Fred and Angeli: Getting past pushback

- I'd like to be, again, Alice and you be yourself but now imagine that now we're problem solving and I'm positive, I'm with you. So look Angeli, I love to be less hurried but I'm not sure what, there's just a lot of work. - The work is not going to go away, right, we have the level of work that we need to accomplish. - Yeah, I know, I've resigned myself to being rushed all the time. - But what tools could we implement? What else could we use? - I don't know. If I knew I would have done it. Okay, no, no, no, this is beautiful. What I hear you do is try to be very gentle. - Uh-huh. - To preserve this period of relationship like what tools. I'd like to show you that there's a way to be gentle and yet assertive. - Okay. - Because you do have ideas - Right. - So let's try something. I'm going to use what you said. I'll be you so now I'm Angeli and you be Alice. So Alice, I have a suggestion, something that has worked for me. I'd like to test it with you. When I has all these cases, I like to have them in alphabetical order. We've talked about that. You say this works for you but I'm, frankly, baffled, because I do see you rifling through cases so it's not like you go and you have tabs and you can pick up and it takes time. - This is me like timing out, right, because I've asked that question and there's never-- - What does she say? - Her response has always-- - Just use her response. - Yeah, so her response is always, "I know exactly "where everything is." But, I mean, it's this pushback of you have this idea. I hope that somebody gets to the idea on their own. - I mean, I think the difference is the context of the suggestion. It's not the suggestion. You see, if I tell you the suggestion as I'm right, you're wrong and I'm going to tell you how to do it, that's another push but if we've created this context of shared problem solving and we're brainstorming, it doesn't even matter who's suggestion it is so what I'm trying to show is that in the more assertive part, where I have an idea that you may not know or you may not have tried, I don't want to beat you up with this idea. I want to put it on the table like this may not work but this is something I would try. Why not? And I'd like to explore that because it's an example of a larger issue which is how to be assertive without destroying the relationship. So how to put forward your suggestion in a way that doesn't make the other person feel like they are losing by adopting it 'cause that's the key. That's the key to being a leader as opposed to being a boss. A boss would say, "You are going to do this "because I tell you." A leader would say, "Look, I have a suggestion." but the leader is not the person who would say, "Oh, you figure it out by yourselves." No, no, I do have a responsibility. I will help but, hey, you're a smart person. I'm a smart person, too, so let's put our heads together see if we can figure this out together. So that feeling of community in the problem solving is what relaxes the conversation.