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Dr. Aziz explains how to stop fearing authority figures: use their first names and remember they're ordinary people. A client preparing for an executive committee meeting found that humanizing the members made them less intimidating.
Dr. Aziz explains how to stop fearing authority figures: use their first names and remember they're ordinary people. A client preparing for an executive committee meeting found that humanizing the members made them less intimidating.
If you're afraid of a boss or another authority figure, try this. There's a client I was working with who was very nervous before. She met with the executive committee at her work. And she was a top salesperson. She did really well, but still, the executive committee. I'm so nervous about these meetings. And so one day I asked her, I said, well, who's on the executive committee? It turns out, like, four people. I said, what are their first names? She listed their first names, and I was like, so we'll pick one of them. I said, how about Bob? What's Bob like? And she started to tune in. She's like, well, I've talked to Bob about his kids and other things, and we humanized the person. He wasn't this role of boss or executive committee person, just Bob. So remove the aura of that title. Stop relating to the person as if they are that title. That's just a role they play at work when they get home. Maybe their kids make fun of them or, like, shut up, dad or Mom. They fall out of that highfalutin significance role. They're just a regular person like you. And when you see that, it frees you up to just treat them as they really are, which is just another human being like you.
