fixed views and closed to new ideas (dealing with stubbornness)

July 25, 2024|Accountants, Kim's Blog, Lawyers, Management Skills, Relationship Management, Selling|

At the recent PM Forum – PM Forum training workshop on “Coaching and Consulting skills for marketing and business development professionals” the issue of how to work with people with fixed views and closed to new ideas or refuse to consider change arose several times. We avoided using labels such as stubborn, obstinate, dogmatic, intransigent, opinionated, arrogant, contrarian, expert know-it-alls or bulldozers to focus on behaviour.

Understand WHY people have fixed views (or appear stubborn)

The starting point is to try to understand WHY people might have fixed views and be closed to new ideas. There are many possible reasons. Psychology offers alternative explanations for you to explore before deciding on a possible approach.

Avoid labelling

Take care with labels and labelling. If you give someone a label your mental filters mean will only register their behaviour that supports your label. You then miss any behaviour that contradicts your label. Furthermore, a person with a label is less likely to feel they can change.

Stubborn means “someone who refuses to change his/her mind about an idea or an action and also refuses to give a clear explanation or reason for his/her resistance”. Most people believe stubbornness is due to: ignorance, lack of trust, feeling taken for granted, risk aversion, being busy, tiredness (decision fatigue is real) or shyness. Some might think stubborn behaviour is caused by arrogance (see Dealing with “difficult” people – Nine strategies for dealing with arrogance (kimtasso.com)).

Fixed mindset

Many are familiar Carol Dweck’s ideas. She talked about those with a fixed mindset (they believe that abilities are fixed from birth) compared to those with a growth mindset (they believe people can learn and change throughout their lives). If you have a fixed mindset you believe that we are not able to learn, adapt and grow. So you are likely to be resistant to alternatives and other possibilities.

Science supports the growth mindset view. Neuroplasticity (or brain plasticity) is the ability of the nervous system to change its activity in response to intrinsic or extrinsic stimuli by reorganizing its structure, functions or connections. We CAN all learn, adapt and change.

Cognitive bias and brain biology

Cognitive biases are predictable patterns in the way people think. They are like “short cuts” that the brain takes to maximise efficiency. Some people have described them as part of the “fast processing” (automatic) side of thinking as opposed to the “slow thinking” (rational, logical processing). They occur subconsciously. There are over 200 known cognitive biases.

Confirmation bias is the natural tendency to seek out information or interpret things in a way that supports your existing beliefs. Thus the reason to avoid labelling as mentioned above. Interacting with like-minded people and media reinforces confirmation bias.

Cognitive bias can activate when people encounter evidence that runs counter to their beliefs. Instead of reevaluating what they’ve believed up until now, people tend to reject the incompatible evidence. Psychologists call this phenomenon belief perseverance. Everyone can fall prey to this ingrained way of thinking. Confronting facts that don’t line up with your worldview may trigger a “backfire effect,” which can end up strengthening your original position and beliefs.

Their world view

Each of us has our own unique view of the world – the sum of all our beliefs and opinions – created from all of our experiences since childhood.

For many people, a challenge to their worldview (for example, when someone suggests ideas or behaviour that contradicts their beliefs) it can feel like an attack on their personal identity and can cause them to harden their position.

Cognitive dissonance

Cognitive dissonance (Leon Festinger, 1957) is the discomfort a person feels when their behaviour does not align with their values or beliefs. Cognitive dissonance is a psychological phenomenon that occurs when a person tries to hold two contradictory beliefs at the same time. So people may cling to their existing beliefs to avoid the discomfort caused by cognitive dissonance.

Change is scary

Human beings dislike change. 70% – 90% of our activity is based on habit. That’s why we prefer the status quo. Change makes things uncertain. Change involves risk. Change takes extra cognitive and emotional effort.

Schein wrote about the fear of change. He suggested that people can suffer both from learning anxiety and survival anxiety. Learning anxiety can evoke several fears: fear of temporary incompetence, fear of punishment for incompetence, fear of loss of personal identity and fear of loss of group membership. It was interesting to observe that during Covid survival anxiety was higher than learning anxiety. So people did a great of learning and change in a short period of time to adjust to the conditions of remote working.

People may feel threatened by the prospect of change. That then evokes the fight, flight, freeze or fawn response. There is a physiological response – different breathing, increased heart rate, stress hormones and less blood to the brain (which reduces cognitive function).

Someone in the freeze response is literally frozen into inaction. Lewin suggested that we needed to increase psychological safety (What Is Psychological Safety? (hbr.org)) in order to “unfreeze” people so that they can make the required change.

People feel better if they remain in their “safe” comfort zones. While some believe that a little stress is required to achieve optimum performance, too much stress can trigger that threat response. People have different tolerances to stress – what some may feel OK about may cause stress of even trauma to others. (The impact of too much stress and trauma is explored in these books: Book reviews on stress and trauma – “When the body says No” (kimtasso.com))

Protect their social identity

Social Identity theory, proposed by Henri Tajfel and John Turner in the 1970s, suggests that individuals derive a portion of their self-concept from their membership of social groups. Social identity provides a sense of belonging, purpose, self-worth and identity.

When we belong to a group, we are likely to derive our sense of identity, at least in part, from that group. We also enhance the sense of identity by making comparisons with out-groups. So people may feel part of a group (e.g. partners) that adheres to different views and values to those we are suggesting (e.g. as part of the business development team).

Low self-esteem

Self-esteem is the opinion we have of ourselves. When self-esteem is low, we tend to see ourselves and things in a negative and critical light. Low self-esteem often begins in childhood.

Personality can also play a part. Some people are just more prone to negative thinking, while others set impossibly high standards for themselves. With low self-esteem or confidence, people may hide themselves away from social situations, stop trying new things and avoid things they find challenging. Thus, the adherence to long-held fixed views and the avoidance of change.

Be more confident and convey confidence – top tips (kimtasso.com)

Book review – Creating self-esteem by Lynda Field (kimtasso.com)

Dr Julie Smith (Mental Health Guidance) (kimtasso.com)

Protect their legacy

Leaders and senior people may have been instrumental in creating the strategies, plans, processes and behaviours that form the culture of an organisation. Some may resist new ideas and change to protect that legacy – the business and their position. So whilst we may perceive their behaviour negatively as fixed, stubborn and intransient – they see it positively in protecting the business. Ultimately, most people are acting with positive intent – they are not setting out to be difficult or stubborn.

In this instance, contemplating different views or considering change is effectively admitting that the ways things are isn’t good enough.

Not part of the adaptive third

There’s research that indicates in any population only around a third are likely to adapt easily Change management and creativity – the adaptive third (kimtasso.com). One of the main things the studies found was that the third who adapt easily focus on the future whereas the majority look to the past and ask “Why me?”.

Emotional immaturity

Emotionally immature people can have fixed views and be resistant to alternative viewpoints. This book explains more: “Adult children of emotionally immature parents – how to heal (kimtasso.com)

How to help relax fixed views

Once you have some idea about what might be causing the fixed views and resistance to change, you can explore different approaches and strategies for helping to work with them to change.

Build psychological safety

Amy Edmondson, Harvard Business School professor and author of “The Fearless Organization”, coined the term psychological safety (What Is Psychological Safety? (hbr.org)). It is part of an organisation and team’s culture. It is a “shared belief held by members of a team that it’s OK to take risks, to express their ideas and concerns, to speak up with questions, and to admit mistakes — all without fear of negative consequences”.

So if there is low psychological safety in your organisation or team you are likely to encounter more people with fixed views and a disinclination to change. Work needs to be done on organisational cultural change in order to really progress. And this is not a trivial exercise.

Book review: The Thriving Lawyer by Traci Cipriano (resilience) (kimtasso.com) This book explores the culture of law firms and how “toxic” cultures can harm the mental health of lawyers.

Create an appreciative environment

It can take time to change organizational culture to develop more psychological safety. But in a one-to-one conversation or relationship, we can create an appreciative environment to generate more safety in that moment.

You can do this in a number of ways. Being non-judgemental is a starting point. Expressing gratitude for someone’s efforts and contribution helps. Drawing attention to a person’s strengths and achievements is another way.

Psychologist Nancy Kline pointed to research that a five-to-one ratio of appreciation to criticism helps people to think for themselves. She also had helpful advice on the ten ways you can help create a thinking environment How to facilitate groups – 2 (Herding cats in professional services) (kimtasso.com).

Psychologist William James said “The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated”

Check your assumptions

We can all be susceptible to cognitive bias and habit. We have fixed views too!

Reflect on your own views. Have you made assumptions about what the other person thinks? Assumed that your interpretation of events is the correct one? Have you made assumptions that your proposed idea or solution is correct?

Your ideas may not be the right approach for the individual you are talking to. They may have access to data or other evidence that their approach is correct. So they are absolutely right to hold onto their fixed views and be closed to other ideas!

We should ensure that we are open to new ideas and information before we assume that our world view is correct!

Build empathy

With a strong foundation of empathy we start to create psychological safety (.A general law of interpersonal relationships? (kimtasso.com)).

Aim to develop your knowledge and understanding of the person who has the fixed views. During the session we saw the importance of empathy (part of emotional intelligence) to coaching and consulting. We need to see the world through their eyes – to tap into their world view. Then we can see better the possible reasons for their adherence to a fixed view.

