IT’S AN EXCUSE FOR NEANDERTHAL BEHAVIOR
A few years ago, I watched a colleague blow a major consulting contract by making a joke. After a long day of teaching, the consultant spoke with his point of contact (and paymaster), who complimented him on the training. The client’s praise was effusive, and he ended by rhetorically asking how the consultant managed to maintain such a high teaching intensity for so many hours.
My colleague—a very smart and decent man—couldn’t resist the words on the tip of his tongue, saying: “That’s easy; I’m motivated by money.”
The client absorbed the joke like a kidney punch, exhaling audibly. It was clear from his expression that he thought my colleague was making fun of his earnest praise. After a few awkward moments, the client turned around and wandered off. My colleague smacked himself on the forehead, wondering out loud how he could have said something so stupid.
The answer to his question, it turns out, actually involves his forehead.
To simplify a bit of science, our brain has two very different parts—one part is a more primitive, impulse-governed Neanderthal region at the back of the neck, and the other is a more modern and thoughtful executive-functioning area behind the forehead.
Long ago, our Neanderthal ancestors needed a quick-thinking, reflexive brain to navigate a world filled with saber-toothed tigers and club-swinging neighbors, and much of that brain is still with us. But over time, a more modern brain evolved as well, which was capable of reasoning, reflection, and restraint.
The Neanderthal and the modern parts of our brains often operate in tension. For example, when something triggers a negative emotion, the Neanderthal part prefers to club the source of the emotional trigger first and ask questions later, while the modern part suggests that perhaps we should think things through before taking a swing. When a gratifying impulse or urge presents itself—like an urge to say something sarcastic or insulting—our Neanderthal brain will lunge for it, while our modern brain will calculate whether resisting the feeling might be prudent.
Unfortunately, much of the digital era’s expedient communication appeals to the Neanderthal’s reflexive instincts. We have come to believe that it is our right, as citizens of the digital age, to say what we want, when we want. This is a terrible communication habit to learn. Impulsive and unfiltered communication usually costs our relationships dearly. Saying what we want, when we want isn’t modern at all—it’s Neanderthal.
It’s ironic that our modern devices facilitate the kind of communication that bypasses our modern, reflective brains. Quick communication pushes the act-first, think-later buttons of our Neanderthal brain, but it was the ability to do the exact opposite that helped us out of the cave in the first place.
Now the Neanderthal is at the controls of a sleek new airliner.
Restraint—the ability to not say something, even when you really want to—is what distinguishes civilized communication from Neanderthal communication. Restraint also safeguards a thin but vital blanket of civility and politeness that protects most human interactions.
The blanket of civility probably emerged with the earliest advance of human civilization as a way for people to come together and form productive groups, tribes, and societies. Civility required restraint, so that we could live together without clubbing each other over the slightest provocation. Today, conversational civility is reinforced by the underlying desires of people to project a positive impression during an interaction and avoid acts that might threaten either party’s self-image, which gives most interactions a healthy dose of mutual politeness.1
Restraint is a timeless quality of civilized communication. Ancient ways of thinking suggested that the good life was best achieved through equilibrium, which would enable you to “have control over your emotions, so that you are not battered and dragged about by them like a bone fought over by a pack of dogs.”2
The ancients were right.
When a lack of restraint jerks the blanket of civility away from an interaction, damage is imminent. Civility and politeness are delicate and easily shredded by impulsive words that infringe on another person’s sense of autonomy (like telling someone what to do) or that threaten someone’s self-image (like telling someone what he is doing wrong or rendering a criticism).
An example of this happened within my family a few years ago when one of my uncles underwent an angioplasty procedure for stents to open his arteries. He was sedated but aware of what was going on around him. When the display screen showed how clogged his arteries were, the surgeon joked to his team, “Look at the plaque on this guy! I wonder how many sausage biscuits he’s had in his lifetime!”
