Disengaging

Understanding the influence action

Moving Away Energy

The four influence Styles, used well and in the right situation, will mean you are able to be more influential and achieve your personal objectives. However there will be times when you, or the other person, are not open to influence: when things get too heated or you feel stuck. In those situations you will need to Move Away.

There are two ways of using Moving Away Energy: Disengaging and Avoiding

Disengaging

Postponing • Giving and Getting Feedback • Changing the Subject • Taking a break 

Disengaging is clear, intentional, temporary and focussed. You can use any of the influence Styles to disengage.

Why Disengage

  • To manage tension and stress (especially your own)
  • To stay issue-orientated
  • To change the influence environment
  • To maintain strength and purpose

Performance Guidance

  • Be explicit about your Disengaging objective
  • Be explicit about your intention to re-engage
  • Don’t fade away! Be clear, energetic, and focussed
  • If the other person resists, use the full influence Style
  • If you use Bridging, you are open to influence about whether to Disengage

 

When you Disengage well, you allow time for you and the other person to think and reflect so that you can proceed positively. Disengaging should be clear, intentional, temporary, and focused. You can use any of the four influence Styles to Disengage.

There are four actions you can take:

Taking a break: a short break before reconvening (15 minutes)

Postponing: Rescheduling the conversation for another time

Giving and Getting Feedback: Discussing how you are working together and changing ground rules

Changing the Subject: Moving on to a different topic temporarily

You can disengage in any Style. Listed on the next few pages are four Style examples for each action.

Persuading: I suggest we take this matter up at a later time. There are some good reasons to do so. We’re both very busy now. You have three appointments today, and I’m in the middle of a project.

Asserting: I like your willingness to talk about the issue. I’m not happy about entering the discussion unprepared. I want you to wait until tomorrow to have our meeting. If you do, I’ll bring in all my data and show how it can contribute to a quality solution. If you aren’t willing to postpone the meeting, I’ll be unable to answer the hard questions.

Bridging: From your reaction, it seems that I’m raising this question without alerting you in advance. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to catch you off-guard. What might we do that would give you the time you need to prepare?

Attracting: I know both of us believe in this project and want to give it our best shot. I can see us coming back to this rested and refreshed! Both of us will be ready to jump in, fully prepared.

Persuading: Let’s review what we’ve done so far. We’ve spent an hour working on this project and we’ve made some real progress. We’ve come up with two new approaches that we hadn’t thought of before. If we exchange data now on the pros and cons of our working process, we should be able to pinpoint some additional ways to make us even more productive.

Asserting: I like your commitment to this project, but I need you to be more constructive. I want us to exchange some direct feedback on this issue. If you’re willing to hear me out, I’m willing to listen to you and make my behaviour more constructive too.

Bridging: I’m missing some important information here. Help me out. How is this approach working for you? Is there anything I can do to make it work better?

Attracting: We’re really making progress on this project, and I know we both want it to succeed. I see us emerging from this effort as a really powerful, unified team. Let’s set our sights really high! What do you see as the best way to work together?

Persuading: I suggest we table this subject for now and take it up again after we review the other issues. Think it through with me. We’ve been at it for an hour, and our work is halfway done. I believe the other topics will give us a perspective on this one.

Asserting: I’m glad you brought up this topic, but I’m unwilling to discuss it yet. I am willing to think about it in detail if you’ll take up the next subject first. We can come back to this topic later, when I’ve had a chance to put my thoughts together on it. If you insist on taking it up now, I’ll have to say ‘no.’

Bridging: Help me out. I’m unprepared to discuss this issue adequately right now. What other issues could we cover now that would give me some time to think about this one?

Attracting: It’s really clear that we both feel that this issue is critical and that it will take a long time to resolve. We’ve done a lot of work listening to each other and we agree on many points so far. We’ve built up a lot of momentum, and both of us seem eager to keep moving ahead. Let’s put our heads together on another issue now and see how far we can go on that. I bet we’ll hit our stride right away. When we come back to the issue you just brought up, nothing will get in our way. It’ll be easy.

