HOW TO BE MORE ASSERTIVE

You have been asked to make a presentation to senior management. You arrive promptly, only to be informed by the secretary that the meeting is running late. You are told to wait outside. Finally, you are shown into the room and asked to begin your presentation on the acquisition plan of hardware for the next year. After a minute or so, you notice that two managers are whispering to each other, another is reading a note which his secretary has just brought in, yet another is working on his calculator. Then the phone rings, and one of the managers gets up to answer it.

You have spent a long time preparing for his presentation; the wait has already made you nervous. To top it all, you are now faced with an unresponsive audience. How would you react to such a situation? Would you quickly finish your presentation and leave the room, and spend a miserable day after that?

In our working lives we are constantly faced with situations which are ‘tricky’. For example, you boss may make unreasonable demands. Or you may disagree with a ‘senior’ manager’s opinion. Or you may have to handle an irate customer, an uncooperative staff member, and an unreasonable colleague. How can you handle the situation in a way that is mutually acceptable to all? Simply put, you will just have to try to be more assertive.

The dictionary defines assertion as an affirmation, a declaration, or a positive statement, an insistence upon a right. Unfortunately, in common usage the word often refers to behaviour that should be called aggression.

Assertion refers to behaviour which involves standing up for your rights in such a way that you do not violate another person’s right. It is expressing your opinions in a direct, honest and appropriate manner. The aim of assertive behaviour is to satisfy the needs and wants of both parties involved in a situation.

Aggression refers to behaviour which involves standing up for your own rights, but in such a way that you violate the rights of others. It is ignoring or dismissing the opinions of others and expressing your own feelings (honest or dishonest) in an inappropriate manner. The aim of aggression is to win, if necessary at the expense of others. This can be very dangerous in an MIS type of situation, where user involvement is absolutely integral to the success of the project.

Non-Assertion refers to behaviour which involves standing up for your rights, but in such a manner that others can easily disregard them. It is expressing your opinions in an apologetic, diffident and self-effacing manner. The aim on non-assertion is to avoid conflict and to please others. Non-assertion is a problem, which is plaguing many, IS departments. Since the general perception of senior management is that IS is not very important, the IS manager tends to become non-assertive.

YOUR RIGHT TO BE ASSERTIVE

Rights - things to which we are entitled - are central to the exercise of assertive behaviour. Fundamentally, we all have the right to be assertive. Some rights are based on laws, others on accepted standards or norms of behaviour. These rights include:

The right to hold and express your opinions, views and ideas The right to have your opinions, views and ideas, listened to The right to refuse a request without feeling guilty The right to make mistakes The right to know how your seniors judge your performance The right to be consulted about decisions that affect you

But remember that others also have the same rights as you do.

THE RIGHT OF NON-ASSERTIONThe immediate consequences of non-assertion are usually pleasant. In the example quoted earlier, you have managed to avoid a potential conflict. But frequent non-assertion will result in your experiencing a growing loss of self-esteem. This may lead to anger, frustration or a feeling of self-pity. Others will begin to lose respect for you. It is indeed a strange paradox that the person who sets out to please, to be liked by all, and who behaves in a non-assertive manner to achieve this, often end up being less respected than the aggressive person, who may not even care whether he is liked or not. Non-assertion leads to delays in taking decisions, and to postponement of various problems.

BENEFITS OF BEING ASSERTIVEBeing assertive will make you more effective in your job. Other benefits:

Much greater confidence An increased chance of needs met Increased responsibility for your own behaviour Saving in energy A desire to take initiative

Being assertive is, however, not easy. We have tendency to respond to difficult situations by either fighting (aggressive behaviour) or by running away (non-assertive behaviour). The third alternative, namely assertive behaviour helps us to deal constructively with difficulties.

ASSERTIVE NON-ASSERTIVE (PASSIVE)

I’m OKYou’re OK I shall not let you hurt me I shall not hurt you

I’m not OKYou’re OK You can hurt me I shall not hurt you

AGGRESSIVE DEGRESSIVE

I’m OKYou’re not OK I shall not let you hurt me I shall hurt you

I’m not OKYou’re not OK You can hurt me I shall hurt you

There are three steps to assertiveness. It is important that you understand and practice all three in the correct order. Step 1: Listen to what is being said and then indicate to the other person that you both hear

and understand him.

ASSERTIVENESS IS NOT AN INSTANT TECHNIQUE. IT IS HARD TO ACQUIRE AND NEEDS

Step 2: Say what you think or what you feel. Step 3: Say what you want to happen.

Step 1 forces you to focus fully on the other person and not use the time they are talking to build up a defense or line of attack. By really listening you are able to demonstrate understanding and empathy for the situation, even if you do not fully agree with it.Step 2 enables you to directly state your thoughts or feelings without any insistence or apology whatsoever.Step 3 helps you to indicate in a clear and straightforward manner what you want without any hesitation or insistence at all.

