Sometimes People Are Tigers
Every week, when I was a kid, my mother took me to the National
Geographic Society to see a film. The one on tigers invades my
nightmares these many years later. Sitting there in the darkened
theater, I watched a mother give birth to three tiny cubs. One was
born with a mangled leg. I witnessed how all the other tiger cubs
excluded him. And right there in front of the cameras, he was tortured to death by the others. I remember crying and thinking how
the healthy cubs were like a few of the kids in my school. Sometimes they could be very cruel.
My best friend in grade school was Stella and she was a beautiful girl inside and out. But she had a speech defect, a cleft palate.
And many of our classmates laughed at her behind her back and
excluded her from their games.
Kids haven't changed much. When I give talks for colleges and
young people's groups, the discussion often turns to popularity.
Everyone wants to be liked. Occasionally students tell me stories
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about how some girl has a minor physical defect, say, a crossed eye
or a nervous twitch. They say some kids laugh and make fun of
her. Or a boy has a limp so no one chooses him for their baseball
team. Even if he can run just as fast as the other kids, some of his
classmates don't like the image of "a cripple" being on their side.
The years go by and kids become adults. Not too much
changes. Adults are not as cruel, happily, about physical disabilities. But they can be brutal about social disabilities. Social disabilities are insidious because often we don't recognize them in
ourselves. We can be blind to our social handicaps and deaf to our
verbal deficiencies. But we're quick to recognize them in others.
How many times has one of your associates made a dumb,
insensitive gaffe? How often have you written somebody off
because of some stupid move? Do you think he knew what he was
doing? Of course not. He had no idea he was crossing a line or
stepping on your toes. Probably no one ever told him about the
subtleties we're going to discuss in this final section of How to Talk
to Anyone.
We've all heard about the glass ceiling some companies construct over women and minorities. People seldom discuss another
kind of glass ceiling. This one is even more treacherous because
you can't legislate against it and only top communicators recognize it. Yet it's a rock-hard shield. Many bright individuals hit their
heads on the thick glass as they try to climb up the next rung of
the ladder to join the big boys and big girls on top. The folks able
to crash through are the ones who abide by the unspoken rules
that follow.
Consider each of the following techniques. If you find any of
them obvious, give yourself a pat on the back. It means you're
already a tiger on that one. Be on the lookout for those communications sensitivities where you find yourself saying, "You gotta
be kidding! What's wrong with that?"
Watch out! It means someday, somewhere, you might commit
that particular insensitivity. Then, when a big winner responds
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coolly to your suggestion, doesn't return your phone call, doesn't
give you the promotion, doesn't invite you to the party, doesn't
accept your date, you'll never know what happened. Read each of
the following techniques to ensure you're not making any of these
subtle mistakes, that let the big players lacerate you and keep you
from getting what you want in life.