companion website to this book (BregmanPartners.com/change) shares sample “partner dialogues” that demonstrate the Four Steps in different contexts. You'll find typical Four-Step conversations around hard issues that vary by domain (work and personal), power dynamic (supervisor/employee, spouses, parent/child, friends), and topic (work performance, health, relationship, personal goals). Before you have your first Four-Step conversation with a partner, read the sample dialogue that is most similar to the situation. It will help you find the right words to say and what kinds of responses you might expect from your partner.
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Although I share important principles about personal change, especially in the first few chapters, this is not a conceptual book. You Can Change Other People is a user's manual, meant to be as practical as possible.
Don't wait until you've mastered the Four Steps to start using them to help people change. Transparency is part of this process. You should feel free to share exactly what you're doing and why you're doing it. Tell the truth: “Hey, I got this book and I think I can use the process to help you. I'm new at this, so it may not look smooth and polished. In fact, I might even pause and refer to the text from time to time. Are you open to that?”
Once you've read the book and practiced a few times, you will quickly grow your capability and confidence to use the Four Steps to help the people around you live fuller, richer, more powerful, and more authentic lives.
First, though, let's dispel the myth that people resist change.
NOTES
1 1 Throughout the book, “I” refers to Peter.
2 2 Throughout this book, I refer to the person you want to help as your partner with plural pronouns (their, them, etc.). I hope this helps you orient yourself toward them in a supportive, friendly, and collaborative way.
CHAPTER 2 PEOPLE DON'T RESIST CHANGE—THEY RESIST BEING CHANGED: YES, I WANT THAT THIRD BOWL OF ICE CREAM!
Let me say up front, with a father's pride, that my 13-year-old son Daniel is one of the smartest, most talented people I know. He's quick, charming, and witty—and he's the poster child for resistance. Even a basic direction—“Go brush your teeth”—elicits tremendous pushback.
But when Daniel sets his mind to something, his drive, enthusiasm, and persistence are unstoppable. He will change and raise his game in all sorts of ways. Case in point: a gaming PC. He wanted it, but I wouldn't buy it for him. So he went to work, formulating a plan to make enough money to afford it on his own.
He asked his grandfather for an inexpensive drone for his birthday. He spent hours mastering it, learning how to shoot aerial video footage and eventually impressing his Aunt Catherine enough that she hired him to go with her to South Carolina for a week and shoot footage for her real estate company. He was nervous about making the trip by himself but decided to do it. He packed his own bag—no nagging required. He made a stellar video … and $650.
The computer he wanted was still way out of his budget. Undeterred, he discovered a way: He would buy the parts and build it himself. He educated himself on cases, motherboards, graphics cards, fans, and the rest, and ordered them from various websites. He enlisted his cousin Atticus to help him build it. After three months of overcoming obstacles, he finally had his gaming PC.
In order to get what he wanted, Daniel had to change. He learned new skills, started a business, found a client, overcame fears, asked for help, and solved challenging problems—all this from the kid who wouldn't brush his teeth when I asked him to.
Daniel wasn't resistant to change. He was resistant to being changed.
People change all the time on their own. They make big changes like starting businesses, getting married, moving, or getting a new job. And they make smaller changes, like eating healthier, waking up earlier, or listening better.
But people change when they choose to change. If they feel like you're trying to make them change? Forget it.
The problem isn't a lack of skills, tactics, or strategy. Most of the time, people know exactly what to do. They're just not doing it. And it's that gap between what they know and what they do that's the challenge. Telling someone who's overeating sugar to “stop eating sugar” is profoundly unhelpful.
When people struggle with a problem, they often feel shame at their own inadequacy. The very fact that they want or need your help means, to them, that they've already failed. They think some version of “I should be able to handle this on my own. What's wrong with me?”
Now, imagine that you understand their problem and have a great idea that can help them. If you share your solution right away, and they haven't thought of it themselves, that will often bring their shame to the surface. And shame is inhibitory; that is, when people feel shame, they stop taking action. Unlike guilt, which says, I did a bad thing, and can motivate people to change, shame says, I am a bad person, and typically represses initiative and halts momentum.
Here's why: Shame is one of the feelings human beings will do almost anything not to feel. And the easiest way to get rid of shame—at least temporarily—is denial. If you deny the source of the shame, you deny that you have a problem (or deny that it's your problem). Presto: no shame.
But, of course, denying the problem, or the severity of the problem, or the consequences of the problem, means denying the need to change, which we then call resistance to change.
Unfortunately, most of what we try to do to help people change reinforces their shame. When we barge in with the answer or think we can do it better, or when we think they should know better, we reinforce their shame. That's why simply telling people what to do, or what we did in a similar situation, or what we would do if we were in that situation, so often backfires.
We give advice; they hear criticism.
I know I do. When I reach for the pint of Ben and Jerry's to fill up my third bowl of ice cream and anyone—my wife, my children, a concerned friend—asks, “Do you really want that third bowl of ice cream?” no matter how stuffed I am, I can assure you that I will answer with a loud “YES” and then add some extra fudge on top in defiance.
Here's what's crazy: I really do want to stop eating sugar. And I also know that they want to be helpful. They don't mean to criticize me. (Technically, they're just asking me a question.) I know they love and care for me. But I am also ashamed to admit, at that moment, that I'm out of control. It feels weak to say, “You're right. I can't control myself.”
So I don't. I double-down on my mistake in order to say, “I'm in control!”
I know you don't mean to be a critic when you give advice. But if the people you're trying to help feel that you're coming at them with an air of “I know better than you” or “The answer is simple; just do X,” they'll dig in their heels and resist change.
But that doesn't mean there isn't a way to help them change. We just have to let go of unsolicited advice and explanations.
As I write this, Daniel is gaming on the new computer that he changed his life to build. People can overcome great odds to follow through