Assertiveness is not an instant technique. It is hard to acquire and needs practice. But not only will it help you become more effective in your job, it will also lead to greater personal satisfaction in your day-to-day dealings with other people.

Evidence shows that both non-assertion and aggression spring from low-esteem. Your self-esteem is the evaluation that you make

and hold about yourself. It is your judgment of your worth as a person. It is based upon the extent to which you believe yourself to

be a competent, significant, likeable and successful person.

Low Self-Esteem

Feeling Threatened

Behaving Aggressively Behaving Non-Assertively

ASSERTIVENESS QUESTIONNAIRE

Answer the following questions by placing a YES or NO. For all the answers think of the reasons why?

1. Do you buy things you don’t really want because it is hard for you to say NO to the sales person?

2. When a sales person shows you things do you feel you must buy something?3. Do you have difficulty starting a conversation with a stranger?4. Do you find it difficult to criticise a friend?5. Do you find it difficult to compliment a friend?6. Do you feel self-conscious when somebody compliments you?7. Do you think you are being exploited or pushed around?8. Do you find it difficult to ask a Q-breaker to join the Q?9. Do you feel dissatisfied with your social life?10. Do you have trouble asking favours of a friend?11. Do you get I should have said that kind of thoughts after social life?12. Do you have difficulty saying NO to a friend even when his making an

unreasonable request?13. Do you think people find you boring?14. Do you have trouble expressing your tends and angry feelings to men?15. Do you have trouble expressing your tender and angry feelings to women?16. Do you have trouble asking for an overdue increment?17. Do you find it difficult to speak in public?18. Do you have fear of failure?19. Do you feel uncomfortable when you are being watched while at work?20. Do you find it uncomfortable when there is silence at a social gathering?21. Do you think that you are always wrong?22. Are you afraid of making mistakes?23. Are you always defensive when you are being criticised?24. Do you have trouble maintaining relationships or friendships?25. Do you feel dissatisfied with your vacation?____________________________________________________________________

COUNT: YES –

NO –____________________________________________________________________

Remember :

WHEN YOU APPLY THE PRINCIPLES LEARNED IN THIS COURSE IN YOUR DAY TO DAY LIFE, SOME OF THE YES ANSWERS WILL CHANGE TO NO.

ILLUSTRATIVE CASE STUDYCommunication failure at Bhopal

All the safety features had failed - that much was abundantly clear. What Mr. Warren Anderson could not find out was why. As a CEO of Union Carbide, he needed to know exactly what had happened in Bhopal, India, that night for a number of reasons. He knew he would have to explain a tragic accident to employees, to government officials in both the United States and India, to the courts, and to the people. Yet, he could not get answers to his own preliminary and personal questions. When telephone contacts failed to yield answers, he got on a plane and flew to India where he was immediately placed under house arrest - unable to attend to the very business that brought him there. His plant managers had also been arrested and were not allowed to talk to anyone. Indian government officials had closed the plant to Union Carbide management in order to prevent ‘tampering with evidence’.

The basic facts that Anderson could not determine on December 3, 1984, were really quite simple. A runaway reaction had occurred in a storage tank on methylisocyanate (MIC), which was used to manufacture a pesticide. The valves on the tank had burst, and a cloud of poisonous gas had escaped. Climatic conditions kept the gas from dissipating, and the winds carried it to the nearby shanty towns and the populous city of Bhopal, where people either died in their sleep or woke and died while fleeing. Those who survived suffered from burning eyes and lungs. Local medical facilities were not equipped for the disaster, and over the next few weeks, thousands more died. The Bhopal plant was operated by Union Carbide India Ltd. (UCIL), with the parent company, Union Carbide, owning roughly 51%. After installing the plant and training its first staff, union carbide withdrew from the daily operation of the plant, as it was required to do by the Indian Government. Union Carbide did participate in the inspections and responded to official questions and concerns, but no US officials of the company was on-site in Bhopal.

Meanwhile, the plant was under a great deal of pressure to cut costs. Due to production problem, it was unable to run at more than 50% capacity, and meeting its original profit predictions had become impossible. A number of shortcuts had thus been taken with such items as crew training, staffing patterns, and maintenance schedules. Although the plant had been virtually shut down for weeks for extensive maintenance and cleaning a number of important safety features remained inoperable - and there remains some question as to whether they would have been adequate even had they been working.

Perhaps most importantly, the staff did not realize the importance of the situation - and even took a break for tea after the leak had been noticed, thinking they would have plenty of time to fix it. The operator in the control room did not notify his supervisor when the temperature began to rise inside the tank, and the entire situation went unattended for atleast an hour. The original procedures called for up to two years of training for employees in critical superintendent capacities, but these men received about a month, using classroom materials developed in the U S and printed in English.

Instructions:

* You are required to discuss and present the case to the rest of the group.* You are free to use aids like acetates, flip charts and OHP.* The time allotted for the final presentations is 10 minutes.