Rev. Chad David, ChadDavid.ca, learning to love dumb people (like me)

The Importance of Being Direct – and having trust

In the last few lessons I’ve mentioned how I’ve been trying to be more direct in how I communicate.  For most of my adult life I’d say I was more of the “just take it” kind of person, which is essentially recognizing something is wrong, but choosing not to say anything in order to avoid conflict and/or to upset the other person.  The direct title for this is lying.  I was a liar.  I wasn’t lying to manipulate anyone, which is the main reason lying has a bad reputation, but it’s still not honest.  In a way I was basically saying, “I see you as being too weak to handle the truth,” or “I’m too weak to handle any potential fallback.”  Of course, when I was young I had a stint where I also did the typical teenager/passive aggressive thing where I’d use the “read between the lines” idea and hope the other person would figure out what I wanted when I said I was fine because I wanted to feel like they knew me and cared about me – a very foolish option.  Being direct is my attempt at being assertive, but it can definitely be seen as aggressive.  After all, there is a line we want to try to find as seen in the following scale:

No Directness (-10)—————-Healthy Directness (0) —————-Overly Direct (+10)
 
Healthy Directness means you are considering your audience and adjusting to how blunt or gentle you need to be in the situation.  I generally teach people to use questions instead of statements to soften the approach and force the other person to self reflect, but it’s amazing how even this can sometimes be considered too direct because it calls someone out on bad behavior.  Of course, if a person doesn’t like the question because it calls them out that’s a them problem.  For instance, if I ask my six or four year old, “Are you trying to be rude or am I misreading it?” (a common question I’ll ask when they’re being rude), I’m being direct in a kind way because I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt by giving two options – maybe they’re not presenting themselves properly.  They might not like being called out on their behavior, but this is better than if I tell them not to be rude (at least for me) because what kind of response will I get for saying that? “Thank you, Father for guiding me to better behavior”? Absolutely… not.  Telling someone not to be rude is almost always met with increased rudeness.  At least this question puts the pressure back on them and increases the chances of them responding differently.

Of course, if you ask this kind of two option question to an adult, “Was that meant to be a guilt trip or were you simply sharing how you felt?” and they’re giving you a guilt trip, they’re likely going to accuse you of being too direct (or they’ll start yelling at you to distract from their poor choice of being bad).  In these situations, this is not being too direct; it’s just frustrating for the other person because they either suck or had a sucky moment.

Sometimes, however, asking a two option question can be too direct.  For instance, I was talking to a friend who mentioned that on public transit it’s frustrating when people put their bags on a chair while someone else is left standing because there aren’t enough seats.  My two option style question, “Excuse me, are you too distracted to think to offer the seat beside you to someone or are you simply being rude by having your bag there?” is a little too direct (and lengthy).  In situations like these it’s better to simply ask: “Can I sit there?” or “Can you please move your bag, so that person can sit there?” This proves that sometimes asking a question to understand someone isn’t the right approach because it’s overcomplicating things.  Sometimes we need to just ask for what we want, and then if they don’t comply we can ask them a two-option question for better understanding: “Did you say no to moving your bag because you are not wanting someone to sit beside you since you’re embarrassed by your disgusting BO or are you just that big a selfish jerk?” Okay, that question might be more insulting than necessary, but it’s probably not far off.

One of my pet peeves is people who use the Compliment Sandwich (aka the Crap Sandwich).  In this concept, you give someone a compliment before and after giving the negative point.  The overall idea of this makes sense; we should try to offer positive thoughts to people.  Unfortunately, the timing is stupid (is that too direct?) When you give a negative point, it erases any compliments before or after because all the person retains is the negative.  It also teaches us that we only receive compliments when we’re about to be criticized.  I recently had someone give me a compliment and I waited for the insult to follow… but it never came.  I ended up missing out on hearing the compliment because I was too worried about what was about to hit.  Clearly, I’ve been around too many Compliment Sandwich people because when something positive is being shared I’m waiting for the “but”.  The problem with the Compliment Sandwich is it doesn’t matter what kind of bread is used, the middle is still full of crap.  (In this situation I’m basically calling a duck a duck, which is being very direct).  If you want to balance any correctional feedback, it should be done on its own.  We should simply compliment people at random.  The problem is most people are terrible are giving positive feedback without a hidden agenda (aka manipulation).  Honest people will find a way to offer guidance or correction.

