versa. 

Just put yourself into their shoes for a moment - what reasons do you have for resisting what others are asking of you? Perhaps it's:

• Being told what to do rather than being asked
• Reacting to the behaviour (words, tone, behaviour) of the other person
• Not agreeing with what you think you're being asked to do
• Not having the time or resources
• Not understanding what is being asked of you
• You don't like the person, or think they don't like you
• Knowing they don't believe in you 
• Not trusting the other person
• Not liking, or even distrusting, their objectives
• Having other priorities/objectives
• Not thinking you need to listen to the other person 
• Having no respect for the other person
• Not thinking it's your responsibility 
• Not even registering they've asked you to do something (wasn't that email just for info only?) 
• You're stressed
• Not reading their email (it's still 200th on the list of unread emails)
• You've got your head down before you go off on holiday later today/tomorrow/next week
• You're preparing for an important meeting
• You've just had some bad news
• You're distracted - e.g due to tiredness, hunger, thirst, time of day, hours worked, location
• And so on

What other reasons might there be?

Many of the above could be addressed by the other person if they:

• Asked your opinion
• Stopped telling you what to do
• Amended their tone, words or behaviour 
• Listened to you
• Were nicer, or less nice, or more assertive, or less wishy washy or ..
• Understood your objectives 
• Explained their position better (in a way that makes more sense to you anyway)
• Explained the benefits (particularly those you're interested in)
• Were less selfish
• Were less controlling  
• Demonstrated they could be trusted
• Demonstrated they knew what they were doing
• Showed they respected you
• Appreciated you
• Inspired instead or bored you
• Made their request later 
• Were patient
• Picked up on your current state of mind/body and left you alone for now
• Apologised for past misdemeanours 
• and so on

Which means the same is true if the shoe is on the other foot.

When dealing with stakeholders it's important therefore that we understand their resistance may be something we can do something about and even turn around.

A blog on the enablers for category management and supplier management cover many of the different ways we can adapt our style to improve understanding with our stakeholders.

What do you need to do to improve your relationship with an internal stakeholder?

Alison Smith
The Purchasing coach  
Inspiring change inside and out

How do you deal with a tricky stakeholder?

We were discussing Thomas-Kilmann model of conflict on last week's supplier management workshop. It suggests that there's 5 different reactions to conflict based on your level of assertiveness and level of cooperativeness:

• Avoiding
• Accommodating
• Competing
• Compromising
• Collaborating 

In my post yesterday I shared some of the insights from the discussion we had during the session about the scale of assertiveness from passivity to aggression.

During our conversation we also explored what strategies procurement has to influence tricky senior stakeholders that we're in conflict with. How do we know which of the above strategies would be most appropriate? 

That is rather than fall back on our own preferences we may need to adapt our style in order to effectively influence the other person. 

The first steps are: 

1. Knowing what outcome we want (desired outcome)
2. Knowing where we are in relation to that outcome (current situation)
3. Exploring the beliefs we have about achieving the outcome and/or the other person (e,g helpful, unhelpful, self fulfilling, supportive, harmful, resisting and so on), and amending these beliefs as appropriate (ie in order to get a different outcome)
4. Understanding the change you're asking of the stakeholders, and considering effective change management 
5. Identifying a plan to get from 1 to 2 
6. Taking action towards 2 
7. Adapting the plan and our behaviours based on feedback from actions taken 
8. Being prepared to change the desired outcome we're aiming for (which may fit into the strategy of compromising)
9. Perseverance

To develop the plan also requires that we understand more about the stakeholder ie:

• Their values (ie what motivates and inspires them)
• Their beliefs
• Their objectives and interests - short and long term
• Their influence within the organisation
• Their interest in procurement, the category, supplier or project 
• Their support for procurement, the category, supplier or project 
• Their allegiances with other stakeholders 
• Those they listen to - other stakeholders and from within procurement 
• Who they will accept advice from 
• Their preferred communication styles, learning styles, preferred conflict style, operating metaphors and the like 
• Understanding their perspective by standing in their shoes 
• (And as I've just heard on Star Trek Deep Space Nine tonight (it's Star Trek's 50th anniversary this year) remembering the Ferengi's 98th rule of acquisition 'everyone has their price', or something they value enough to change their current viewpoint).

It's also useful to understand the above for ourselves too, and also, if the conflict has been going on for some time and we've perhaps tried the strategies above, understanding:

• What of our behaviours might be pushing the other persons buttons? 
• In what way lack of rapport is contributing to the outcome 
• Is it really our responsibility to change their viewpoint?
• What of our buttons are being pressed in the conflict ? Ie why are we persevering? 
• The impact on our well-being of holding on to the outcome (ie knowing when enough is enough and we've tried everything we can) 
• Understanding our options if they don't agree - I do, however think there's a 6th to be added to the five listed above, and that's to walk away. Which I see as different to 'avoiding' because it's only done after you've been very active in trying to resolve the conflict.

Additional suggestions most welcome in comments below.

This discussion is likely to continue this week at a number of stakeholder engagement clinics I'm facilitating. I'll add any other strategies identified in those sessions to this post later in the week.

Alison Smith

Inspiring Change - inside and out 

Assertive or aggression?

I've been told many times over the years that if I stick with eating hot spicy food I'll eventually be able to tolerate, and even enjoy it. One lodger even used to throw a few chillies onto my half of the pizza in an attempt to expand my palate.

