Articles

Why Aren't People More Open to You?

June 12, 2013 (Number 46) I've come across a number of angry geniuses and exasperated visionaries in my work over the years.  Their brilliance was generating a torrent of creativity, innovation and foresight that demanded expression.  Yet, most of their ideas were never being adopted.

As you can imagine, this was quite frustrating for them and even a little maddening.

Perhaps you can relate.  Have you ever had your own ideas and visions that you knew were solid and compelling — but which fell on ears that would not listen?  In such cases, perhaps you found yourself dejectedly complaining, as I've heard many irate entrepreneurs and irked scientists conclude, "They just don't get it."  Or worse, "These people are all idiots!"

Although such proclamations may feel good to make, they don't do much to solve the problem.  If you want to understand what's really going on in these situations and get results that are a little more uplifting, reflect on these tips:

• If you're advocating for change, or simply presenting some new ideas, chances are people feel threatened by you — far more than you realize.  They may feel you're "taking over" or they may feel small, fearing they're not as clever as you.  You may think these individuals are confident and, anyway, "shouldn't" feel intimidated, but that's your failure to recognize the very human vulnerabilities that so many people secretly harbor.

• Accordingly, to disarm people's resistance, you must neutralize their hidden emotional reactions to you.  Key is your being supremely gracious.  This includes being magnanimous in sharing credit for your visions and ideas, and including your potential adversaries in significant ways in their implementation.

• Overall, scrutinize all your proposals through the lens of these two questions: (1) How might they activate people's biologically-driven, irrational fears that their survival is being threatened?; and (2) How might they rouse people's feelings of inadequacy?  Then, with compassion rather than judgment, find ways to make your ideas relatively safe for them.

Your wish to effect great change — whether in your company, in your family or for the benefit of humanity — will typically trigger instantaneous and enormous resistance.  When you anticipate that resistance and thoughtfully guard against it, you will be far more masterful in eliciting the responses that you need — and that the world needs.

Dean Herman