So what does healthy directness look like? The best example I’ve seen was from the coolest guy that ever lived, Brad Pitt (although Chris Pratt gives him a run for his money).  This scene from Moneyball teaching how to tell someone they’re being traded is brilliant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTjhHrcyiQI.  It’s all about being direct for the benefit of the other person.  There’s no beating around the bush or drawing out the awkward situation.  It reduces the risk of begging and bargaining.  It’s just stating a fact and moving on.

In my own life, I was recently on a trip with my family, my sister, and my mother-in-law (if you’re going to have travel with three kids, having two extra adults is the only way to go).  In a previous lesson I mentioned my wife’s side is very ADD while mine is Mary Poppins and these two worlds came together on the trip.  While we were trying to get moving, my mother-in-law looked at my sister and said, “Wow, you’re already ready to go? You’re fast.”  My sister very casually replied, “I wouldn’t say I’m fast.  I just don’t get distracted,” to which my mother-in-law laughed, “That must be nice.”  That moment was beautiful.  It was two equally respected people being direct with their thoughts.  There was no hint of a tone in my sister and my mother-in-law was excellent at not taking it as one.  They were both self aware and trusted each other enough not to feel hurt from the other.  They assumed each other had good intentions.  It was an excellent moment by two good people.

This is the kind of directness I’ve been able to do with my wife recently… and I have to say it is incredible.  It is so freeing not to over think how I’m speaking or worry about being attacked because it came out wrong.  As I’ve learned, the only thing worse than being criticized by someone you care about is that person accusing you of being critical when you weren’t.  When this happens, you end up hurt because the other person not only makes you feel criticized, you’re hurt they could think so poorly of you. It’s a double whammy.  Fortunately, my wife and I are in a better season as discussed in the last lesson where I was very direct.  I’d say this is the season couples I work with dream of achieving while my parents pretty much lived in it their whole relationship.  Their respect and trust for each other was pretty remarkable.

So what does this trust look like? The other day my family just got home from an outing and we were getting ready to watch a family movie together when my wife said, “I’ll just put icing on these cupcakes, and then we can start the movie,” but I replied, “Nope, we’re going to watch the movie because we don’t have time for that.  You’re going to finish them later.”  Without any defensiveness or questioning she agreed.  I’m very lucky she’s learned to trust my time management because she doesn’t have an internal clock (or the ability to look at a clock).

Taking this a step further, while in the car the other week I asked my wife if she thought her ADD dad would’ve been more relaxed if he had married an uptight, organized woman (i.e. the female version of me aka my sister) to keep him on track.  She wasn’t sure, but when I asked if she’d be different if she was married to someone like her very ADD sister, her response was surprising: “I couldn’t handle being married to someone that didn’t look at the clock.  If I had to continually remind them of the time it’d feel like I was the parent dealing with a child.”  My response? “Huhn, that’s interesting.”  Now, there are some people reading that response and thinking, “He’s a dead man!” Here’s the thing, I’m not (hence my ability to write about it).  Other times in this relationship, I would’ve been, but right now the trust and safety is so good that this directness led my wife to laughing, “I see what you did there.”  I pointed out that I wasn’t trying to suggest anything, and then I affirmed her opinion; there have definitely been times I’ve felt that, but I’ve learned to accept this is my role.  I’ve also learned to appreciate all the things she does that I don’t think about from having clothing for the kids to the thoughtful things she does.  By better accepting that we are a team with two different roles, I’ve eliminated the risk of the resentment that follows feeling like a parent with a clock (although I can still have times of being annoyed).  At the same time, my wife has had to work at not having this same parent-child resentment toward me because my idea of clean is very different than hers for when company comes over.  And this affirming conversation we had was only the result of directness and questions – see the benefit?

This week may you consider what being direct looks like and how it can improve your communication.

Rev. Chad David, ChadDavid.ca, learning to love dumb people (like me)