Copyright © 2014 by Alan C. Fox
All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher.
People Tools™ is a trademark of People Tools 13 LLC.
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First Edition
ISBN 978-1-59079-142-4
eISBN: 9781590791455
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fox, Alan C.
People tools : 54 strategies for building relationships, creating joy, and embracing prosperity / Alan C. Fox. -- First edition.
pages cm
Summary: "Author presents strategies people can employ to build and strengthen the personal relationships he believes are the hallmarks of a successful career and enjoyable life"-- Provided by publisher. ISBN 978-1-59079-142-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Interpersonal relations. 2. Interpersonal communication. 3. Success.
I. Title.
HM1106.F69 2014
302--dc23
2013029442
Interior book design and production by Janice Benight
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
Foreword
Introduction The Toolbox: Naming Your Tools xiii
1 Rules: Visible and Invisible
2 The Wastebasket: Discarding Stereotypes
3 Walls and Doors: No Before Yes
4 The open Door: Yes
5 Question Mark
6 The Belt Buckle
7 Patterns Persist
8 Socrates—Know Thyself
9 The Picture: Function over Form
10 The Positive Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
11 Buy a Ticket
12 Target Practice
13 The 80% Solution
14 Shrink the Glass
15 Sunk Cost
16 Get Past Perfect
17 Take a Chance
18 The Sizzle and the Steak
19 Blind Date: Make a Good First Impression
20 Make Lemonade
21 Fry Another Egg
22 The Four C's
23 Stuff It into Your Sub
24 Smiley Face
25 Showbiz
26 Erase
27 Things Are only Things
28 Sweet Grapes
29 Parallel Paths
30 Catch Them Being Good
31 A little Bit of oil
32 Tip the Messenger
33 Catching a Feather
34 The Equal Relationship
35 Honey First
36 leverage
37 Dangle a Carrot
38 A House Undivided
39 Apology
40 After You, Gaston
41 Trick or Treat
42 Back off
43 The lone Stranger
44 Have a Nonversation
45 Snip
46 True Colors
47 Green Grass now
48 Fall Backwards into the Hands of Fate
49 If You Want to Keep a Secret, Don't Tell Anyone—Especially Your Personal Trainer
50 Climb a Mountain
51 Hold Me
52 A Million Miles Away: Focus on the Process and let Go of the outcome
53 Uneven Steps
54 The Road
About the Author
This book is dedicated to Nancy Miller, who pushed me for twenty years to complete the manuscript, and to my wife, Daveen, who enjoyed the benefit, or burden, of my practicing People Tools on and with her for thirty-five years. Most important, People Tools is dedicated to you, the reader, with my hope and belief that it will add years of joy to your life.
FOREWORD
Craig R. Fox, PhD
Professor of Management and Psychology, UCLA
If you're still trying to decide whether or not to buy this book, don’t waste your time on the foreword—skip ahead to the introduction. Or pick a chapter at random and dive in. Each entertaining segment delivers a nugget of deployable wisdom, mined from seventy-three years of a life well-lived and well-observed. But I warn you: find a comfortable chair, as the anecdotes will reel you in and you may have a hard time putting the book down.
My father is larger than life to many of his clients, colleagues, and friends, and I’ve often wondered where that magic comes from. No doubt some part of the Alan Fox mystique comes from his considerable business success, which enables him to live comfortably with occasional flourishes of extravagance and generosity. On top of that he somehow finds time to edit a poetry journal, oversee a charitable organization, remain connected with an impossibly expansive network of clients and friends, read voraciously, attend a surfeit of theater, music, and sporting events, and travel extensively. It seems like Alan Fox does more before breakfast than most of us dare dream up for our to-do lists.
But even were you to strip away all of the personal accomplishments and manic efficiency, I believe that my father would remain a powerful figure in the lives of those around him. Something about the way he comports himself and interacts with the people in his orbit seems to elevate them. A big part of his interpersonal success, I believe, comes from his skillful deployment of an ever-expanding array of “people tools.”
I’ve certainly been on the receiving end of people tools myself. For instance, a couple of months after I began my first tenure-track job at Duke University at age twenty-eight, Hurricane Fran bore down on North Carolina where I had just purchased my first home. The storm ripped two dozen massive trees out of my acre of forest, badly damaged the roof, and shattered a multilevel deck. I was devastated and didn’t know how to begin to clean up while I was beginning a challenging new job.
On hearing about the carnage my father cheerfully exclaimed, “This is wonderful news.” I was stunned—it was as if he hadn’t heard a word I had said. He continued: “Now you have an opportunity to learn all about working with insurance agents, architects, and contractors. Your lot will be more sunny and when you rebuild you can have exactly the kind of deck you want.” My father’s upbeat tone and forward-looking perspective caught me off guard. But I must confess that his response made me feel more than a little better, and it was the first truly constructive response I had received since the hurricane hit. And it was quintessential Alan Fox: optimistic, practical, wise.
