8
Turning Resistance into Support

Despite the good work of census takers and social statisticians over the years, one vital demographic measurement remains sketchy. We have no reliable tally of the number of total jerks in the country. What we do know, however, is that by all estimates, the figure would appear to be quite high.

Imagine forty or fifty thousand people gathered in one public place at one time. How many out of this crowd, if asked for a show of hands, would admit that in their daily lives—perhaps even within their own extended families—they routinely come into contact with one or more total jerks? Make an estimate of the percentage you think would raise their hands. Now imagine they are asked a second question: “How many of you here today are total jerks yourselves?” What would the percentage of raised hands be this time?

(Assuming a wide gap exists between your projected percentages): How are we to account for this apparent mathematical impossibility? Why is it that as far as almost everyone is concerned, almost everyone else is “the problem”? (Ask the fifty thousand any number of similar pairs of questions, and observe how the gap remains constant: How many of you believe the roads are full of bad drivers?/How many of you are bad drivers? How many of you feel most young people today are cursed with ineffective parents?/How many of you are ineffective parents?)

Herein lies one of the basic roots of conflict and discord between people for as long as there have been people. This timeless dilemma will not likely be resolved within these pages, especially when scores of books by some of the greatest thinkers in history have already been devoted to the matter and still the eternal conflicts rage on. Nature too, after all, must struggle to balance short-term needs against long-term goals—and aggression is one of the mechanisms for doing so. All the conflicts among all the species over food, territory, and mating rights may be costly and unpleasant for the participants, but in the larger evolutionary context, they may improve the species’ long-term survival prospects. A nature documentary at 9:00 P.M. focuses on the bloody rivalry between a pack of hyenas and a neighboring pride of lions; a news special at 10:00 examines the history of the bloody rivalry between one human culture and the neighboring society. It may be comforting to use words like civilization to describe how we have risen above the law of the jungle—but the history of warfare right up to the present day reminds us that we have not yet risen so very far above it.

Humans have found many more issues to quarrel over besides basic food, territory, and reproduction issues, however. “Road rage,” for example, is observed in few other species in the wild. Shooting sprees, too, are a uniquely human phenomenon. Much of the daily hostility between people in the workplace and in the home has very little to do with improving the survival capabilities of the species as a whole; it is instead largely focused on asserting displeasure over the “problem people” in the immediate environment. We’re surrounded by total jerks, and we cling to the hope that in letting them know about it might prompt them to “smarten up” in some way. Whereas societies seek to gain dominance through the destructive power of arms and explosives, individuals often make their own bids through the destructive power of words and ideas. For as long as humanity continues to believe that other people are the problem, humanity (because it’s made up of nothing but other people) is going to have a problem that won’t go away.

Man builds, man destroys. Warfare is about competition and destruction; dreamcrafting is about cooperation and production.

Inventor and thinker Buckminster Fuller believed humanity’s ultimate role in the universe is “antientropic.” (Entropy is the “increase in randomness” propounded in the second law of thermodynamics, by which all matter and energy in the universe eventually degenerate into an inert and uniform state.) Whereas the universe tends toward disorder, Bucky suggested, man’s intellectual power tends toward order. High-altitude photos of the earth’s surface make it easy to see where humans reside; straight lines and evenly spaced rows and precise angles that are not typically found elsewhere in nature—pattern and order amid the randomness.

This is a book about bringing life into alignment—about bringing order and structure (antientropy) into what can otherwise become a random exercise in existence. Conflict is an obvious major source of misalignment. Totally apart from its corrosive effect on the general quality of life, it siphons valuable energy away from pursuit of any Big Dream. The drain increases when the conflict is with someone close to us, or revolves around issues close to our hearts. When it takes the form of resistance directed specifically toward the cherished dream itself, resistance from loved ones in particular, the energy-sapping effect is at a maximum. Such resistance creates its own “energy field,” like a second magnet brought close to iron filings, but at a conflicting angle; the pattern becomes less well-defined, more dissipated and randomly scattered—more entropic.

This is also a book about sustaining motivation, optimism, enthusiasm. Truth is, very few Big Dreams have ever been realized by one solitary individual acting in complete isolation. Even if others are merely (genuinely) indifferent to the mission, the absence of any kind of encouragement from any other living soul would tax the determination of even the most highly motivated dreamcrafter. And if instead of indifference, the others are expressing resistance—even passive “resistance in principle” in the form of nothing more than sarcasm or ridicule—this can have a profoundly demotivational effect on anyone attempting to achieve an already difficult objective. At a minimum, such resistance needs to be transformed into “support in principle.” Even better, (in fact, ideally,) this energy should be rechanneled into active participation.

