ON THE defensive....

When interractions make our hackles rise, how do we learn to relax, asks Stephanie Fitzgerald

- Stephanie Fitzgerald

So, why have we hired you for this? What qualifies you to come and speak at our conference?' he asked. On the face of it, these are perfectly reasonable questions. This person doesn't know me, has never heard me present and clearly hasn't given my speaker bio even a cursory glance. Yet, even as I tell myself that it is a reasonable query, I can feel my smile tighten. I have to work hard to keep my shoulders away from my ears as I feel my hackles rise.

What is going on here? Why am I feeling so defensive? Perhaps it's the tone. Perhaps it's the bluntness that's bordering on rudeness. Perhaps it's the fact that this is my third briefing call with the client and everything had been finalised, yet now I feel my suitability is being questioned. Whatever it is, it stays with me for the rest of the day. But what really bothers me is how much it bothers me. Why is it that someone we've never met before and will likely never meet again can get under our skin? Why is it that people can make us feel so defensive?

I put these questions to Ümit Iyi, an experienced leadership consultant and founder of The Good Company. I ask Iyi how common this experience is, and why it happens to us. 'It is something all of us will experience many times throughout our lives,' Iyi tells me, explaining that 'something can be triggered within all of us and these situations can represent a lesson or something which we haven't yet learnt in life.' This is why we can feel so wrong-footed in the moment. If we don't know how to respond, then our defensiveness acts as a form of protection.

Different communication styles also have a part to play, and Iyi tells me that a lot of our defensiveness can come out of interpretation.