English for personal assistants - part 31 pps

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Task 5
Read the descriptions of the ‘silent-as-a-tomb’ and the ‘out-and-out moaner’ and
make a note of what strategies you could use to deal with them.
The ‘silent-as-a-tomb’
The silent-as-a-tomb is just that – they don’t express their opinions openly and let you
think that they agree with everything, when in fact they often don’t. A typical saying of
theirs is “I told you so” when something doesn’t go according to plan – but, of course,
they didn’t because they never opened their mouths in the first place.
The out-and-out moaner
The out-and-out moaner hasn’t heard of looking on the bright side – they’re
permanently on the dark side. Life is a pain for them and they are perpetually
disappointed and always complaining loudly about it. They also tend to be nit-pickers
and have no problem finding fault with everything. The out-and-out moaner has a
Dracula-like effect on groups – they suck the lifeblood out of discussions and dampen
enthusiasm in group dynamics.
᭿ Task 6
Read through the six categories again and think about whether you know anyone who
fits one of these descriptions.
Positive vs negative communication
It goes without saying that difficult people tend to use negative language but as these
people can make us feel utterly miserable, defensive, and stressed out, we too can fall
very easily into the trap of using negative language. Remember negative
communication is: non-communication, destructive, never brings closure, and never
achieves victory. Think about the connotations of a person in the public eye using ‘No
comment’ when asked for their opinion on a matter. The effect that this utterance has
is to alienate us from the speaker, we immediately think that they are guilty of
whatever they’re refusing to comment on, and we start to imagine that they may have
done something even worse. Newspapers all over the world, of course, go to town
whenever there’s a ‘no comment’ response to their reporters’ questions. By contrast,
have a look at an excerpt from Martin Luther King’s famous speech. He said:

150 Dealing with difficult people
Example
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don’t encourage the out-and-out moaner to continue to complain by asking them
detailed questions about every aspect of their complaint.
Copyright: Martin Luther King, August 28, 1963.
From a speech delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC
He did not say, “My dream will not come true and, therefore, it’s not worth having.
My children will never cease to be the targets of racism – they’ll always be victims
because of the colour of their skin and so I have no dream.” A truly powerful
communicator will always use positive rather than negative communication to drive
their point home.
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Task 7
Have a look at these examples of negative communication and find another way of
getting the message across in a more positive manner. For example: these figures are
really bad – these figures could be better
1. That’s not how it’s done
2. You’re wrong
3. It won’t work
4. I see no reason to disagree
5. I don’t like X
6. Just because I didn’t say X, it doesn’t mean
7. That’s not a bad idea
8. There is no real reason for us not to cooperate
9. We can’t do it without you
10. There isn’t any right way to do X
Assertiveness
In general, we need to be assertive in our communication style and especially when
we’re dealing with difficult people. Think about when you’re asked to do something

that you don’t really want to do and, also, don’t have the time to do, what do you say?
“Yes, of course I will”, “You must be joking!”, or “I’d really like to help you but I’m
afraid I haven’t got the time?”
These responses are examples of 3 common approaches to asserting your needs.
‘Non-assertive’ behaviour happens if you express your needs as being less important
than other people’s; ‘aggressive’ behaviour is when you express your needs as being
more important than others’, ‘assertive’ behaviour stems from the belief that your
Assertiveness 151
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of
its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”
I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will
not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have
a dream today.
needs are as important as those of other people and should be the target behaviour for
PAs and secretaries working both on a national and international basis. Assertive
behaviour involves:
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standing up for your rights without treading on other people
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expressing your feelings and opinions in a suitable and appropriate manner
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showing you are listening to and understand other people’s opinions and feelings
The problem is how to be assertive in a sensitive way. Imagine this situation: Maria
and Susanna both work as PAs to the CEO of a large company and share the same
boss. Whenever, there is a challenging task, the boss assigns it to Maria and continues
to assign the more routine tasks to Susanna. The boss has never indicated that he finds
Maria more competent than Susanna. Unsurprisingly, Susanna is hurt and frustrated
by her boss’ behaviour and decides to do something about it.
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Task 8