The object of this chapter and the next is not to find ways to banish all conflict from human affairs (that’s a mission that falls discouragingly high on the “difficulty” scale of chapter 2’s “compellingness curve”). Rather, the objective is to reduce or avoid one specific kind of conflict— namely, resistance to the dreamcrafter’s particular mission. The remainder of this chapter will focus on gaining support in principle (which must come first in any event); the following chapter will build on this and look at ways to intensify support until it becomes active participation.

As it happens, our starting point is to uncover a strategy so powerful, it actually could help dreamcrafters—or anyone else, for that matter— reduce conflict of many kinds in their lives.

The Roots of Defensiveness

Some people just know how to “press our hot buttons”; they somehow always end up “rubbing us the wrong way,” even when they may not have meant to. Sometimes we find it is we who have hit someone else’s hot buttons and set them off, even when we had not even the slightest intention of doing so. What exactly is at work when this sort of thing happens?

The issue could not be more basic: offense triggers defense. It’s a completely automatic response, operating unconsciously at the deepest genetic level. When any living organism feels under attack, it reflexively sets out to defend itself. The more complex the organism, the more vulnerable it becomes to a greater variety of hurts. For beings that operate more actively in the realms of the mind and the intellect, a whole range of mental or intellectual forms of hurt come into play. It might prove quite difficult to hurt a turtle’s feelings with verbal insults, for example— whereas with people, doing so is easy as pie.

Children quickly learn just how easy it is to hurt others. The so-called cruelty of school-age children is widely accepted as a sad reality of life, even though less thought seems to be given to who it is that’s teaching these kids to behave this way. It may be convenient to blame “the media” for it, but the sadder reality is that many youngsters have far more immediate and impactful real-life role models for hurtful behavior all around them.

Interactions between parents and children, students and teachers, supervisors and employees, suppliers and customers, husbands and wives— between people in every conceivable kind of relationship, and even between total strangers—frequently degenerate into offensive and defensive exchanges. And the saddest reality of all is that often the party on the offensive remains completely unaware that he or she is doing any “attacking,” and thus becomes confused and frustrated by the other party’s rigidly defensive posture. Meanwhile, the party on the defensive is hostile, suspicious, and far from open to new ideas. The “attacker” continues to hammer away at his or her point, increasingly frustrated by the “defender’s” seeming inability—or refusal—to “get it.” Voices are raised, tempers flare, hostilities escalate, and the antagonists come away from the encounter shaken and drained and typically no closer to resolution. This defensive posture erodes good will and weakens relationships; overcoming it is extremely time-consuming, and in many cases never wholly successful. Family feuds, and international feuds, can last for generations.

Since much of the antagonism that erupts between people is unintentional, it is not enough to resolve not to “intentionally antagonize”; dreamcrafters must become conscious of the two most common blunders that typically provoke antagonistic or defensive reactions: let’s call them the “personality” factor, and the “telling” factor.

Fixing Problems, Not People

You always [do such-and-such].” “You never [do so-and-so].” A great many conflicts begin as discussions about some specific problem or issue, but conclude in a harsh exchange that implies—or states outright—that the real problem or issue is the other person’s appalling general shortcomings as a human being.

It’s something many people seem powerless to control; those with whom they interact must at all costs be told, in no uncertain terms, right there and right then, just how dumb, or inconsiderate, or otherwise deficient they are—what total jerks they are, in essence.

By and large, most people (like most pets, no doubt, if we could elicit their opinion on the matter) are unenthusiastic about “getting fixed” by someone else’s hand. We say somebody is going to “fix [somebody else], but good”; they’re going to “fix their little red wagon, once and for all.” How often have such “fixes” actually fixed anything? Out of all the countless terrible things people have done to “teach [someone else] a lesson,” how many of these have translated into actual, useful lessons learned? When we speak of “failure patterns,” this is one of the most deeply entrenched, culturally pervasive failure patterns in all of human society. The pattern gets repeated anew by generation after generation, with nothing fixed, no lessons learned.

