Understanding each Style

Asserting

Evaluating • Stating Expectations • Using Incentives and Pressures

The ‘I’ Style

Asserting comes from the heart. You are clear what it is that you need or want.

Asserting works best when you have legitimate needs, and both you and the other person have something to gain or lose.

When you use Asserting well, your needs, and those of the person you are influencing, are heard and fully understood.

Asserting comprises three Behaviours: Evaluating, Stating Expectations, and Using Incentives and Pressures.

You probably won’t need to use all the Behaviours at the same time to achieve your objective. You can escalate pressure by adding Behaviours if necessary.

Evaluating

Tell the person you want to influence what you do and don’t like about the situation – positive and negative evaluation.

Reinforce the things you like, and make clear what you want to see changed.

Stating Expectations 

Tell the other person what you would like them to do. Do not give reasons.

The other person is completely clear about what you want them to do.

Using Incentives and Pressures 

Tell the other person what will happen if they meet or do not meet your expectations.

The other person knows the choices they have.

Performance Guidance

  • Be specific and explicit when using all of the Behaviours.
  • Don’t use Reasoning – needs are non-rational!
  • Recognise the other person’s need and frame incentives to meet it.
  • Create positive incentives so that you don’t end up Forcing.
  • Planned use of a Pressure can prevent Avoiding.
Example

‘I really like the quality of the reports that you produce for me. What I don’t like is that they are consistently handed in to me late. I don’t want that to happen this time. I need you to give me the report by 5pm on Friday. If you can give it to me by that time I’ll make sure that you get the opportunity to present it to the board on Monday. If you don’t get it in on time then I won’t take the heat for you when I get asked where it is. I’ll let them know that it’s you who’s slowing me down.’

Asserting – Further reading

Background

At birth, we began to express our personal needs to those around us — often very directly! While parents and relatives often complied because they were ‘supposed to’, a more subtle process was at work. At this early stage of our lives, we recognised that these important others felt rewarded by our smiles and felt unhappy or even punished by our tears. We built quickly on this fundamental discovery as our needs became more complex. We learned to state our likes and dislikes more clearly to support our demands. We discovered the value of bargaining — appealing to others’ personal needs in order to meet our own. We learned that it was not always necessary to give reasons for our needs, that it was possible to establish and maintain our rights without constantly having to explain ourselves.

Impact on others

Asserting is PUSH energy based on personal need. It involves three key Behaviours: Stating Expectations, Evaluating, and Using Incentives and Pressures.

People do not always see the personal side to problems. They may not understand the personal consequences their actions have for you or the intuitive decisions you must make to solve a problem. An imbalance of power may exist. Arbitrary acts on the part of others may result in personal losses for you; on other occasions, your actions may cause the target significant difficulty. Asserting encourages the target to see the personal benefits of working with you and in restoring the balance of power in the relationship.

Asserting creates a forum for the exchange of personal information. It is subjective, not objective. Asserting invites the target to bargain, to join in an exchange to meet the needs of both parties.

Asserting has a positive impact both during and after the influence attempt. Through exchange and bargaining, you set a tone and create a climate in which both persons’ needs are legitimised. You and the target reach short-term personal agreement on specific next steps. Such agreements set the stage for mutual satisfaction: you deliver your incentives and the target meets your expectation.

Appropriate use of Asserting

Asserting has the highest impact when:

  • You have legitimate needs in the situation.

Asserting works especially well when your expectation is supported by prevailing cultural or professional standards. An appeal to these standards will give you added strength. Of course, you must adhere to them yourself or you will be perceived as Forcing.

  • You will lose something if your needs are not met.

Asserting is hard work and often involves confronting others. It takes deep personal conviction to invest the energy to use Asserting skillfully. A current or potential personal loss for you in the situation can motivate you to invest this energy.

  • You and the other person have a personal stake.

Asserting may not work if either party is detached or indifferent to the problem (as in some bureaucratic situations). This is one reason why people with positional power, who do not have a personal investment in the situation, do not use Asserting very effectively.

  • You prefer commitment, but compliance is enough.

Asserting your influence objective is a one-time deal. It does not guarantee that your relationship with the person will continue to be productive over time. However, a track record of agreements that are honoured contributes to deeper, more productive working relationships.

  • You are willing to monitor compliance.

There is always work to do after a successful influence attempt. With Asserting, the other person must fulfil the expectation and you must deliver the incentive or pressure. Failure to deliver a promised incentive or apply a forewarned pressure will erode your credibility and have a negative impact.

  • The other person’s need to control is low to moderate.

Asserting does not work very well when the person is highly defensive or when various external factors make compliance difficult. In these situations, you may feel forced to offer incentives and pressures well beyond what you are willing or able to deliver.

  • You control incentives and pressures.

You must be able to deliver your side of the bargain. You should own the incentives or pressures you are using. Do not depend on getting them from third parties, especially if the other person can appeal to those parties directly. Incentives and pressures that come directly from you will be the most powerful.

  • Your incentives meet the other person’s needs.

The other person will respond more positively to your demands when your incentives meet deeply felt, personal needs. Sometimes people have hidden or unrecognised needs that you must uncover first before shaping the bargain to meet them.