My father’s tool of moving on quickly from the past and treating each setback as an opportunity (“make lemonade”) is a lesson that has stuck with me in the seventeen years since the hurricane. And his tool of embracing contagious optimism rather than wallowing with me in my misery (“smiley face”) has since helped me to be more effective when supporting friends and acquaintances in pain.
Many years ago I served as an undergraduate research assistant for an eminent psychologist who would later win a Nobel Prize. One day I asked the great man how he came up with ideas for the many remarkable studies he had published over the years. Had he scanned the literature for gaps in evidence or opportunities to improve existing theories? “Not at all,” he answered. “I view my job like that of a good novelist. I observe people—their patterns, their idiosyncrasies—and from that I form hypotheses that I test in my experiments. Only later do I return to the literature to see what has been done before.”
I’ve sometimes joked that my father is a “pop” psychologist. The truth is that his fresh perspective as a non-psychologist with the instincts of a novelist have helped him to independently derive several important insights that have a good basis in behavioral science research. For instance, his observation that we can sometimes bring out behaviors in others that we expect (“self-fulfilling prophecies”) has been confirmed in numerous experiments by social psychologists; the insight that prior actions are more predictive of future behaviors than are statements of intention (“belt buckle” and “patterns persist”) also has a good basis in research; the notion that reward can be more effective than punishment (“catch them being good”) and that we tend to overestimate how much others share our values and beliefs (“parallel paths”) also have found support in scientific studies.
A few of my father’s people tools are so keenly observant that they could inspire new research. For instance, in his chapter on “sunk costs” he observes that purchasing a ticket to an excursion should be viewed as buying an “option to go on the excursion” rather than buying the excursion itself. This subtle psychological distinction makes it easier to skip the excursion if one later finds a better use for the time—the rational course of action. In behavioral economics we call that a framing effect: people are more willing to walk away from an alternative when it is seen as a foregone gain than when it is seen as a loss. Thus, my father’s idea to explicitly label sunk costs as “options” is an ingenious tool for self-management that, so far as I know, researchers have not yet formally investigated.
PEOPLE TOOLS ARE NOT ONLY useful for self-management. They can also be useful in managing others. A friend of mine who used to teach at Harvard Business School (HBS) tells me that the institution once surveyed its alumni and asked them what they learned at HBS that they found most useful in their lives beyond Harvard. Apparently the top answer they received from their alumni was “people skills.” This accords with my own experience—I find that students typically enter business school hungry for quantitative tools of finance,accounting, and strategic analysis. Yet what often serves them best years later are the interpersonal skills they learn in a leadership or negotiation class that enable them to build better networks, lead others, and manage conflicts more effectively. Indeed, I often find myself sprinkling my father’s people tools into my own lectures to appreciative MBA students and business executives.
The story is told of a new inmate’s first night in prison. After lights out he hears the other prisoners shouting out numbers, each followed by maniacal laughter from the other inmates. The new convict asks his cellmate what is going on. “Oh, well, by now we’ve heard each other’s jokes so many times we just call them out by number.” Intrigued, the newbie shouts “Twelve!” but only hears silence. “Seven!” Only the sound of crickets chirping. “Five?” Nothing. Frustrated, the new inmate asks his cellmate why nobody is laughing. “The jokes are fine,” responds the other prisoner, “but your delivery could use a little work.”
Many of my father’s people tools have been repeated so many times among his family and friends that we only need to refer to them using his shorthand labels. In the course of a conversation someone might observe that “patterns persist” as others nod knowingly. Or someone might say “watch his belt buckle” as others smile in agreement. To an outsider this may appear as inscrutable as the numbers shouted in the aforementioned prison appeared to the new inmate. But to those familiar with Alan Fox’s people tools, his labels are a compact form of communicating and remembering useful behavioral insights. I’m pleased that my father is finally sharing his people tools with a wider circle of readers, and I look forward to the day when some of their labels enter more common parlance.
So what are you waiting for? Find that comfortable chair and dive in!
CRAIG R. FOX
June 2013
INTRODUCTION
THE TOOLBOX:
NAMING YOUR TOOLS
How forcible are right words!
—THE BIBLE
Job 6:25
Their villages were frequently [unnamed] . . . if war took a man even a short distance from a nameless hamlet, the chances of his returning to it were slight; he could not identify it, and finding his way back alone was virtually impossible.
