desk or any staff. You look for your favourite magazine but can
only find hundreds of magazines, newspapers and paperback
books, all mixed up. You try to find a loaf of bread but again,
there are no signs. And when you do eventually stumble across
the bread shelves, most of them are empty.
You think you’ll try the clothing department—but where is it?
You turn the corner and trip over a trolley dumped in a darkened
corner. You come across a big sign, ‘Grand Sale Next Week = 50%
off,’ but then you check the dates and realise ‘next week’ has long
passed. By now you’ve had enough. You want to tell the manager
how annoyed you are—but no one knows where he is...
It’s hard to imagine any shop quite that bad, yet cyberspace
is spattered with sites that are the Internet equivalent of our
fictitious Store From Hell, many of them put there by people who
ought to know better.”
@demon newsletter
This insight into how we present ourselves to our audience
comes from the ability of the author to put themselves into the
shoes of the people on the receiving end of what we do. This
skill is essential in developing our ability to judge how what we
are doing and saying is being received. Skillful negotiators in
all contexts and all media instinctively use all three positions
as a way of taking a balanced approach to a situation.
An imbalanced use of any of the positions has implications for
your ability to make progress.
James often had to attend meetings as part of his work. He usually
prepared for these meetings by carefully thinking through his
proposals. He often had ideas for ways the department could handle
new projects. He couldn’t normally see why he wouldn’t get the go-
ahead from his manager. He felt that his manager’s style was to stall
and throw out objections. James usually felt extremely frustrated by
the response he received. As far as he was concerned, his manager
was being stubborn. Sometimes his frustration reached such a level
that he wondered if it was worth staying with the department.
NEGOTIATE YOUR WAY THROUGH LIFE: PERCEPTUAL POSITIONS 313Aggression