HOW TO BE MORE ASSERTIVE

You have been asked to make a presentation to senior management. You arrive promptly,
only to be informed by the secretary that the meeting is running late. You are told to wait
outside. Finally, you are shown into the room and asked to begin your presentation on the
acquisition plan of hardware for the next year. After a minute or so, you notice that two
managers are whispering to each other, another is reading a note which his secretary has
just brought in, yet another is working on his calculator. Then the phone rings, and one of
the managers gets up to answer it.
You have spent a long time preparing for his presentation; the wait has already made you
nervous. To top it all, you are now faced with an unresponsive audience. How would you
react to such a situation? Would you quickly finish your presentation and leave the room,
and spend a miserable day after that?
In our working lives we are constantly faced with situations which are tricky. For
example, you boss may make unreasonable demands. Or you may disagree with a
senior managers opinion. Or you may have to handle an irate customer, an
uncooperative staff member, and an unreasonable colleague. How can you handle the
situation in a way that is mutually acceptable to all? Simply put, you will just have to try to
be more assertive.
The dictionary defines assertion as an affirmation, a declaration, or a positive statement,
an insistence upon a right. Unfortunately, in common usage the word often refers to
behaviour that should be called aggression.
Assertion refers to behaviour which involves standing up for your rights in such a way
that you do not violate another persons right. It is expressing your opinions in a direct,
honest and appropriate manner. The aim of assertive behaviour is to satisfy the needs
and wants of both parties involved in a situation.
Aggression refers to behaviour which involves standing up for your own rights, but in
such a way that you violate the rights of others. It is ignoring or dismissing the opinions
of others and expressing your own feelings (honest or dishonest) in an inappropriate
manner. The aim of aggression is to win, if necessary at the expense of others. This
can be very dangerous in an MIS type of situation, where user involvement is
absolutely integral to the success of the project.
Non-Assertion refers to behaviour which involves standing up for your rights, but in
such a manner that others can easily disregard them. It is expressing your opinions in
an apologetic, diffident and self-effacing manner. The aim on non-assertion is to avoid
conflict and to please others. Non-assertion is a problem, which is plaguing many, IS
departments. Since the general perception of senior management is that IS is not very
important, the IS manager tends to become non-assertive.

YOUR RIGHT TO BE ASSERTIVE

Rights - things to which we are entitled - are central to the exercise of assertive behaviour.
Fundamentally, we all have the right to be assertive. Some rights are based on laws, others on
accepted standards or norms of behaviour. These rights include:
The right to hold and express your opinions, views and ideas
The right to have your opinions, views and ideas, listened to
The right to refuse a request without feeling guilty
The right to make mistakes
The right to know how your seniors judge your performance
The right to be consulted about decisions that affect you
But remember that others also have the same rights as you do.
THE RIGHT OF NON-ASSERTION
The immediate consequences of non-assertion are usually pleasant. In the example quoted earlier,
you have managed to avoid a potential conflict. But frequent non-assertion will result in your
experiencing a growing loss of self-esteem. This may lead to anger, frustration or a feeling of selfpity. Others will begin to lose respect for you. It is indeed a strange paradox that the person who
sets out to please, to be liked by all, and who behaves in a non-assertive manner to achieve this,
often end up being less respected than the aggressive person, who may not even care whether he
is liked or not. Non-assertion leads to delays in taking decisions, and to postponement of various
problems.
BENEFITS OF BEING ASSERTIVE
Being assertive will make you more effective in your job. Other benefits:
Much greater confidence
An increased chance of needs met
Increased responsibility for your own behaviour
Saving in energy
A desire to take initiative
Being assertive is, however, not easy. We have tendency to respond to difficult situations by either
fighting (aggressive behaviour) or by running away (non-assertive behaviour). The third alternative,
namely assertive behaviour helps us to deal constructively with difficulties.
ASSERTIVE
Im OK
Youre OK
I shall not let you hurt me
I shall not hurt you
AGGRESSIVE
Im OK
Youre not OK
I shall not let you hurt me
I shall hurt you

NON-ASSERTIVE (PASSIVE)
Im not OK
Youre OK
You can hurt me
I shall not hurt you
DEGRESSIVE
Im not OK
Youre not OK
You can hurt me
I shall hurt you

ASSERTIVENESS IS NOT AN
INSTANT TECHNIQUE. IT
IS HARD TO ACQUIRE AND
NEEDS PRACTICE.
There are three steps to assertiveness. It is important that you understand and practice all three in
the correct order.

Step 1: Listen to what is being said and then indicate to the other person that you both hear
and understand him.
Step 2: Say what you think or what you feel.
Step 3: Say what you want to happen.