Persuading: I suggest we take a break. My thinking is that we’ve spent two hours so far, and we have some good issues to think about. A ten minute break now makes sense if we’re going to go on for the rest of the day.

Asserting: I’m glad you’ve been willing to work so hard on the problem, but I need you to allow me some time to think. Give me until after lunch to review your reactions. If you do that, I’ll answer your specific questions in detail when we get back together.

Bridging: I need some help here because I’m really overloaded. I’m looking for a way to get some time to think about your proposal. How about you?

Attracting: The two of us have accomplished a lot this morning. With a few minutes to reflect, I can see us coming back recharged, ready to give it an even bigger jolt of energy! We’ll be able to bore through this mountain and find a vein of gold!

Disengaging is always tactical; the influencer’s goal is to:

 

  • Manage tension and stress (especially your own).
  • Remain issue-oriented, not personal. Do not provoke or be provoked.
  • Work to change the influence environment so that you can reengage. When you reengage, your influence energy will be more productive.
  • Maintain strength and purpose.

When to Disengage

There are four typical situations where Disengaging is particularly appropriate:

  • Low reactor. The other person does not react to your influence efforts.
  • High negative reactor. The other person reacts very negatively (perhaps unexpectedly so).
  • Off-Style. New or unexpected information surfaces that affects either how you influence or your Influence Objective.
  • Emotions overwhelm. The other person reacts emotionally (not necessarily negative).

Disengaging Actions

We can Disengage by:

  • Postponing. Reschedule to create more positive conditions.
  • Giving and Getting Feedback. Step back temporarily to explore how you and your target are working together, and to modify or add ground rules.
  • Changing the Subject. Use humour or a story, or move to a less difficult topic to create more positive conditions for reengaging the difficult topic.
  • Taking a Break. Suggest a rest period, caucus, refreshment break, or meal. Include a plan to reengage

Avoiding

 

You Avoid a situation when you use Moving Away Energy unconsciously, and you discard your Influence Objective because the situation is too difficult or painful. Avoiding is negative influence and its impact on the other person is negative. Whilst Avoiding will give you short-term relief, in the long-term it will mean you fail to achieve objectives or that you damage relationships.

Often we are not aware that we are Avoiding. Using the Model helps us identify this Behaviour and use positive influence instead.

In most influence situations, Avoiding will be unproductive.

  • Sometimes we do not see ourselves Avoiding, our influence target feels its impact first.
  • Avoiding means abandoning the Influence Objective: giving in, giving up, getting out of the situation.

Disengaging – Further reading

Background

Early in our lives, we responded to conflict and anxiety with the instinctive ‘flight or fight’ response. As we grew up, we found a third path. We learned to handle internal or external conflict constructively, to hold off instinctive reactions, and to find more positive ways to solve problems. We found it beneficial to withdraw from heated situations long enough to cool down or change, to think about things and reflect on our feelings, and to return ready to work through the tension successfully. When we discovered that others had as much difficulty dealing with tension as we did, we became more sensitive to their inability to cope under certain circumstances. We pulled back to give them room to regain their equilibrium. We learned the advantages of tactically withdrawing when others needed time to think, sort out their options, or reconsider the arbitrary nature of their positions. We found that being patient and backing off was a strength, not a weakness.

Impact on others

Disengaging is Moving Away energy used constructively. It involves four optional actions: Postponing, Giving and Getting Feedback, Changing the Subject, and Taking a Break.

People perform best at moderate stress. An influence situation that has little tension in it for you or the target will not yield very good results. However, if stress is too high, you or the target will be too preoccupied with your own feelings to have a constructive interaction. It is not necessary to persevere against all odds. The skillful influencer paces the interaction and manages tension positively.

Disengaging encourages the target to maintain a constructive pace. It allows both parties to think and reflect, to express concerns about working style and process, and to proceed at a pace that is productive for both of you.

Appropriate use of Disengaging

Disengaging has the highest impact when:

  • Tension is unmanageable.