Almost everyone in the room burst out laughing, but not my uncle. The sedation prevented him from saying anything, but his anger at the insult spiked his blood pressure to over 200 and set off alarm bells in the operating room. The last thing my uncle remembers was his doctor snapping at the anesthesiologist: “Quick! Give him more juice!”
The cave brain entertains all kinds of civility-infringing thoughts and impulses. Restraint protects our relationships by preventing those damaging words and deeds from destabilizing our conversations.
Not so long ago, there were more structural impediments to our communication. We couldn’t afford to talk frequently to people outside our local area code, and it was hard to talk to several people at once unless the conversation was face-to-face. These barriers limited the reach of our communication, but also limited the impact of our communication errors. Our great-grandparents probably didn’t have to worry that a 30-second burst of anger might cause 500 of their friends to think they were hotheads. But now we can talk to anyone, anywhere, at virtually no cost. The ability to express ourselves instantly seems like an inalienable right of the digital communication revolution.
If so, it’s a right we should consider surrendering. Instant responses far too often are Neanderthal responses, and self-expression isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. “I was just being myself” sounds harmless, but in a conversation it’s often an excuse to indulge in destructive behavior.
The impulses, urges, and emotions that give rise to our Neanderthal behaviors don’t have to win—modern humans are capable of exercising restraint in their responses. In the crucial moments between feeling an impulse and acting on it (our response), we hold a conversation’s destiny—and possibly the destiny of the underlying relationship—in limbo. Smart communicators don’t let their impulses govern their responses.
Failure to restrain your Neanderthal instincts means that your words will all too often trump your goals. What you want to say will destroy what you want to accomplish. The best communicators are able to consistently stifle their immediate, Neanderthal emotional responses. This single action—not allowing your feelings to dictate your words—will impact your quality of life profoundly: you will get what you want more often.
Consider the following example:
A coworker always arrives late to staff meetings, inconveniencing everyone and usually causing the meeting to run long. Your goal is to have the meetings start and end on time.
There are probably many things you feel like saying to this tardy colleague: You inconsiderate idiot, can’t you see that we are all here waiting for you, again? Who do you think you are, keeping us waiting every week? What’s wrong with you? All of these thoughts are feelings, though, without a single goal in sight.
Nothing that you want to say is going to help your meetings start and end on time. Exacting justice, expressing your frustration, or firing off a snappy putdown might feel good in the moment, but they only put the other person on the defensive and make your conversational goal harder to achieve.
By focusing on what you want to accomplish instead of what you want to say, you’re more likely to see options for attaining your goal open up. Perhaps the perpetually late colleague has an unavoidable scheduling issue, and so the meeting needs to start later. Maybe the agenda can be rearranged in such a way that a timely ending is possible. Perhaps you can give the other person a chance to work out the issue on his own. Or you might actually need to have a direct conversation with the tardy coworker. None of these possibilities can be achieved—or even approached—if you say the first thing that pops into your mind.
I’m not suggesting that feelings don’t matter. But I am suggesting that we choose how and when we address our emotions. A deliberate conversation with someone about why you feel angry with him, for example, is completely different from reacting spontaneously in anger.
Exercise restraint and communicate with thoughtfulness, because the person in front of you is more important than the feeling inside you. What you want to accomplish is more important than what you want to say.
The choice between acting on your primitive instincts and listening to your communication conscience—your internal voice of restraint and thoughtfulness—is the difference between success and failure. It’s the difference between civilized and uncivilized communication.
Five actions can strengthen your restraint and build your communication conscience:3
1. Practice not talking. Think of restraint as a muscle and resolve to make it stronger through daily practice. If you consciously try to choke back unhelpful comments and ill-chosen words, your restraint muscle will, over time, grow to become a prized communication asset.
2. Delay your responses. Restraint inserts itself between what you feel like saying and what you actually say, so focus on consciously enlarging this area. Just a few seconds can mean the difference between a measured response and a destructive one. If you are worried about your ability to restrain a response, remove yourself from the situation.
3. Resist the urge to prove someone wrong. Few things test our restraint more than holding our tongue when we’re right about something. Avoid the temptation to say “I told you so” or draw attention to your conversational partner’s errors. Being magnanimous is better for your underlying relationship than being right.