Step 1 forces you to focus fully on the other person and not use the time they are talking to build up
a defense or line of attack. By really listening you are able to demonstrate understanding and
empathy for the situation, even if you do not fully agree with it.
Step 2 enables you to directly state your thoughts or feelings without any insistence or apology
whatsoever.
Step 3 helps you to indicate in a clear and straightforward manner what you want without any
hesitation or insistence at all.
Assertiveness is not an instant technique. It is hard to acquire and needs practice. But not only will
it help you become more effective in your job, it will also lead to greater personal satisfaction in
your day-to-day dealings with other people.
Evidence shows that both non-assertion and aggression spring
from low-esteem. Your self-esteem is the evaluation that you make
and hold about yourself. It is your judgment of your worth as a
person. It is based upon the extent to which you believe yourself to
be a competent, significant, likeable and successful person.
Low Self-Esteem
Feeling Threatened
Behaving Aggressively

Behaving Non-Assertively

ASSERTIVENESS QUESTIONNAIRE
Answer the following questions by placing a YES or NO. For all the answers think of the
reasons why?
1.

Do you buy things you dont really want because it is hard for you to say NO to
the sales person?
2.
When a sales person shows you things do you feel you must buy something?
3.
Do you have difficulty starting a conversation with a stranger?
4.
Do you find it difficult to criticise a friend?
5.
Do you find it difficult to compliment a friend?
6.
Do you feel self-conscious when somebody compliments you?
7.
Do you think you are being exploited or pushed around?
8.
Do you find it difficult to ask a Q-breaker to join the Q?
9.
Do you feel dissatisfied with your social life?
10.
Do you have trouble asking favours of a friend?
11.
Do you get I should have said that kind of thoughts after social life?
12.
Do you have difficulty saying NO to a friend even when his making an
unreasonable request?
13.
Do you think people find you boring?
14.
Do you have trouble expressing your tends and angry feelings to men?
15.
Do you have trouble expressing your tender and angry feelings to women?
16.
Do you have trouble asking for an overdue increment?
17.
Do you find it difficult to speak in public?
18.
Do you have fear of failure?
19.
Do you feel uncomfortable when you are being watched while at work?
20.
Do you find it uncomfortable when there is silence at a social gathering?
21.
Do you think that you are always wrong?
22.
Are you afraid of making mistakes?
23.
Are you always defensive when you are being criticised?
24.
Do you have trouble maintaining relationships or friendships?
25.
Do you feel dissatisfied with your vacation?
____________________________________________________________________
COUNT:

YES

NO

____________________________________________________________________
Remember :
WHEN YOU APPLY THE PRINCIPLES LEARNED IN THIS COURSE IN YOUR DAY TO
DAY LIFE, SOME OF THE YES ANSWERS WILL CHANGE TO NO.

ILLUSTRATIVE CASE STUDY

Communication failure at Bhopal
All the safety features had failed - that much was abundantly clear. What Mr. Warren
Anderson could not find out was why. As a CEO of Union Carbide, he needed to know
exactly what had happened in Bhopal, India, that night for a number of reasons. He
knew he would have to explain a tragic accident to employees, to government officials in
both the United States and India, to the courts, and to the people. Yet, he could not get
answers to his own preliminary and personal questions. When telephone contacts failed
to yield answers, he got on a plane and flew to India where he was immediately placed
under house arrest - unable to attend to the very business that brought him there. His
plant managers had also been arrested and were not allowed to talk to anyone. Indian
government officials had closed the plant to Union Carbide management in order to
prevent tampering with evidence.
The basic facts that Anderson could not determine on December 3, 1984, were really
quite simple. A runaway reaction had occurred in a storage tank on methylisocyanate
(MIC), which was used to manufacture a pesticide. The valves on the tank had burst,
and a cloud of poisonous gas had escaped. Climatic conditions kept the gas from
dissipating, and the winds carried it to the nearby shanty towns and the populous city of
Bhopal, where people either died in their sleep or woke and died while fleeing. Those
who survived suffered from burning eyes and lungs. Local medical facilities were not
equipped for the disaster, and over the next few weeks, thousands more died. The
Bhopal plant was operated by Union Carbide India Ltd. (UCIL), with the parent company,
Union Carbide, owning roughly 51%. After installing the plant and training its first staff,
union carbide withdrew from the daily operation of the plant, as it was required to do by
the Indian Government. Union Carbide did participate in the inspections and responded
to official questions and concerns, but no US officials of the company was on-site in
Bhopal.
Meanwhile, the plant was under a great deal of pressure to cut costs. Due to production
problem, it was unable to run at more than 50% capacity, and meeting its original profit
predictions had become impossible. A number of shortcuts had thus been taken with
such items as crew training, staffing patterns, and maintenance schedules. Although the
plant had been virtually shut down for weeks for extensive maintenance and cleaning a
number of important safety features remained inoperable - and there remains some
question as to whether they would have been adequate even had they been working.
Perhaps most importantly, the staff did not realize the importance of the situation - and
even took a break for tea after the leak had been noticed, thinking they would have plenty
of time to fix it. The operator in the control room did not notify his supervisor when the
temperature began to rise inside the tank, and the entire situation went unattended for
atleast an hour. The original procedures called for up to two years of training for
employees in critical superintendent capacities, but these men received about a month,
using classroom materials developed in the U S and printed in English.
Instructions:
* You are required to discuss and present the case to the rest of the group.
* You are free to use aids like acetates, flip charts and OHP.
* The time allotted for the final presentations is 10 minutes.