Hello, and welcome. My name is Neil Godin and I’m your host here at This Week – a complimentary service that brings you leadership and communication tips, tricks and tutorials every Monday morning – along with a challenge – to put each week’s call to action into practice.
In this week’s post, we explore The Big Idea behind the entire series:
The big idea that drives the program is my belief that there’s a huge missing piece in the puzzle of human development. Advanced in so many other ways we have yet to develop the latent ability to manage our fight-or-flight reactions when provoked. As you know fight-or-flight is the hard-wired survival mechanism that kept us alive in prehistoric times when we were routinely chased by wild animals and had to react instantly. Today we rarely see saber-tooth tigers on the sidewalks of your town or mine, but most of us still react in the same biological ways when someone throws a cheap shot our way.
Reaction management: an essential skill for leaders
Without this essential skill (which I simply call ‘reaction management’) most of us react in anger; argue over nothing; carry self-sabotaging grudges, and talk ‘about’ instead of ‘to’ the other person when we have a problem with someone. If we play a leadership role at work we may tend to attack the person more than the problem when mistakes are made. We may blame and criticize instead of collaborating and coaching – driving people away instead of keeping them engaged and enthusiastically working with us. We do this without realizing that instead of simply reacting we could pause the action, and give ourselves time to come up with a response that would serve us better.
Reaction management: easy to describe and grasp – very difficult to practice
My guiding purpose in publishing this series is to share some of what I’ve learned about this life-saving skill (a skill that’s easy to describe but very difficult to practice BTW) and a range of topics related to it. I want to emphasize that while the skill of reaction management is naturally well developed in a fortunate few – and, fortunately, while we all have the capacity to develop this ability – most of us really have to work at it.
Here’s an example of reaction management in action…
Say you’re in a meeting or discussion… You enthusiastically share what you think is a really good idea. But someone turns to a neighbor and does an eye roll. How do you feel? Insulted? Slighted? Embarrassed? Hurt? Betrayed? Angry? All of the above? Have you been in a situation like this? Do you remember any of the anger symptoms you experienced: Tensing, flushing, perspiring, stomach knotting, rapid shallow breathing, trembling? Again, unless you’re one of those lucky few who seem genetically predisposed to remain calm and clear-headed, this is where reaction management can really help.
Could an eye roll lead to war?
Our eye roll example may seem petty but the consequences of something so simple can be horrific. For example, a barely visible eye roll during peace talks between two countries at war could easily be interpreted as an insult or deception. Though such assumptions are rarely questioned, this could bring an abrupt end to negotiations – and send the troops back into life and death battle. Over what? They may never know.
Catch yourself in the act
The reaction management process is straightforward. When provoked the idea is to ‘Catch Your Self In The Act’ of reacting and train yourself to interrupt and over-ride that initial knee-jerk reaction. Then you quickly begin deep nasal breathing, which drives oxygen to the brain, enabling you to think clearly – which in turn enables you to generate options and consciously choose an effective response. Our mantra for this process is ‘Stop and Breathe. Think and Choose.’ ‘Stop and Breathe. Think and Choose.’
Deep nasal breathing is a critical skill
Described by psychologists as ‘The Relaxation Response’ deep nasal breathing is vital because it’s the antidote to the adrenaline, cortisol and other powerful chemicals released during the Fight/Flight response. Deep nasal breathing pumps oxygen to our ‘thinking brain’ (known in science as our prefrontal cortex). This restores the oxygen supply to the brain that was hijacked during the initial knee-jerk reaction and was used to feed the muscles of the upper and lower body in preparation for fight or flight.
Reaction management enables us to use other vital skills
Reaction management forms the foundation of our program because it’s a gateway skill – a practice that enables us to use other vital skills – such as deep nasal breathing and active listening – when we’re triggered. For example, we may know very well that we need to practice deep nasal breathing in fight or flight situations – and we may know very well how to do so – but we can’t use this knowledge in the heat of the moment unless we’re able to catch ourselves reacting and stop the action – giving ourselves time to think and to choose our response consciously.
What can we learn from Navy SEALs?
There is ample evidence that these tactics work. For many years stress monitoring and reaction management techniques have been used by Navy SEALs, SWAT teams, elite athletes, air traffic controllers, emergency room medical staff, and first responders in all fields. In particular, Navy SEALs are noted for training members in a nasal breathing technique they call ‘Tactical Breathing’ that helps them remain calm when in action.
This Week’s Call to Action
This week I encourage you to take reaction management for a spin using these activities:
One: Watch, listen and reflect as others deal with aggravations and provocations – at work, at home, in traffic and out there in the world. This is a consciousness-raising exercise. Do you see and hear opportunities for reaction management? Can you see yourself reacting in similar non-productive ways? Can you imagine yourself stopping the action; deep-breathing, thinking and choosing – instead of just reacting?
Two: Look for and act on opportunities to practice the skill. Whenever you feel irritated, annoyed or provoked (for example, when you’re honked at in traffic, or stuck in a line-up, or hit with a cheap shot or insult at work) – any situation where just reacting would be a waste of your time and energy, or could lead to unnecessary, destructive conflict.
Three: Practice using our mantra, “Stop and Breathe. Think and Choose.” “Stop and Breathe. Think and Choose.”
Words of caution:
One: When given a brief overview like the above many participants in my leadership training courses responded by questioning whether this skill is actually needed. “Isn’t this just common sense?” is the single most frequent question I heard. My response (with a smile)… “If common sense was common practice, I’d be out of work.” I urged them, and now you, to suspend judgment. Just allow yourself to be open to seeing and hearing how you and others react when feeling provoked – threatened, attacked, agitated, disgusted, disappointed or alarmed.
Two: Concentrate on the small things that aggravate or provoke you. They give you lots of opportunities to practice, and to experience success, because they are easiest to deal with and happen frequently.
Three: Frequency is key to success in forming this new habit. The more we feel ourselves reacting, and the more we step in to stop the action – the more we become the true adult in the room. The more we speak and act for ourselves – rather than allowing our selves to be hijacked by a loose cannon alter ego who happily jumps in to represent us – without being invited to do so. (You know exactly what I mean if you have ever said something in the heat of the moment that you really wish you hadn’t said.)
Four: Be aware that the hardest part of this practice is training ourselves to ‘Stop’ when we’re triggered. At first, if you’re like most people, you will find yourself mentally saying ‘Stop’ when you’ve already erupted. When this happens don’t be surprised. For most of us remembering this critical first step is the greatest challenge in learning the skill. (BTW, when we’re a little late our mantras are, ‘better late than never’ and ‘It’s never too late.’)
Key point: We can’t eliminate the fight/flight response (it’s our human survival system; it’s wired hard, and has kept us alive for a very long time), we’re just trying to delay our response by a second or two, to give ourselves time to think. See you next week.
OK – Great idea. Stop. Breathe. Think of your response.
I’ll practise the heavy intake of oxygen next time this happens. Thankfully, it rarely does.