Effective Performance of Asserting
  • Balance your Behaviours: use all five Asserting Behaviours.

The Asserting Behaviours complement each other and should always be used together. The expectation tells the target your present need (what to do now). Positive and Negative Evaluation judges past behaviour concerning your need (what has helped me; what has not). Incentives and Pressures offer future consequences that you control (what I’ll do) if the person does or does not meet your expectation. When analysing your Influence Questionnaire results, you may have found that you do not use all these Asserting Behaviours equally.

  • Balance your exchanges: be careful not to force or avoid.

With Asserting, you ask something of the other person and you offer something in return. What you ask for and what you offer should have relatively equal value and force. If what you offer the other person has less value than what he or she has to give you, you are Forcing to meet your objective. If what you offer the other person has more value than what he or she has to give you, you are Avoiding to preserve the relationship.

  • Be specific: each Behaviour should be clear and directly relevant to your objective.

Generalised expectations or incentives will lead to vague reactions or commitments by the other person. Generalised expectations will jeopardise implementation because the other person will not have committed to anything specific. Generalised incentives will have little impact on the target because they lack clear or obvious value.

  • Leave reasoning out: needs are non-rational. Eliminate qualifiers.

Asserting helps you expose and address your own and the other person’s personal needs, not your or their analytical thinking. Because Asserting comes from the gut, Persuading dilutes it. In the same way, Persuading comes from the head and Asserting dilutes it.

  • Keep your tactics positive; create incentives.

Sensitive, innovative incentives drive Asserting. Without incentives, you run the risk of Forcing. This does not undermine the value of pressures, however. Pressures prevent you from falling victim to aggressive targets who respond with anger or resistance to your expectations or who devalue your incentives. Without a pressure, you run the risk of Avoiding. (When and how to use pressures is a tactical consideration that is part of effective influence planning.)

  • Seek and recognise the target’s needs: ‘Hear the need.’

Your demands may create needs for the target, such as costs or difficulties for meeting the expectation. Offer incentives to relieve these difficulties or to replace the other person’s loss with a gain in another area. People invariably resist Asserting with the language of need. This provides fertile ground for bargaining and exchange. Hear the need behind the resistance and frame incentives to meet it.

Asserting Example: Overdue Report

Sam is late completing a sales report that Margaret, his colleague, needs to finish her business forecast. Margaret decides to influence Sam to complete his sales report by four o’clock this afternoon, and to develop a plan for meeting future report deadlines. Margaret will try to reach her objectives by using the Push Style of Asserting. By setting up a process of exchange, Margaret will attempt to meet Sam’s needs as well as her own. In other words, she will bargain for what she wants from Sam.

PART ONE

Margaret: Sam, I need a progress review of that sales report you’re working on. I admire your style of going it alone sometimes, but I need to get involved now.

Sam: Well, I’m afraid the report’s going to be a little late, Margaret, because I had some last-minute problems that I didn’t really expect. But I will get it over to you as soon as I can. I’m heading back to my desk right now. Maybe we can discuss this later.

Margaret: I need to talk now. Now, I appreciate your hard work, but it isn’t helping me with my problems. Now, if you give me a few minutes now, I’ll do what I can to help you get the report done.

Sam: Okay, okay. Just a few minutes, though. I really do want to get back to it.

Margaret: Sam, I need your field report now. I have to finish my work in time for the management committee meeting tomorrow.

Sam: Well, I don’t want to make you late for the meeting, Margaret. But I’ve got a basic problem here, and that involves the numbers I got from the field. You see, I thought I’d be on schedule this time. But the numbers I got from the field didn’t add up, so I had to go back to them for corrections. Now I have to redo all my calculations.

Margaret: Sam, look, I’m glad you told me what’s happening. But you’re holding this project too close to your chest. Now, I’m willing to wait till four o’clock this afternoon to get your report — now, that’s eight hours from now — but only if you let me get involved.

Sam: I don’t know, Margaret. Four o’clock! Look, what about tomorrow morning?

Margaret: No, Sam, that’s not okay. Listen, I’m willing to help and to extend the deadline to four o’clock, but only if you get me involved. And I’m willing to drop the things that I have to do in order to help you make it happen. Now, if you can’t get the report done by four, then I’m going to have to protect myself this time. I won’t take joint responsibility for being late. And, I’m not going to sit quietly and let the management committee think that I was responsible for the delay.

Sam: Well, if I’m going to get the report done by four, then I’ll definitely need your help.

Margaret: Okay, if you lay out all the work and the amount of time it’ll take, I’ll work with you to help figure out where I can pitch in. Now, some of my staff might be available to help, too. I want to know what parts of the report others can do, and what part you need to do yourself.

Sam: Well, first of all, we need to double-check all the numbers. That’s something that you and the others could do, I guess. In the meantime, I could set up…

PART TWO

Narrator: Sam and Margaret work out an agreement with one another where Sam will share the load, Margaret will extend the time, and both will finish their work in time for the management committee meeting. Now, Margaret will use Asserting to influence Sam to get his reports done on time in the future. She will use Asserting to disengage from the discussion at the end.

