Selling Yourself in Confrontation and Media Interviews 95
Everyday situations become confrontational, as we’re intimi-
dated by the reporter, the attorney, the public official, the col-
league, the neighbor, and, worst of all, the family member. The
end result is that we dread being involved in any situation that
may evolve into a confrontation. It doesn’t have to be that way.
We don’t have to get angry, defensive, shout back, and fall apart.
The confrontation bomb
I remember my first Parent Teacher Association experience.
The school board had just closed a school in town. We’ll call it
“School #3.” At the meeting to announce the closing, the first
question came from a neighbor of mine. He was a very pleasant
person, but closing his neighborhood school was a real personal
affront. His question should have been, “Why did you close School
#3?”
Instead, using the architecture of confrontation, he shouted,
“Why are you ruining our schools?” The untrained board chair-
man yelled back, “We’re not ruining the schools.” So began the
shouting match. It was a true “lose-lose” situation.
Defusing confrontation
I started out in this area of communication training at the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce, helping business and association
executives become aware of the techniques used by the reporter
whose goal was to make a story rather than report one. I focused
on the communication skills that would help them beat the re-
porters at their own game. Then I realized that the same tech-
niques could be used to defuse all public demonstrations of arro-
gance, rudeness, intimidation, confrontation, and heckling. I stud-
ied the methods used by reporters and confronters and the tech-
niques that could defeat them. Those techniques are easy to learn,
and you can use them anytime someone wants to make you look
bad.
How people respond to you
First, let’s review some key points from Chapter 1:
There are four ways people can judge you when they’re seeing
you for the first time: