To the thorniest question of labour relations, Jean-Edouard Grésy provides the answers of the art and science of negotiation.
Co-founder of the negotiation and conflict management consulting firm AlterNego and a regular speaker at EVE, Jean-Edouard Grésy is also the author of a book with a highly promising title: Gestion les ingérables!
Between a philosophical essay on the nature of conflict and a practical toolbox for dealing with the most devious personalities in one's entourage on a daily basis, Jean-Edouard Grésy's book is also approached with its subtitle: " the art and science of negotiation at the service of lasting relationships".
By deciphering all the reflexes that lead us to act too often in contradiction with our interests when we are faced with a situation so delicate that it seems inextricable, he initiates us step by step to a leadership that is as fine and effective as it is human and responsible.
This " unmanageable " that inevitably makes us think of someone... Which we know very well!
We have all met (or even suffered) the " unmanageable " of service: cantankerous or loud-mouthed, narrow-minded or aggressive, a little beast seeker or a sterile annoyer, or even all of these at the same time. To put it bluntly, he is the " office idiot". Otherwise, in Uderzo and Goscigny's series, it would be Tullius Detritus, the anti-hero of the album La Zizanie, the one who sows conflict wherever he goes. Because the real talent of the " unmanageable " is there, in his ability to create a climate of tension such that others in turn find themselves in a situation, as if by mimicry, of adopting " unmanageable" behaviors.
In other words, " the unmanageable" is possibly each of us, when, trapped in a conflictual situation, we are partly dispossessed of our beautiful and good human qualities (patience, reason, empathy, lucidity...) and that we unpleasantly surprise ourselves by participating, almost in spite of ourselves, in the escalation of aggressiveness.
Stop! We don't beat ourselves up too quickly, because if we sometimes find it difficult to manage ourselves when we are faced with an " unmanageable " person, it is not because we have a bad background; rather, explains Jean-Edouard Grésy, it is the result of perfectly normal neurological mechanisms in situations of stress or strong emotion. When the most evolved areas of our brain (the pre-frontal cortex, to speak like scientists) are short-circuited in favor of the reptilian areas, and especially on the side of the " amygdala nucleus" which controls, among other things, our aggressive reactions and defense of our territory.
Trap n°1: fight back
Also, when the " unmanageable " attacks, the first temptation is to retaliate.
He puts one on me, I stick a stronger one on him. In all likelihood, he'll fight back and he'll see what I'm made of. It can rise quickly and strongly, when you start to " climb the curtains ". And once hanging from the rod, it's not uncommon to feel sheepish up there: but how did I get there, I'm certainly better than this little game?
The question is above all, for Jean-Edouard Grésy, how to go about avoiding the escalation of violence before it begins, even when you are faced with someone who is just waiting for it, or even seems to take pleasure in it.
The author delivers 18 tips, not one less, to avoid " climbing the towers ": between, for example, " using the power of silence ", " imagining the other in a comical situation" or " dissociating what you embody from what you are ", everyone will inevitably find the one of these tricks that protects them from their own anger that suits them.
Trap n°2: fleeing
Alongside the response, there is another classic, although equally ineffective, model of reaction to the conflict: flight.
Help, Detritus is around, I quickly hide! If he finds me hiding behind the green plant in my office, I'll dodge him again: " right now, I can't, but I promise, I'm thinking of you ". If he sends me a cascade of emails, I'll just have to answer " don't worry, I haven't forgotten what you asked me, it's in the pipeline ". I will give myself a little respite, in short, while waiting for... What?
To never face the difficulty, says Jean-Edouard Grésy, at the risk that my attitude as " Mister Tefal " over whom it is impossible to have a hold, authorizes, to top it off, the " unmanageable " to consider himself a victim. Or even a martyr. At the coffee machine, he complains that he never gets answers (it's probably because he asks the questions that are uncomfortable, hin, hin), he lists all the broken promises (that he has actually been made or that he has assumed to be contained in somewhat cowardly silences), he says above all that he is not shown any gratitude, And of course, to the other members of the team, all this speaks to you... The atmosphere is, how to put it, slightly tense in the department. If it's not unfair for the boss who wanted to be " nice " and implicitly make the " unmanageable " understand that we were waiting for him to get bored... It was a wasted effort.
Because " kind " and " implicit " is not exactly like listening, understanding, and more than anything " grateful ", explains Jean-Edouard Grésy. Grateful for the existence of the other (even if it is very painful), for their expectations (even if they are sometimes extravagant) and for their functioning (even if it is not necessarily very readable or even simply bearable).
Trap n°3: giving in
Does this mean that the simplest way to make the other exist is to give in to him?
Admit that it's tempting: Come on, it's true, deep down, does it cost me that much to please him? By the way, I also take care of my ego a little by being conciliatory, even with the most s***, those who have worn out the other managers and made the greatest calms go off their hinges: I'm the " soft " manager, the one who doesn't hurt anyone, who is accommodating, who knows how to give slack and make concessions...
But Jean-Edouard Grésy reminds us that the concession without consideration (or " the gift without counter-gift " to quote Marcel Mauss, whom as an anthropologist of law, the author of the book knows like the back of his hand), is anything but a balanced exchange. It is above all beneficial for the " unmanageable " who just has to continue to do as he has always done, since it works and it does not cost him more effort than continuing to be impossible to " manage " to get everything he wants. In this case, more than the others. Which is not very fair either, when you think about it.
The art of the counter-proposal
J.-E. Grésy – EVE Workshop " Why do some get more than others?"
And it is here that, once the temptations of retaliation, flight and capitulation have been avoided, the art of counter-proposal becomes a major quality of leadership.
Focused on a realistic and responsible solution, the counter-proposal is the concretization of the " common ground", the area of understanding of each party's issues and the formalization of an offer acceptable to the parties.
By reducing the relationship to an exchange that takes into account the interests of each person, the counter-proposal disarms the " unmanageable", the true, the one who will always prefer dead ends to open paths. But its greatest virtue is to restore to reason, dignity, trust and participation all the false " unmanageable", those who in panic, in the feeling of not being heard or misunderstood, in fear of failure, in stress, have found themselves in a situation where they can no longer give the best of themselvess. And who are probably just asking for that, deep down, to go back to the side of those who know how to " manage themselves" as long as they are placed in situations and relationships that are well... Managed!
The key to any negotiation: preparation!
Try Jastrow's " Duck Rabbit "!
Once we have understood, with the help of Jean-Edouard Grésy, all the interest there is, for oneself as well as for those around one, in leaving reptilian reflexes to the animals of the backwaters and in appealing preferentially to the extraordinary capacities of humans to simultaneously consider their needs, those of others as well as contexts, that is to say nothing more and nothing less than to negotiate, How do you manage to stay calm and clear in the most difficult situations?
By preparing and practicing, answers without hesitation the author of Gestion les ingérables who offers at the end of the book a host of practical exercises damn well designed for all those who want to give themselves the means to build and maintain lasting human relationships.
Where we will learn to establish the conditions for a fair negotiation, to identify our fundamental interests in order to defend them with firmness and confidence, to develop our diplomatic sense and to make courtesy a general rule in interactions, to dare flexibility too, which is the sister of creativity and open-mindedness...