4. Eliminate witty comebacks, put-downs, and insults. Put-downs and witty comebacks may feel good to you for a few seconds, but they cause a lot of heartburn down the line. Insults are the antithesis of smart communication because they gain you nothing but can potentially cost you a great deal. When you feel a witty comeback sizzling in your head, restrain yourself. Send the urge to the corner and put a dunce cap on it.
5. Give yourself credit for the things you don’t say. Restraint isn’t flashy or glamorous, but it won’t blow up your relationships or torpedo your goals. Give yourself credit for all the trouble that you avoid, for all the words that you choke back, and for all the dustups that you steer clear of. These invisible accomplishments will be some of your most important communication achievements.
Exercising restraint doesn’t mean that you’ll become a robot, and unfortunately it also doesn’t guarantee that you’ll be perfect at resisting urges. Occasionally, your impulses or emotions will overpower your restraint, and damaging words will tumble out. When this happens, nothing beats a quick and sincere apology. People usually accept timely apologies for all but the most egregious of verbal transgressions. We’ll discuss apologies more in Chapter 10. For now, when a lack of restraint gets you in trouble, have an apology at the ready.
Restraint stops trouble before it happens. But when restraint falters and a conversation escalates because either you or your conversational partner gave in to your Neanderthal instincts, containment prevents the damage from becoming insurmountable and protects the underlying relationship. Because words can damage relationships quickly, but relationships can only be built slowly (asymmetry), containment is an essential tool to ensure that you don’t unwind years of goodwill in seconds of a hasty, damaging conversation.
Containment stops conversational escalation, which is crucial because all relational damage happens when conversations escalate. That’s no exaggeration. Conversations characterized by mutual restraint don’t damage relationships; only escalated conversations do.
As conversations escalate, two harmful things can happen. First, words become more hostile, negative, and hurtful, transforming small disagreements into epic arguments. Second, it becomes increasingly likely that someone will pursue hazardous conversational tangents. Words turn spiteful, and topics that are best left untouched come flying out of the darkness.
Research suggests that containment and containment attempts are hallmarks of strong and successful relationships.4 On the other hand, escalating words—regardless of justifications and provocations—produce dueling dialogues that are likely to end in disaster. And the root issue of the conversation, which may have originally been quite manageable, becomes more difficult to resolve as positions harden.
After a destructive conversation, people often look back and wonder, Where did that come from? It’s no surprise they didn’t see it coming—it wasn’t coming until the conversation escalated.
Remember this crucial point: only escalating conversations dismantle relationships. If you can restrain yourself from yielding to your Neanderthal urges in the first place, you’ll prevent a great deal of harm. When restraint fails, containment is there to halt the escalation and limit the damage.
Containment is the lifeline thrown to a conversation taking on water. To adapt a phrase from the movie Glengarry Glen Ross, remember your ABCs and always be containing.5
Conversational Escalation and Containment at Work
Jim: Hi, Bob. Do you have a minute to talk about the Anderson project?
Bob: Sure, what’s up?
Jim: I’m worried that the boss isn’t going to like the report because the market analysis is a bit underdeveloped. (Root issue)
Bob: I’m not sure I agree with that. There’s plenty of material in there. And the boss is mostly concerned about the financial numbers, not the marketing stuff.
Jim: Well, I’m still thinking that we should beef up the marketing section, just to be sure.
Bob: Go ahead. I don’t have any more time to adjust the report, and besides, I disagree that the boss is after marketing material.
This is a critical moment in the conversation. Bob has opened the door to escalation, but at this point in the conversation, not much damage (if any) has been done. Jim can choose to contain here and walk away before it gets any worse, or Jim can reply to Bob’s last statement and escalate. Alas, Jim chooses to escalate.
Jim: Listen, man, even if I am wrong about this, you could stand to be more receptive. This is a team project. This is why people don’t want to work with you.