Look at the three ways Susanna handles the situation and a) decide in each case
whether her behaviour is aggressive, non-assertive, or assertive and b) analyse the
effectiveness of her response and the likely outcome.
1. Susanna knocks quietly at the boss’ door and sidles in and starts to speak, whilst
looking at the floor. “Er, er, sorry to bother you but I was just kind of thinking about
the work I do. It’s really not important if you haven’t got the time but what I really
wanted to say was that I’m very happy here but mm mm what I mean is (pause)
the job er er ”
2. Susanna marches into her boss’ office and stands right in front of his desk, staring
him right in the face and yells, “Why the hell do I always get the boring jobs? You
always give Maria the interesting stuff and I get the rubbish! I’m just as good as
she is and unless you change this, I’m out of here!”
3. Susanna arranges a meeting with her boss. At the meeting she says, “I don’t know
whether you’ve realised this but over the last few weeks, you’ve given all the
interesting jobs to Maria. As far as I know, you think we’re both equally competent
yet I continue to get the routine tasks. I feel rather hurt by this and I’d like to have
the opportunity to take on some more challenging tasks too. How can we remedy
the situation?”
The following points will help you to distinguish appropriate language linked to being
‘assertive’ from being ‘non-assertive’ or ‘aggressive.’
Non-assertive
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avoidance of ‘I’
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qualifying phrases e.g., ‘it’s only my opinion ’, ‘sorry to bother you ’, ‘I wonder
if ’
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using a lot of fillers, such as: ‘you know’, ‘sort of’, ‘like’ etc.
152 Dealing with difficult people
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putting yourselves down e.g., ‘I’m not very good at this ’, ‘I know I’m not an
expert’
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using phrases which make it easy for others to ignore your needs e.g., ‘it’s not really
important’, ‘it doesn’t matter’ etc.
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using long convoluted sentences often justifying yourself
Aggressive
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overuse of ‘I’
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stating your opinions as facts e.g., ‘that strategy won’t work’, ‘that’s a bad idea’
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using threatening phrases, e.g., ‘you’d better ’
᭤ putting others down or belittling their contributions ‘you must be joking’, ‘you
can’t be serious’ etc.
᭤ overuse of strong modals e.g., ‘you have to’ ‘you must ’ etc.
᭤ blaming others e.g., ‘it was your fault’, ‘it was your idea’ ‘you decided to ’ etc.
Assertive
᭤ making contributions that are brief and to the point
᭤ Using open-ended questions to elicit contributions from others, e.g.,: ‘What do you
think?’, ‘How do you feel about such an approach?’
᭤ using ‘I’ statements where appropriate e.g., ‘I think ’, ‘I feel ’, ‘I’d like ’
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distinguishing clearly between fact and experience e.g., ‘in my opinion ’, ‘in my
experience ’
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avoiding strong modals e.g., ‘You could ’, ‘It would be better if you ’, ‘I think
you should’
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actively looking for cooperative solutions to problems, e.g., ‘how can we solve
this?’
Assertiveness 153
Being assertive
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Task 9
Have a look at the following situations and decide what you would say. Your objective
is to be assertive.
1. You are working on a very important project at the moment together with a
colleague. But whenever you ask your colleague to do something on the project,
she’s always too busy. You are becoming increasingly frustrated. Send her an
email explaining how you feel and asking her if you can meet her to talk about it.
2. One of your team members left you a message asking you to take on some extra
work. You are very busy at the moment and already spending long hours in the
office and, therefore, don’t want to add even more to your heavy workload. Leave
her a voicemail refusing to take on the work and explaining why.
3. You have enrolled on a two-day course on PowerPoint presentations – the course
starts tomorrow and you made the arrangements two months ago. Your boss, who
is currently away on business, has just left you a voicemail asking you to cancel the
course as she needs you to prepare a presentation on a new product your company
is launching. Send her an email explaining that you really need to attend the course
to improve your PowerPoint skills and pointing out that a) the graphics department
could prepare the slides and b) that if you go on the course, you will be able to
prepare more professional slides in the future.
One aspect of being assertive is choice of language but assertiveness also has certain
characteristics:
Owning feelings e.g., “it hurts my feelings” Maintain eye contact and appropriate body
language – don’t look at the floor, hunch
over etc.
Avoiding confrontation – don’t use threats,

evaluations, or dogmatic terms
Maintain a firm and pleasant tone of voice –
don’t yell or mumble
Use specific statements directed to the
situation, “as far as I know, you think we’re
equally competent.”
Avoid ‘um’ and ‘er’ – it makes you sound
indecisive
N.B. Cultural differences
Remember that assertive behaviour is primarily practised in Anglo-Saxon/North
European cultures. In Far Eastern cultures, ‘saving face’ can be more important than
achieving personal satisfaction. However, in Latin cultures, self-expression may go far
beyond what we find acceptable to the point of ‘machismo’ especially when applied to
men. Thus, how we use assertiveness may be perceived by other cultures as too
aggressive or, on the other hand, as not assertive enough.
154 Dealing with difficult people