People learn to what extent they need to be assertive or cooperative throughout their life and those characteristics become part of their identity. These characteristics create the lenses through which they see and interpret the world, and as a result what stories they tell themselves when something happens. These stories cause people to react with particular emotions. To change our emotional reactions we need to change the lenses through which we see the world. It requires practicing different behavioral strategies intentionally.
How to be assertive: Prioritizing your own needs
To be assertive one needs:
- Clearly indicate their position.
- Share with others their needs and values.
- Say “no” if the final results do not meet their needs and values.
How to be cooperative: Helping others achieve their goals
To be cooperative one needs:
- Make the other party communicate their needs and values.
- Proactively listen to others.
- Communicate calmly with compassion and empathy.
How to be assertive and cooperative at the same time: Insisting on resolving a conflict without suggesting a solution
There are some cases when one needs to take care of the other party’s interests but be sure that it actually gets done. In such cases they need to use both approaches at the same time, it implies the following.
- Communicating and persuading through a shared mission.
- Deeply understand the others’ views.
- Know the full context and be involved in the conversations,
- Strive to find the resolution of the conflict, not enforcing your own approach.
This is a fragment of a draft of the book “Lessons Learned While Working On Stack Overflow”. Read the full book on kindle or the paperback version.