To break the pattern, we must consciously set out to avoid putting people on the defensive. The only way to do this is for us to take pains to avoid being perceived as being in any way on the offensive. This literally means we must say and do nothing to offend. But how can we possibly anticipate every little word, gesture, insinuation that someone else might find offensive? It’s not at all difficult. And it’s one of the best-kept secrets in human affairs. The trick is to keep personality out of it. Discuss problems at length, brainstorm solutions, exchange ideas—but say nothing and do nothing that could in any way be construed as a criticism, a put-down, a reproach directed at another’s personality or character. Even when the issue is “problem behavior,” limit the discussion to the specific behavior and its consequences; never allow the focus to shift to the person directly. A statement like “The clutter and disorder in your room makes it impossible to find what you or anyone else is looking for” falls on the ears very differently than “You are such a slob. Honestly, you make me sick.You’re an embarrassment.” There’s a world of difference between “I dislike the consequences of something that you do” and “I dislike the very essence of who you are.” The moment personality enters the equation, the exchange—by definition—has turned personal. Down comes the wall of defensiveness, and out goes any chance for a proper resolution.

To avoid putting others on the defensive, keep personality out of it.

Work with people to fix problems; do not work against people to try and fix them. That’s best-kept secret number one. So what’s number two?

Asking, Not Telling

Human conflict often involves a lot of shouting. We raise our voices because we demand to be heard. We shout because otherwise we can’t get a word in edgewise. Mutinies and rebellions and riots and uprisings and labor strikes—they’re often nothing more at heart than the accumulated rage of people tired of being deprived of a say, of a voice. It’s a profoundly basic human need, this need to be heard. Major conflicts have been avoided by doing nothing more than allowing people to sound off, to let off some steam. Sometimes just knowing our dissatisfaction has been heard, has been acknowledged, has been taken into account is enough to calm our concerns.

So why have we not as a species become better at listening to one another? Because we’re all far too busy making ourselves heard! With virtually everyone in “transmit” mode, it leaves no one to “receive.”

Now comes an intriguing paradox.

When we make “personality” the subject of our tirade, it is generally because we feel a need to “tell somebody off,” to tell them what we think of them, tell them “a thing or two,” perhaps to tell them where to go, and even what to do to themselves when they get there. We’ve come to think of telling as the best way—as the only way—to get our point across, to make ourselves heard.

Anyone seeking the support of others must avoid alienating the others; an obvious first step is to allow them to make themselves heard—to do more “asking” than “telling,” so that they can raise issues and get things off their chests, and generally feel involved, which is to say, included. But doesn’t this tip all the “power” in their direction? Doesn’t this deprive us of the need to make ourselves heard?

The paradox is that the asker can often have greater power and influence than the teller—in fact, can often make himself or herself heard much more quickly, clearly, and effectively by asking rather than telling. (Author Art jokingly illustrates this principle when he relates how his late first wife was content to be an asker, yet could sometimes convey a tremendous wealth of information by asking a question as simple as, “Art, do you like living here?”).

Asking questions does not by any means limit the flow of communication to a single direction. Readers acquainted with the so-called Socratic method know that even very dry, technical information can be conveyed purely by asking questions, and without “telling” a single piece of it.

A brief example: ever notice how in Western movies the wheels on advancing wagons or stagecoaches sometimes appear to be turning backwards? As an experiment, many years ago, author Paul set out to explain the reason for this to a group of people during a break in a training session. He was determined to impart the answer to the others without any “telling,” however, and only by asking questions. The exchange went something like this:

Paul: “How do moving pictures create the illusion of movement?”

Group: “A succession of still pictures is projected onto the screen in rapid succession.”

Paul: “How rapid is the succession?”

Group: “Twenty-four frames per second.”

Paul: “If one spoke on the wagon wheel is painted dark, and the wagon is being pulled at a speed that causes the wheel to make a full turn exactly twenty-four times per second, what will we see on the screen?”

Group: “The dark spoke will be in the same place in each picture.”

Paul: “What will that look like on the screen?”

Group: “It will look as if the wheel is not turning at all.”

Paul: “If the speed at which the wagon is being pulled is reduced slightly, what will we now see on the screen?”

Group: “The spoke won’t have made it all the way around for each frame.”

Paul: “What will that look like on the screen?”

Group: “If the wheel is turning clockwise, and in the first frame the spoke is at the ‘twelve o’clock’ position, say, in the next frame it may only reach the ‘eleven o’clock’ position. In the next it will be at ‘ten’, then ‘nine’, and so on. On the screen the dark spoke will seem to be working its way counterclockwise. The wheel will appear to be turning backwards. —Oh for heaven’s sake, so that’s why that happens!”