Jim’s lack of restraint and subsequent tangent escalates the conversation. At this point, anyone could make a containment attempt, but neither person does.
Bob: That’s ridiculous. And being part of a team isn’t license for you to waste my time or add irrelevant material. I’ve been working on this project a lot longer than you, and I think I have a better sense of what’s required. Your input has been misguided from the start. (Continued escalation)
At this point the conversation is almost completely disconnected from the root issue, and relational damage has almost certainly been done. And the archrival of successful conversational containment—emotional responses—is on the loose. Many conversations would continue to escalate from here, piling on the damage. It takes a lot of self-control to contain at this point, but this is what Jim and Bob do next. It’s time to stop the damage, redirect the conversation, and get out of it.
Jim: Whoa! Let’s let the boss be the judge of my input. I can’t see any harm in strengthening the marketing section, just in case. I’ll add a couple pages to the marketing part, and that will probably make me feel better. Sorry about getting you upset. (Multiple containment attempts and a redirection to the root issue)
It’s smart that Jim absorbed the insults and contained the conversation here, although the insults would never have materialized if Jim had been able to restrain himself at the beginning of the conversation.
Bob: Okay, fine. Look, I have an old marketing section from the Gatorville account that I’ll send to you. Just replace Gatorville with Anderson, and we won’t have to create anything new.
Containment from Bob and resolution of the root issue give Jim the perfect chance to exit the conversation.
Jim: Great, thanks a million. (Jim sticks out his hand, they shake hands, and Jim exits.)
In this conversation, the damage was contained, but not before insults were exchanged. Containment was the best solution possible after restraint failed, but initial restraint could have prevented the damage from happening in the first place.
Containment has three steps: deescalate, redirect, and exit (DR. E). These three steps limit the damage from unrestrained words.
Conversations, be they computer mediated or face-to-face, can be deescalated by any action (or inaction) that drops a conversation’s intensity level. There are five ways to deescalate. Use them in any combination to restore conversational civility:
Stop trying to score points or add new material. Shut down the voice inside your head that’s telling you to fight back. Retaliation will only increase the conversation’s intensity. Forget about all the good counterarguments you can make. Stop looking for holes in the other person’s reasoning, errors in his logic, or faulty assumptions that you can counter. Protect the underlying relationship.
Take a break. Breaks are incredible containment devices, but they are woefully underused. You can stop the momentum of an escalating conversation in its tracks by asking for a pause to allow emotions to moderate and to provide an opportunity to reset a heated conversation.
Apologize for something. Apologies are great deescalation tools. You can apologize for the escalation itself (“Look, I’m really sorry that our discussion got heated”), for a particular portion of the conversation (“I’m sorry that I brought up an irrelevant issue”), or for virtually anything that doesn’t sound too contrived or patronizing.
Offer a relevant compliment. Compliments can’t be irrelevant (“Your kids are so smart” or “You look really good in those pants”). Instead, say something about some portion of the other person’s thinking or logic that fits the context of the conversation (“I hadn’t thought about it like that; that’s a good observation”). Any touch of kindness is a reminder that there is an underlying positive relationship tangled up in the temporary escalation.
Acknowledge a positive intent, emotion, or feeling from the other person. Tell the other person you appreciate her willingness to tackle a difficult issue or that you respect her concern about the issue. Almost anything positive that you can find in the conversation or in her approach to the conversation will probably work (“I appreciate how much you care about solving this issue”).
In theory, asynchronous digital devices should make deescalation easier, because the built-in lag between a message and our need to respond should function as an organic firewall. In practice, instead of making good use of the natural pause, we too often cast aside the containment advantage and reply quickly.
Consider the upsetting e-mail you receive from a coworker: “I don’t think your report is ready to send to the client.” Instead of collecting your thoughts, you immediately call him, or you fire off an escalating reply: “I did the best I could with the poor data and analysis you sent me.” Or you get a chastising text message from your spouse: “U 4got 2 feed dog again,” and you shoot back: “H8 that fleabag anyway.”