No matter how good you are at using influence skills, there will be times when you unexpectedly overload the other person or yourself. A temporary halt in the action will lessen tension and restore a productive balance in the situation.

  • You unintentionally slip out of Style or perform a Style ineffectively.

Failure to stay with the Best Style for the Objective (BSO) may jeopardise results. Going off-track or not performing well are normal occurrences. Anticipate this possibility and describe in your Action Plan the conditions in which you might Disengage.

  • New or unknown facts arise.

New information may disrupt or jeopardise your Action Plan. While it is possible to anticipate and plan for some new developments, it is not possible to anticipate all of them. A ‘known unknown’ is possible to anticipate; an ‘unknown unknown’ is not. Disengaging may be a better option than stumbling around in the dark.

  • The other person needs time to think.

Be realistic about the other person’s ability to absorb and react to influence. Control your pace accordingly. Moving too fast may cause him or her to agree superficially with your position at first and react negatively later.

  • One of you starts Forcing or Avoiding.

The other person may overreact to you or be caught off-guard and respond inappropriately by pulling away or attacking you. If this occurs, stop influencing. Disengage to plan more constructive behaviour. Remember, the other person has the same need you do to manage tension and stress. Disengage if you cannot stop Forcing or Avoiding. Get back on track with positive influence behaviour.

  • The other person reacts with low energy.

When the other person does not return your energy, either intentionally or unintentionally, you might react by over-talking, exaggerating, or provoking him or her to respond. Be aware of this tendency and disengage before resorting to such reactive behaviour.

  • The other person reacts very negatively.

Few people are able to manage themselves well in the face of outright hostility or ambitious attack. Sometimes this extreme behaviour is not premeditated. In other cases, the other person intentionally may be trying to provoke you. Disengage to revise your objective toward handling or changing his or her negative behaviour.

  • The other person reacts very emotionally.

Strong emotional responses or out-of-control behaviour of any kind (extreme sorrow, anger, fear, and even glee) produce formidable barriers to thoughtful behaviour. Give him or her time to reestablish physical and mental equilibrium. Calm people respond better to influence than agitated people.

Effective Performance of Disengaging

  • Refrain from Avoiding.

If you signal weakness and lack of commitment to your objective, the other person may perceive you as Avoiding. Make sure to have a specific Disengaging objective (Postponing, Giving and Getting Feedback, Changing the Subject, or Taking a Break) and communicate this objective to the other person. Giving a clear functional rationale to the other person for Moving Away will strengthen your position and assure the other person’s positive reaction.

  • Declare your intention to reengage.

Resuming active influence is the key to effective Disengaging. Inform the other person that Disengaging is temporary and that reengaging is a certainty. This will add energy and purpose to your Disengaging actions. For example, Giving and Getting Feedback will be more productive when you discuss with the person how you might work together more productively when you reengage.

  • Convey strength and purpose.

Fading away does not support positive influence. Disengaging should be sharp, clear, energetic, and focused toward the specific actions of Postponing, Giving and Getting Feedback, Changing the Subject, or Taking a Break.

  • Do not let the other person provoke you.

If the other person makes you angry, consider Taking a Break. Even a few seconds to compose yourself and count to ten may help you to defuse your anger or redirect it toward solving the problem. Consider returning to the session by Giving and Getting Feedback.

  • Do not provoke the other person.

Use Disengaging to remain focused on the issue, not on personal attack. If the other person is behaving inappropriately, use positive power and influence to redirect your attention to your influence objective.

  • Make full use of an appropriate Influence Style if the other person resists Disengaging.

In some situations, the other person will welcome the opportunity to disengage. At other times, he or she will resist. When this happens, you will need to use a full Influence Style to accomplish the Disengaging objective. For example, when Changing the Subject you might use Asserting: I want to table this now. I appreciate your comments, but I find your anger hard to deal with. If you’re willing to move on to the next topic, I’ll consider your position carefully and return to it later. If we keep arguing, I’ll have to end the meeting and reconsider other options to working with you. Remember, if you use Bridging, you must be open to influence about whether or not to disengage!