An introduction to emotional intelligence (EQ) and empathy (Video) (kimtasso.com)

Earn trust

We explored the stages of how relationships are formed:

Acknowledgement
Understanding
Acceptance
Respect
Trust
Bond

And accepted that we needed to be a reasonable way through the process before we earn trust. Building empathy moves us towards being trusted. But we need to appreciate that there are both emotional factors (e.g. empathy and social intelligence) as well as rational (e.g. expertise, reliability) at play here.

So you need to avoid trying to promote different ideas and actions too early. Spend time developing empathy and trust before you present new ideas.

trust for better business relationships (kimtasso.com)

Ask questions and listen carefully to answers

Throughout the session we saw how questioning and active listening were fundamental in building empathy and to both coaching and consulting scenarios.

We use questions to help us build the required empathy and assess why fixed beliefs and views were formed and the purpose they serve the individual.

Questions also use the other person’s energy rather than telling people which uses our energy. We talked about the importance of using “pull” rather than “push” communications. Why are questions so important? (Questioning skills) (kimtasso.com)

We need to listen with our eyes as well as our ears – non-verbal communication will provide insight to what feelings there are behind the words being spoken. Non-Verbal Communication (NVC) – the basics (Video) (kimtasso.com)

By using paraphrasing, reflecting and summarising in active listening we both demonstrate that we have both heard and understood what has been said. It can also prompt opportunities to obtain more information and clarify meaning,

Active Listening (Video) (kimtasso.com)

You’re not listening – What you’re missing (kimtasso.com)

Use Socratic questioning to raise awareness and uncover limiting beliefs

Socratic questioning uses questions to “clarify meaning, elicit emotion and consequences, as well as to gradually create insight or explore alternative action” (James, Morse, & Howarth, 2010).

This is where questions are asked to reveal what someone believes about a topic, whether they grasp a concept well and whether there were any assumptions, weaknesses or gaps in their thought process. It supports critical thinking.

Socratic questioning is helpful to surface knowledge that was previously outside of our awareness. So it helps to explore limiting beliefs and unpack assumptions. It helps to produce insightful perspectives and identify positive actions.

What is Socratic questioning? (Questioning skills) (kimtasso.com)

Coaching and Consulting skills – Limiting beliefs, approaches to helping (kimtasso.com)

Build your credibility

Aristotle said you needed three elements to persuade people: credibility, logic and emotion.

So ensure you have built your credibility before you try to persuade people about new ideas. You can build credibility by:

Being consistent and transparent
Communicating effectively and respectfully
Showing empathy and understanding
Seeking feedback and learning opportunities
Demonstrating value and impact
Building relationships and networks

Your track record, personal brand, personal power and visibility will also impact your credibility.

How to create and promote your personal brand – Kim Tasso

Be more visible – the PVI model (kimtasso.com)

Create a common group

To overcome group identity issues you need to become part of the ingroup with those who have fixed views as part of another group.

So, for example, rather than having “us” (partners, directors etc) and “them” (support staff) we need to belong to a common group such as “those who want to see the firm thrive”.

Find areas of agreement

The idea of being part of a common group extends to ideas of finding shared areas of agreement. Direct challenge or confrontation is likely to lead to conflict and entrenched positions.

So in conversations try to build on and extend their ideas – rather than trying to correct or replace them. A simple conversational technique is to replace “yes but” with “yes and”.

In NLP (What is neuro linguistic programming and how might it be useful to me? (kimtasso.com)) there is an idea of chunking up and chunking down. So, for example, you believe that “everyone has to make a contribution to MBD” and they have a view that “fee-earners are best focused on responding to client needs and earning fees”. What do we have in common here? Chunk up to the shared view that we both want the firm to succeed and grow. So we accept that no single view is right – there is space for both.

Harness cognitive biases

We can harness cognitive biases to work for us rather than against us. Behavioural scientists call this nudging (Book review: Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth (kimtasso.com))

A simple way to put this into practice is to use the EAST framework:

Easy – if a decision requires minimal effort, it’s more likely to be the one that’s chosen
Attractive – if something is attractive, we will be drawn to it
Social – we care what our peers are doing and what they think of us
Timely – choose the time to prompt or nudge people towards a desired behaviour

The EAST framework for behavioural nudges in marketing? (kimtasso.com)

Avoid appearing to be threatening – use SCARF

The premise of the SCARF model is that the brain makes us behave in certain ways to minimize threats and maximize rewards. So we can choose to talk in a way that avoids words and behaviour that might trigger a threat response. leadership conversation skills: SCARF model of neuroscience (kimtasso.com)

Use influence and persuasion techniques

As marketers, we all appreciate the importance of stressing benefits and answering the “What’s in it for me?” question. We also considered using Force Field analysis to consider the possible barriers as well as the possible upsides of a proposed action.