People say all kinds of counterproductive things when conversations escalate. But the good news is that if you ignore unhelpful comments and focus on containing and returning the interaction to civility, your conversational partner will often self-correct. Containment gives the other person an opportunity to get his modern brain back into the conversation, which sometimes requires a bit of patience and time. Don’t be surprised if you end up containing five unhelpful comments before the other person corrects and civility is restored.
Anything that puts distance between an emotion and a response, whether in face-to-face conversations or digital ones, is a natural deescalation ally. Time and space help keep the Neanderthal at bay.
The key to successful redirection is gently bringing another person back to the root issue without making her feel like you’re trivializing her concerns or trying to control the conversation. (If there is no root issue—nothing to solve or no actual substance behind the escalation—you can move to containment’s final step and exit the conversation.)
Redirect your conversation away from all escalations and unhelpful tangents. For example, if a coworker believes that your accounting reports are inaccurate (the root issue), but the conversation escalates into criticisms about your inattention to detail in general (a tangent), you might redirect by saying: “Okay, I want to fix this. Please tell me how I can improve my accounting reports.” Or “I hear you. Let’s figure out this report so we don’t have trouble again.”
Containment doesn’t take away your voice or sacrifice your ability to wrestle with a root issue. You may need to ignore unhelpful words (like the comments about your carelessness in the example above) to successfully deescalate, but once the conversation is contained, you and your partner can work on the root issue civilly.
In a perfect world, it would be preferable (and easier) to exit a conversation immediately after successfully deescalating it, skipping the redirection process entirely. After all, whatever triggered the initial flare-up is likely to be still lurking in the background. However, here in the real world, redirection is often necessary, because it can be difficult to get the other party to walk away from an escalated conversation. People assume that an escalated conversation is an important conversation, and in some ways this is true: an escalated conversation has become important, even if the initial issue was relatively minor. Consequently, it’s wise for you to treat an escalated conversation as important and to redirect to the root issue after deescalating. Just be careful, because containment is never permanent, and escalated conversations leave smoldering embers. You may need to deescalate and redirect multiple times in a single discussion, tamping down the conversational flames as they flare up.
At some point, you will have addressed the root issue, determined that there isn’t one, or concluded that the conversation is too hazardous to continue. All roads lead to a conversational exit.
Exits matter. People pay attention to how conversations end, and, especially after an escalation, they want to know that you aren’t running away from their concerns. There are many ways to exit an escalated conversation appropriately, including:
Give the other person an opportunity for closing thoughts. Ask, “Is there anything else we should discuss?” or “Any other thoughts?” Use your judgment here—if you think that giving the other person the last words might reopen sensitive parts of the conversation and undo your containment, then summarize the discussion and offer last words instead. But if you sense that the emotions involved with the escalation have dissipated, offering last words to the other party can send a strong signal of trust and goodwill.
Offer a plausible reason for why you need to leave. Real, external reasons why you need to conclude a conversation make exits easier. Say something like “I’m late for work,” “I have to pick up the kids from school,” or “I’m on a conference call at three o’clock,” and then make your exit.
Ask the other party if you can set the conversation aside for a period of time. If you are unable to resolve the root issue, ask if you can pause the conversation and return to it later. Let your conversational partner determine how long the pause should be—your main priority is simply to discontinue the discussion and allow for a conversational reset. Set a time to come back to the discussion and honor it.
Our digital devices have enormous potential, but it’s up to us to add the human touch. Technology will pass along whatever we want: straight data, disjointed messages, good ideas, trivial e-mails, or expressions of care and concern. Our communication, enhanced as never before, has the potential to connect us together in a way that makes work—that makes life—productive, meaningful, and fulfilling.
We can’t afford to let our shiny communication tools become a cover for Neanderthal behavior, carrying us back into the cave under the paradoxical banner of progress. Civilized communication—conversations characterized by mutual restraint and by containment when restraint falters—encourages the meaningful human connections we desire.
Next up, we discuss one of the most stealthily effective skills to have in our communication toolkits.