Margaret: Sam, I like the quality of your reports. They’re detailed and they’re accurate. But I don’t like getting them late. It bothers me when you miss deadlines and it causes me to miss mine. I want to prevent this from ever happening again.

Sam: Well, what are you suggesting?

Margaret: I want you to develop a detailed work plan for your future reports.

Sam: Even if we have a plan, that won’t prevent these data problems from happening.

Margaret: Sam, if you’re willing to develop a standard plan that we can follow every time you do these reports, I’m willing to work with you and deal with any obstacles that come up. But if you don’t do a plan, don’t count on any last minute help from me anymore. This is the last time I’m going to dig you out of this hole.

Sam: Well, I’m willing to develop a plan. I mean, that should be easy enough. But the key problem is the numbers from the field that we have to spend so much time fixing. I already told you about that.

Margaret: Yeah, well, I’m glad you see we need a plan. But you’re a little too preoccupied with the field data. It’s not something that you can control. Now, I want you to focus on what you can do to manage the process.

Sam: Well, I’m willing to go along with you, if you’re willing to put some time in on it with me.

Margaret: Okay. I think we’re getting somewhere. Look. Get this report done, then meet me for lunch tomorrow. I have some ideas on how to handle the field data that I’m willing to share with you. That is, if you’re willing to take charge of the problem.

Sam: Oh, I am, I am. I want a smoother process too.

Asserting Example: Videos

STYLE: Asserting

BEHAVIOUR: Stating Expectations

Apollo 13 / Failure is Not an Option

Summary:

After listening to technical arguments, Ed Harris states his expectations to the ground crew.

Excerpt:

Kranz: Well, we’re gonna have to figure it out. I want people in our simulators working re-entry scenarios. I want you guys to find every engineer who designed every switch, every circuit, every transistor and every light bulb that’s up there. Then I want you to talk to the guy in the assembly line who had actually built the thing. Find out how to squeeze every amp out of both of these goddamn machines. I want this mark all the way back to Earth with time to spare.

STYLE: Asserting

BEHAVIOUR: Using Incentives (and pressures)

Barefoot in the Park / A Real Kiss (NOTE: MILD SEXUAL CONTENT)

Summary:

Jane Fonda exerts pressure on her new husband.

Excerpt:

Corie: Was that a kiss? ‘Cos boy if that’s what kisses are going to be like from now on don’t bother to come back at five thirty.’

Paul: Corie I can’t kiss you anymore. My lips are numb, now will you please go inside?

Corie: If you don’t give me, a real kiss, I’m gonna give you back your pyjamas . . . right now.

Asserting Exercises

Exercise 1

Influence a group member to take a step today that you truly believe would be good for him or her (for example, change diet, initiate or change an exercise routine, alter a habit, or do some extra programme study). State your expectation clearly and specifically. Use a positive evaluation to highlight the behaviours you want maintained and a negative evaluation to focus on behaviours you want to change. Find the right balance of incentives and pressures to achieve your objective. The target should respond genuinely.

Exercise 2

Use Asserting to influence another person in the group to spend a half-hour with you today to review your ISQ analysis. State your expectations specifically (time, location, work to be done, and so on). Evaluate to emphasise the useful qualities this person could bring to the effort and to handle objections. Use appropriate incentives and pressures to guide the target toward a decision to help you. The target should respond realistically.

Exercise 3

You are dining in a fine restaurant and have just sampled an expensive bottle of wine. It has a slightly sour taste. A waiter is standing by impatiently, ready to pour the wine. Choose another group member to play the waiter, who assumes that you have unsophisticated tastes. Use Asserting to influence the waiter to replace the bottle of wine. The waiter should resist.

Exercise 4

Choose another member to play the role of a specific authority figure in your life (parent, teacher, present or former boss) who has not treated you the way that you want to be treated. Use Asserting to influence a change in his or her behaviour from now on. The other person may respond in any manner.

Exercise 5

Challenge another person to bargain with you. Each of you will put one pound on the floor. You will have 2 minutes to agree on the unequal division of the 2 pounds. If you have not reached agreement by the deadline, the observer(s) must give their feedback and then award the 2 pounds to the person they believe did the best job. This must be real, and the money is to be kept by the person who receives it at the end of the exercise. Find an exchange that works for both parties.

Exercise 6

Your manager has just informed you that you will have additional new responsibilities as part of your job. Use Asserting to get your manager to remove at least one of your current projects in order to allow you to assume these new duties. Your manager will resist without becoming dictatorial.

Exercise 7

Your colleague in another department attends the same coordinating meetings that you do. While you get along well together personally, this person behaves unprofessionally in the weekly coordinating meetings that involve others. Specifically, your colleague gets angry and upset when others disagree with him or her. Use Asserting to get your colleague to change this behaviour.

Exercise 8

Your manager has made some recent decisions that have caused your group to lose much-needed administrative support, but without consulting you in detail. Use Asserting to convince this person to involve you more significantly in the next round of decision making. Your manager will resist without becoming dictatorial.