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2.4.3: The And Stance: How and Why

This week you will learn to be a more effective influencer at work through the tools we discuss.

Shaping Your Professional Brand

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Course 2 of 4 in the Professional IQ: Preventing and Solving Problems at Work Specialization

You've thought about who you are and how you want your career to be. You have some soft skills to deal with situations that could cause problems. What about the team around you? How do you build functional and constructive professional relationships? How can you add value? What do employers look for when they are promoting? Skill-building in this course will include asking questions, listening, developing likeability (you’d better be stellar if you’re difficult), identifying cognitive bias, apologizing, receiving apologies, and the basics of whistleblowing. After this course, you will be able to: - assess your own listening and reactions and retune them in advance or on the spot for a more constructive outcome - add value at work by keeping situations easy instead of difficult - manage your own approach - be prepared when things go wrong The prerequisite for this course is Course One of the Specialization "Professional IQ: Preventing and Solving Problems at Work".

Taught By

C. K. Gunsalus
Director of the National Center for Professional and Research Ethics (NCPRE), Professor Emerita of Business, and Research Professor at the Coordinated Science Laboratory

Transcript

[MUSIC]

In this segment, we're going to talk about the And Stance.

This is a tool that's incredibly powerful that will help you,

that's entirely invisible, that's totally under your own control.

And it's really, really hard.

The theory behind it is pretty simple.

In spoken English, but, is often a stopper word.

I love that blouse on you but

do you think orange is really good with your skin tones?

But, so often comes right before criticism and in consequence even when you're

not using it that way, most people when they hear the but, brace themselves.

So it's a stopper word.

They're braced, they're ready for the criticism.

They're ready to shift to defending themselves.

They're ready to shut down and stop listening to what you say,

while they prepare either to defend themselves, or to come back

with an argument, because it triggers that impulse, uh-oh, what's coming next?

Because it so often triggers criticism.

One of the interesting things about it is that there's a little bit of research on

how people hear but, and one of the interesting things is that even when

you reverse it and you say a negative and use the but to counteract the negative you

already said, people still lose a lot of content of what you said.

Because the but itself is a trigger for people to bracing go like that.

So the theory behind the and stance is, that every time you

come across a but, you replace it with and, so you're moving to the and stance.

This comes out of the negotiation research literature and in particular,

Bill Hurin and his colleagues at the Harvard Project and Negotiation.

You can find more about it in his books, Getting to Yes and Getting Past No.

Personally, I like Getting Past No a lot more than Getting to Yes, because Getting

to Yes is sort of a rose-colored glasses kind of approach to the world.

Getting Past No?

That's the world I live in.

I like that book a lot.

And if you want to take a look at it, it has a lot of great stuff in it.

So the concept is you're going to switch to using the instance without

changing the message.

Just because you're using the instance does not mean you have to agree

with someone.

So for example, if we take the sentence,

the first five pages are really good, but after that your organization and

argument start to deteriorate, we can say the same thing.

The paper is not very good, particularly the last five pages, using the and stance,

so here's an example.

The first five pages are really good, and after that if the organization and

argument matched the first part, this would be a great paper.

The first five pages are really good, and if we can work together to match

the end organization to the beginning, this will be great.

The first five pages are really good, and maybe it should stop there.

The first five pages are really good, and

let's see what we can do to make the rest as good as the first part.

The few with difference between me telling you the first five pages are really good,

but, and the first five pages are really good and.

One of the things the and

stance does is it improved the audiences ability to attend to what you are saying.

It extends their attention.

You can't ever persuade anyone if they're not listening to you so the and

stance helps people attend to you longer.

That's the first thing it does.

There's another thing that it does that I want to be very clear about,

because I'm not trying to trick you here.

The other thing that it does is is it switches

your alignment in the conversation.

It switches where you are.

It switches your mindset.

So instead of me telling you,

I'm now aligning with you instead of being in opposition to you.

Which requires me to change how I'm thinking about communicating with you.

So here's an example.

I'd love to give you the day off, but we'll be short staffed that day already.

The answer is no, right?

Now, I'm going to switch to the and stance.

[SOUND] I'd love to give you the day off, and

if if we weren't short staffed that day already, it would be a lot easier.

I'd love to give you the day off, and

we really need you here because we're short staffed that day.

I'd love to give you the day off, and

if you'd asked sooner we could've arranged it.

We're going to be short staffed that day and we really need you.

And all of those circumstances, have aligned with you and

personally I've also sometimes added a little bit more information, and

we really need you, and you didn't do what earlier enough, and.

So I've aligned with you in a way that puts us on the same side as opposed

to saying, [SOUND] I'd love to, but we're already.

So I've also changed the tonal pattern in what I've said.

So when I used the and stance, it often when I change my alignment and

shift how I'm thinking about it, it changes my communication style.

So the and stance extends the ability of the audience to attend to what you're

saying, to listen to you longer.

It switches your alignments in the conversation.

So you now aligning with the person as supposed to in opposition.

Both of those things in combination reduce the likelihood of conflict and

help diffuse conflict when it occurs.

Finally, the instance is probably one of the hardest things you'll do.

It takes constant attention and practice.

When I was first teaching the and stance, I found a lot of ways that

were ineffective in communicating this concept to people.

Made me think of the Thomas Edison statement that he hadn't failed a thousand

ways, he'd only found a thousand ways that didn't work yet,

I found almost a thousand ways that didn't work very well.

So finally, I was got permission from Bill Hurin and

I created this exercise that we're going to do.

And I was spending the week walking around campus, listening.

Writing things down,

watching what people said, I completely respect your position, but.

Do you think they really did respect the position?

Not so much.

And so, during the week I was working on this exercise developing it, a friend of

mine called me and said, [SOUND] I have an interview opportunity for this great job.

[LAUGH] The week I'm focusing on working on the and stance my response to this

really dear friend of mine was, it sounds like a great opportunity for you.

But I had a terrible experience working for him, let me tell you about it.

So in that exact second, I had just taken all of the air out of her balloon.

I had completely deflated her enthusiasm.

By using a but, and so then what I needed to do was say,

my goodness, that didn't come out right.

May I please try again?

And then, when I aligned and switched to the and

stance, what I said was more like this.

I'm really happy for you, and I care about you, and I want the best for you.

And let me tell you about my experience working for him because it wasn't good.

Maybe it was about me, maybe it was our chemistry, maybe it was something else.

I just want you to be fully informed because I want the best for you.

That was really different and if I had stopped to shift and I had been in

the practice of using the and stance, I might not have hurt my friend.

[MUSIC]

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