I've never yet managed to get beyond the numb mouth, and lack of enjoyment for the rest of the meal.

Some might say perseverance would get me there, but I doubt it.

Last night I went to see Independence Day: Resurgence - which had a 12a classification which suggested that it contained scenes with mild violence. Like the lodger throwing chillies on the pizza the movie had violence thrown in that, instead of sensitising me to the violence, had me closing my eyes until the scene was over. 

I shouldn't have been too surprised as many programs I once enjoyed with 'mild' violence (Doctor Who, Star Trek and SG1) I now find too violent. (Any sci-fi recommendations with minimal violence most welcome).

What I've come to understand is I'm getting more and more sensitive to spicy food and violence. That is, perseverance doesn't seem to have made me less tolerant of spice or violence but more sensitive to it.

It would seem like many things spice and violence have an analogue scale not a digital one, and one that can change over time. 

The problem comes when we try to attribute values to the scale - after all where I'd put mild, medium, hot, and very hot would be in very different places on the axis to my spice loving lodger, and to other Indian meal loving friends. (And no there is not an Indian meal that my palate would describe as medium never mind mild - they are all HOT!)

On a supplier relationship management workshop this week two of the models discussed had 'level of assertion' as one of their axes. In both models the axis being discussed went from unassertive or passive to assertive. 

In the session we discussed that the scale doesn't necessarily stop at assertive - it's a bit like saying it stops at medium spice. The missing piece to that scale is when assertion becomes aggressive, or very very hot. 

On a Google search I like this interpretation of the scale:

Just like spice or violence what we perceive as aggressive will, however, be open for individual interpretation. Even the words used to describe each of the above perhaps say much about where the person writing the words feels comfortable. 

That is my passive could be your aggressive! So where does that leave us? 

The topics we covered on the workshop last week suggested strategies might include: 

• Understanding your own perception - values and beliefs.
• Standing in the shoes of other people we're working with and understanding their perception, values and beliefs.
• Not judging the other person as wrong just accepting the difference.
• Taking responsibility for the reactions/ outcomes others have to our behaviour.
• Understanding whether what we're doing is moving us away from or towards our short, medium and long term goals.
• Adapting our style to suit the people we're dealing with, and the outcome we're wanting.

Next time you say something is "mild" and the other person is telling you it's "much too hot" you may want to stop stop and consider which of the above strategies would help find a happy "medium". Without that "medium" being overly accommodating, competitive or manipulative.

Or of course you could keep pouring water on to hot oil - just don't be surprised if someone gets burnt! 

Alison Smith

Inspiring Change - Inside and out 

Flexibility

I've just posted a very short YouTube video entitled Paths. A reminder that sometimes following the paths others have taken is the best option - especially if we want to avoid the nettles!

The vlog, or perhaps my reaction to it, reminds me about what a lot of my work as a coach entails - helping others understand the patterns they run that support them, and identifying and releasing those patterns that don't.

In other words many of our sources of greatest challenge can be found in a pattern that has us doing the opposite to what makes most sense!

I use 'patterns' as a term a lot but just in case we could be at cross purposes - the best way of describing patterns is as a set of learnt behaviours we use when in certain situations ie the alarm goes off and we do X,Y and then Z every day, or the set routines we use to do the work we do everyday, or clean the house, drive the car, or the buttons that get pressed and the predeterminable reactions we have every time someone mentions A to us or does K (think mums and clothes on your bedroom floor as a great example :-)).

That is when we run a pattern we no longer choose what to do next - we just do it - because that's who we are and that's what we do. (To find out more about their hold on us I wrote a blog earlier in the year about recurring patterns)

Sometimes even having a conversation with someone about them changing such a pattern can be met with much resistance "I'm me, why should I change, no one is going to make me change how I do what I do!". The answer in this blog on that subject reminds us: we don't have to change if we're getting the outcome we want - however if we're not getting the outcome we want then we can either keep trying to open a locked door by kicking it, or we can find the key and open it!

This vlog was interesting because it turned on its head the advice I'd often be sharing here - instead of forging your own path I'm suggesting sometimes it's better to just follow everyone else!! Better because in that situation it's the most logical, and the more effective and efficient means of achieving our goal.

I don't know about you but I react to such advice, and I mean react. As I now reflect on being told to follow others I am laughing at the inevitability of me then metaphorically opting to traipse through the nettles! 

Laughing at least means that a week after videoing the blog that the insight is at least starting to land. Yes Alison if you spent less time resisting following others and exclaiming "no one's going to tell me what to do" you might have energy left to do what you want to do when it really counts!

It's as if our patterns become synonymous with our identify - that is we link 'how we do things' (our patterns) to 'who we are' (our identity). I'm only me if I do something this particular way - in fact I'm not at all me if I achieve the outcome a different way, and especially if that way is how others do it!

Our values then get involved, and start to prescribe ways we're going to get a value met. Which means suddenly a recurring pattern becomes the only way we can get a value met, and therefore helps to explain why we're so resistant to changing it. If I think the only way to achieve freedom is to head off into the nettles I'll keep on doing it! (The link is to a blog where I tried to shake off the recurring pattern around not making decisions for fear of losing freedom.)

Just repeating a recurring pattern therefore might not be the best option - unless of course you have some dock leaves handy for when you get stung!

What buttons are being pressed for you today, and in what way are you forgetting that how you do something is not linked to your identity, and that there are numerous ways your values can be met?