The group learned something trivial about wagon wheels in the movies, and the instructor learned something profound about asking versus telling. He’d chosen this topic for his experiment precisely because the question had come up before in a social setting, and he’d found it difficult and time-consuming to explain in the traditional “telling” manner. It was a revelation to discover how quickly and painlessly the same information could be transmitted by setting his transmitter to the “receive” position. In effect, instead of making his mouth do all the work at the time of the lesson, he’d put his brain to work ahead of time, thinking about what questions to ask and how best to ask them. This preparatory homework made the imparting of the information much less time-consuming and much more rewarding for all concerned. More importantly—and this is vital to anyone attempting to win the support of others—it felt to the group members as if they had somehow come up with their explanation on their own. No one actually told them the answer; it was as if they’d figured it out for themselves. The solution to the mystery became their solution. The result was ownership, involvement, inclusion.

Note that this technique does not necessarily qualify as a time-saving mechanism of the sort described in chapter 6; if anything, it can sometimes take longer to find the best way to get the information across quickly. (Blaise Pascal had this in mind in the mid-1600s when he wrote, “I have made this letter longer than usual, because I lack the time to make it short.” In a similar vein, Woodrow Wilson observed that “If I am to speak for ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if fifteen minutes, three days; if half an hour, two days; if an hour, I am ready now.”) But time spent preparing the right questions to ask is time wisely invested. The old adage that “the best way to get someone to like your idea is to make them think it’s really their idea” is just another way of describing what getting others directly involved (inclusion) actually feels like. The more people are involved in helping you plan the battle, the old saying goes, the less inclined they will later be to battle the plan.

Novelists are old hands at getting readers to think the novelist’s ideas are the readers’ own. “I just love [a given author’s] writing style,” enthusiastic readers will sometimes say. “Of course, I have such a vivid imagination, when I read [his or her] stories I can just picture everything in my mind as if it were really happening.” The reader attributes much of the pleasure of reading to his or her own powers of imagination, not to the power of the novelist’s vivid writing, which skillfully engages readers’ imaginations and inspires them to participate in the creative process of experiencing the story. “When I saw the movie made from [this author’s] story, I was dis- appointed. The way things looked didn’t measure up to what I had pictured in my mind.” (That is, they didn’t measure up to the pictures the novelist inspired me to form in my mind.)

As we discussed in chapter 1, most good novels (or gripping stories in any medium) tell of a mission, and the efforts of one or more characters to overcome obstacles and accomplish the mission. In a sense, the dreamcrafter “on a mission” is an individual with a story to tell. The ongoing process of declaration—the unveiling of the mission and the vision, and the linking to core values, and the ongoing celebrations of key milestones—all of this constitutes the “telling of the tale” over time. As in any good story, the ending is uncertain; but the actual quest is made to seem gripping and worthwhile. And if the dreamcrafter is a good storyteller, much of the telling of the tale is done not through telling at all, but through asking. The storyteller may be sharing a story, but always in a way that invites others to become part of the story, to write themselves into the plot. Skillful dreamcrafters supply just enough information to engage the imagination of others, and thus allow the others to feel they are participating in the creation—and eventual realization—of the dream. In a sense, the dream becomes their dream as well.

Turning a Personal Mission into Communal Property

The first step in applying this macroskill involves encouraging resisters to articulate their objections and concerns at length. It is supremely important that the dreamcrafter listens and hears; it is supremely important that personality be kept out of it, and that there be more asking than telling. Not, “Oh, don’t worry about that, I’ve already figured out how I’m going to overcome that problem, and it’s [such-and-such],” but rather, “Hmmm, that’s a good point. I wonder if doing [such-and-such] might overcome that problem. What do you think?” Inclusion. This should not be a phony pretend-to-take-whatever-they-say-seriously exercise in deception; the more sincerely the dreamcrafter seeks input from others, the better the chances ideas will come forward that could make the dream significantly easier to achieve. But even if a given resister adds only the most modest wrinkle to an idea the dreamcrafter had already had, the cause of inclusion is well served if this idea is henceforth identified with the resister who supplied the wrinkle. (“Yeah, that was Terry’s idea, and it made a heck of a difference!”)

