How To Deal With A Defensive Person · Brojo: The Integrity Army

How To Deal With A Defensive Person

Daily Dose of Integrity

I saw a question the other day: “How to deal with a defensive person?”

While most of you might think that calling out the defensiveness is helpful— it's not. Calling out a defensive person just pushes them even further into their defensiveness.

The key is to do a technique that's called rolling with resistance, that is, acknowledging without agreeing. In other words, you respect what they're saying, how they’re feeling and how they are seeing the world, even if you don't agree with it or don’t think that it's truthful. There's no dishonesty here. You're just acknowledging that you understand what other person holds to be true.

So, if somebody says something like: "I never said that." You won’t say "Yes, you did!" or "You're getting defensive". You may say instead something like: “Okay, so from your point of view, you've got no memory of saying that. Right?”

You just acknowledge what they've said. Always acknowledge with respect what they say, without needing to agree with it.

And then, you might start the actual conversation by pointing out the difference between their and your perception: “Okay, so from your point of view you never said that, and I've got a memory of you saying that. Somewhere in there is the truth. Let’s discuss it!”

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