We looked at some of the many resources on influence and persuasion skills such as:

Influence – Cialdini’s six principles of the psychology of persuasion (kimtasso.com) Cialdini identified six key ways to persuade

Influence and persuasion skills with Aristotle and Knights and Dinosaurs (kimtasso.com) Aristotle suggested we needed credibility, logic and emotion in order to persuade

Small changes that spark big influence (persuasion science) (kimtasso.com)

Book review – Persuasion: The art of influencing people by James Borg (kimtasso.com)

Change their mind

My friend Simon Horton, who is also a negotiation expert, published a great book in 2022 called “Change their mind – 6 steps to persuade anyone anytime”. His model:

Aim high (people are attracted to certainty and ambition)
Look for clues (prepare carefully with research)
Listen, listen, listen
Be strong (with an ethical collaborative approach)
Co-create the solution
Say it the right way (communicate)

And he talks about:

The when, where and how is important (pick your moment)
Work with what they give you (use their drivers and reasons and words)
Don’t be an energy vampire
Your body communicates too
Set the frame
Tell them a great story

leader’s guide to negotiation – book review (kimtasso.com)

Delegate polls and takeaways

Delegates find it helpful to be reminded of the main ideas that emerged during the session polls and discussions, so the following notes supplement the learning resources for the course.

Delegate aims

Work more effectively in business development
Be more confident when coaching
Build better relationships with fee-earners
Help fee-earners perform better at business development
Help junior members of the team develop
Be more persuasive
Obtain tips on coaching

Delegate key takeaways

Confidence in knowing your own worth – tackling the imposter syndrome and reminding yourself that you’re in the role for a reason, you do know what you’re talking about, and that your time is important (and valuable) too. Have confidence in what I’m saying, use non-verbal cues to get others to understand my delivery and help with persuasion Questions on confidence at work (kimtasso.com)

Work on relationships and building trust before being able to coach/consult DACRIE – A model to enhance business relationships (kimtasso.com)

The idea that our core beliefs (fee earners not having enough time, we need to push more etc.) often defines the type of conversations we have (usually 121). And that there’s things we can do to change this while having other methods to improve our delivery on these conversations Before your set your goals – check your limiting assumptions (kimtasso.com)

Approach coaching and coaches with empathy An introduction to emotional intelligence (EQ) and empathy (Video) (kimtasso.com)

Preparation in advance of meeting to make the best use of everyone’s time – get them thinking of things so that you can both be as prepared as possible. Time is not always on our side when coaching fee-earners but the last session reminded me that putting the time and effort into prep will really pay off

Need to adapt our coaching style depending on the personality, seniority, learning preference and situation of the coachee

Break coaching down over several sessions, over a period of time. Too often we try to tackle too much in one session – there’s insufficient focus, too much information and an overwhelming action list Book Review: The Coaching Manual by Julie Starr – Kim Tasso and Book review: Coaching skills: A handbook by Jenny Rogers (kimtasso.com)

To do less pushing (telling) and more pulling (questions) in communication

Take a step back and look focus on analysis and diagnosis before launching into problem-solving mode. Sometimes the best answers sit with others. Don’t jump to giving solutions

The importance of asking effective questions and listening actively is key Why are questions so important? (Questioning skills) (kimtasso.com) and You’re not listening – What you’re missing (kimtasso.com)

Motivation strongly shapes the performance and success rate of a project/ session Motivating people in a property business (kimtasso.com)

Delegate poll results

Selected delegate poll results

Which sector?

60% Legal
40% Accountancy

How would you rate your relationships with fee-earners?

60% Good
20% Excellent
20% Varies

The area you most need to develop to start coaching/consulting?

33% How I am perceived
33% Knowledge
33% Soft skills/behaviour

At what stage in the relationship can you start to coach/consult?

60% Respect
40% Trust

What is the biggest challenge when developing relationships and helping fee-earners?

40% Fixed views/closed to new ideas/alternatives
60% Their lack of time

Which area of the coaching process presents the BIGGEST challenge for M&BD?

100% Ensure that there is motivation and ability to undertake the chosen activities

Which do you think is the most important coaching skill?

20% Guiding and teaching
80% Questions and listening

How would you assess psychological safety at your firm?

60% Good
40% OK

Which consulting skill do you most need to develop?

40% Communication, influence and persuasion
20% Analysis and diagnosis
20% Commerciality
20% Creativity and generating solutions

Which part of the consulting process do you think will be most challenging

20% Entry
20% Contracting
20% Diagnosis
20% Intervention
20% Implementation

When presenting ideas and solutions, which is the biggest challenge?

20% Achieving consensus/buy in
40% Managing disagreement between partners/teams
20% Justifying the investment
20% Cultural and structural issues

Coaching skills – How to work with people with fixed views and closed to new ideas (dealing with stubbornness)