How to Coach Yourself and Others Coaching and Counseling in Difficult Circumstances | Page 135

This book is in B&W, not color - Print page in Grayscale for Correct view! “some people.” Better to echo my worry back at me (“I can hear how worried you are about property values”) or ask me to amplify (“Has anything happened yet that made you think property values might be going down?”). But if you’re sensing that I might be worried about property values even though I’m claiming to be worried about health, then it’s too intrusive to just tell me how you think I feel. If you do, I’m likely to take offense, even (perhaps especially) if you’re right. How dare you accuse me of feeling that way! How arrogant of you to think you know better than I do how I feel! Those reactions will of course distance me all the more from being ready to notice and acknowledge my worries about property values. To avoid pushing me further and further into denial, you need to deflect what you say. The example I’ve been using, “worried about property values,” is a stand-in for a whole range of content that stakeholders may not want to acknowledge openly – content that empathic risk communicators should therefore sort-of acknowledge in deflected ways. Not surprisingly, most of what needs to be deflected has a strong emotional component. Anger often needs to be deflected, because people so often deny they are angry. People who are angry at you may angrily (or coldly) deny it if you call them on it too overtly, especially if their anger is masquerading as righteous indignation. “I’m not angry,” they’ll insist, their teeth clenched. “I’m just right!” Some people will deny even their anger at third parties, and excessively intrusive efforts to get them to admit it will only drive it further underground. (Unacknowledged rage at terrorists and at specific ethnic groups, for example, may underlie some unwise counterterrorism policies.) Again and again in risk controversies, I find that my clients are reluctant to acknowledge their stakeholders’ anger at all. They want to pretend that everything’s fine. On those rare occasions when they do acknowledge the anger, their acknowledgments tend to be too explicit and unempathic, focused on insisting that the anger is misplaced. “There’s no good reason for you to be so angry at our company.” I try to persuade clients to “sort-of acknowledge” the anger, to deflect the anger empathically: “A lot of people have told me this decision makes them feel angry at our company.” But it’s a tough sell. I try to explain that deflection helps people move past their anger – whether they acknowledge it or not – and become more willing to at least consider the company’s position. It’s hard for people to move past their anger while they’re feeling “accused” of being angry. And of course it’s even harder for people to move past their anger when the object of that anger doesn’t even seem to have noticed it yet. Fear also belongs on the shortlist of emotions that are likely to need deflection. Some people who are afraid want to hide that fact from others; some need to hide it even from themselves. Telling them they’re afraid, and especially telling them they should stop being afraid, will tend to push them more deeply into denial. Once again, deflection can help. “People often tell me they find it frightening to discuss plans for a severe flu pandemic” is likely to feel more empathic than “I know this frightens you.” But despite its lack of deflection, even “I know this frightens you” is more empathic than “Don’t be frightened” or “There’s no reason to be frightened.” From child-rearing to surgery, this truth is firmly established: To help people bear their fear, or to help them begin to let go of their fear (if the fear is excessive and letting go is appropriate), first help them accept that it is okay to be fearful. When H5N1 bird flu first arrives in a country that hasn’t yet experienced it, poultry sales typically plummet for a while. Most governments have overtly expressed disdain for their citizens’ initial reaction of avoiding chicken. But when Nigeria had its first known human case of avian influenza in early 2007, an official news release expressed respectful empathy for the temporary fears of normal people. It started by gently deflecting those fears onto “other countries”: [W]e have observed that in other countries experiencing their first human H5N1 cases, there has been widespread fear of poultry and poultry products, with a concomitant drop in consumption and sales. For a short time, that may happen in Nigeria too. It is entirely understandable that the population may be overly worried about all chickens, not just sick chickens. [Nigeria Avian Influenza Crisis Management Center, Bulletin 29] Deflection isn’t reserved for just anger and fear. Emotions in the “sadness” family – misery, depression, etc. – are also common responses to risk that people may not be prepared to acknowledge directly. So are emotions in the “ego injury” family – hurt, rejection, resentment, envy. Even positive emotions may need deflection. (Think For jaimela f