Your resisters will probably not shy away from bringing your personality into the discussion, and may do nothing but tell you why your lamebrained idea has absolutely no merit whatsoever. The challenge here is to avoid getting hooked and reeled in for a nice old-fashioned pan-fried trout dinner, with you as the trout. Offense triggers defense, but the dreamcrafter must find the strength to resist the urge to assume a hostile, defensive position of his or her own. As with the naysayer exercise in chapter 4, one way to keep things in perspective is to look for the “grain of truth” in whatever arguments the resisters make, and acknowledge that that kernel of truth is there. (“It hurts me when you call me a ‘two-ton eating machine’, but I know it is true I overeat. It’s been a tough habit to break, which is why I need your help. Do you think there’s a better way than the one I’m considering?”)

A Big Dream may have big and terrifying implications for those close to the dreamcrafter, which in extreme cases may give rise to very strenuous resistance in a spouse or other immediate family member. Such a situation may call for “extreme inclusion.” The dreamcrafter may first have to ask tough questions to establish how wide the gulf really is: “Are you saying you’d be prepared to divorce me over this?” It then becomes necessary to search for some kind of superordinate goal that is meaningful for both parties. (“I know how much you’d hate selling this house—it was your dream, after all. But would you be prepared to take out a big mortgage on the house? If we did that, then you would certainly want me to succeed with my dream, and that support from you could make all the difference for me.”)

Of course no magic bullet offers a surefire cure for every sort of resistance dreamcrafters may encounter; but in general terms, inclusion tends to act as the most effective antidote. Key guidelines: first, ensure that resisters feel all their objections and concerns have been heard. Then, as much as possible, engage them in the process of addressing their objections and concerns one by one—not by telling them what you intend to do, but by asking them what they think you could do, or whether they feel the approach you have in mind will be effective. In chapter 4 we mentioned how pessimists over time are inclined to lump all their negative expectations into “one big simmering stewpot of apprehension”; when we were “anticipating the naysayers,” we “unstewed” the otherwise too-big-to-handle pot of negativity by dealing with each objection one at a time. When we find ourselves face-to-face with one or more real-life naysayers, the same rule applies, for the same reason.

As a footnote to the discussion (in chapter 6) about bundling activities together as a strategy for freeing up blocks of time—such bundling can simultaneously provide opportunities for inclusion. If the kids resist the idea of the mission because it means there will be less time to spend with them, for example, a solution might be to involve them in more aspects of the mission, to find ways to make it fun for them to participate. It is not at all uncommon for bundling efforts to yield such double benefits; when separate activities are brought together, it quite often means separate people can be brought together as well.

The inclusion process comes full circle when the dreamcrafter can give something back to a resister who—in response to the dreamcrafter’s questions—came up with a useful idea to help achieve the mission, or whose resistance turned into support in principle.

Old Leonard, no big fan of figure skating, mentioned to Kathy that he had a unique way of lacing his skates back in his hockey days; now he’s out almost every day at the community ice center watching her practice for the Olympic tryouts, and never fails to mention to people he meets there that he’s the one who gave her the idea to lace her skates that way. One tiny element of inclusion has made her dream his dream too. And when in her moment of triumph she publicly acknowledges Leonard, among others, for all his help and support, part of the triumph, too, becomes his as well.Virtually every thank-you speech ever delivered at every award ceremony ever held represents a dreamcrafter giving something back to one or more individuals who were initially resisters.

Fred’s dream is to lose weight, and at first his skeptical son, who has watched his dad try and fail in the past, does little more than mutter sarcastically, “Yeah, right.” But Fred does not allow himself to get hooked and reeled in, and persists in asking questions about how his son might make himself part of the dream.

“Well, maybe we could play ball together after school or something,” his son proposes. “Something like that might be okay. Is that the kind of thing you had in mind?”

“That’s exactly the kind of thing I had in mind,” Fred says. “I can’t tell you how much it has hurt me to see other dads playing with their boys, like at the company picnic, and I have had to sit there watching like a bump on a log because if I joined in I would get all out of breath and everything.” Fred sees a tiny, shy smile cross his son’s lips, and that little smile makes his heart soar and redoubles his determination to succeed.

Resistance constitutes a major roadblock for dreamcrafters. But if through a strategy of inclusion resistance can be transformed into support, the dreamcrafter will have brought another major external source of motivational energy into alignment with the aspirational field. The support of those around us can become one of the most powerful time-release motivators of all. The only external motivational force even more powerful is when support becomes active participation, as we’ll see next.

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