—WILLIAM MANCHESTER
A World Lit Only by Fire
When we experience joy in our lives, what else do we really need? This is the most important sentence in my book, and the reason I put it first. If you are like my mother you have already skipped to the last page to find out where we will end up. I will tell you now. The last sentence in my book is the same as the first.
While I was growing up my family always started dinner at 5:30 p.m. My father was a studio musician. He played the French horn for movies produced by Walt Disney, 20th Century Fox, and Paramount Studios, among others.
One evening he started our family dinner by making the following statement:
“Today I proved that my fellow musicians are unsociable. During one of our ten-minute breaks I stood against the wall with my arms crossed, and not one of them approached me to say ‘hello.’ Not one.” There was a look of triumph in his eyes, possibly masking despair.
xiii
I was five years old then, and did not understand that if you stood against a wall, arms crossed in front of your chest and staring into space, that you were not proving your fellow musicians to be unsociable. You were proving that people leave you alone when you create a physical barrier and refuse to make eye contact.
As I said, at that time I did not understand this, so I spent the next twenty years of my life arms crossed, staring into space, proving over and over again that other people would not approach me. Dad, your system worked beautifully. It still does, whenever I want to be invisible.
By age thirty I was tired of solitary confinement, living in a prison of my own making. At the suggestion of a friend I enrolled in the Counselor Education program in the School of Education at the University of Southern California. I was determined to find the “get out of jail free” card for my soul.
I gradually released myself from self-imprisonment, but not in the way I expected. I realize now that I had intended to learn how to manipulate people better, present a more pleasing-to-others face, maybe uncross my arms and smile a bit. At the start of the Counselor Education program I had no idea that all I really had to do was to implement the simple strategy of being open and honest. A small change, but for me, nearly impossible. I was an attorney. Covert was my middle name. I was a CPA, much more comfortable with numbers than with numbers of people. I had started my own law firm and my own real estate business, and put a greater emotional investment into being “successful” than I did into being authentic. But, as a close friend asked me at the time, “Suppose they gave a life and nobody came?”
I realized I had to come out of my solitary self-confinement and make myself known. I began to learn, understand, and practice the keys to building fulfilling relationships. As a result I have enjoyed a successful life. Now I am sharing the vision and wisdom I have worked to accumulate throughout my life—those tools and techniques that I wish someone had shared with me when I was young.
During the past forty years my life has consistently improved in all areas. My business has prospered beyond what I could possibly have imagined; my capacity to deal effectively with a wide range of people has improved enormously. In short, I am enjoying all aspects of my life far more today than I ever have before.
So at age seventy-three here I am, grey hair and small pot belly, open and honest, and smiling most of the time. My wife, Daveen, is with me because I invented a People Tool just for her. Or should I say, just for me. To overcome her objection (“I don’t date customers of my employer”) I just blurted out my uncensored stream of conscious thoughts about why and how much I wanted to date her.
In fact, over more than thirty years I have used my education and extensive experience in psychology, accounting, and law to develop and practice a clear way of thinking, which I call “People Tools.”
A “People Tool” is a behavioral technique you can use to change your outlook. Together they are like night vision binoculars peering into the darkness of your own motivations and actions, as well as the motivations and actions of others. The People Tool of Socrates will help you to know yourself better. The People Tool of Belt Buckle teaches you to look at actions rather than words to determine who you and others really are. The People Tool of Patterns Persist will enable you to predict with far greater accuracy how you or someone else is likely to behave in the future. After you read this book your life will change for the better. You will have a much greater understanding of yourself and everyone you come into contact with.
People Tools have been invaluable to me in building relationships, creating joy, and embracing prosperity in my life. I have accumulated quite a number of People Tools, and fifty-four of the best are in this book.
I hope that your life will be easier, and even more successful, than mine. So if your arms are crossed, relax. Put a smile on your face, open your heart, and let’s get to know each other.
When I was twenty I thought about aiming to become a billionaire, at a time when there were only four in the world starting, as I recall, with J. Paul Getty. I figured out how much I could reasonably earn each year, what portion I could expect to save, and how many dollars I could accumulate from the investments which I intended to make. I watched carefully as my father invested in apartment buildings when I was a teenager, and calculated that if I devoted myself to money I could become a billionaire when I was sixty-seven years old.
But I questioned whether following this financial road map for almost fifty years of my life would be worth it. I wondered if the single-minded quest for money justified the sacrifice of family and fun.
I thought about the character projected by Jack Benny, a very funny man with a weekly radio show. For years Benny cultivated the comic image of being stingy.
The longest laugh in the history of radio came when Benny was approached by a robber, who stuck a gun in Benny’s belly.
“Your money or your life,” said the robber.
Silence.
“Your money or your life.”
Silence.
Finally a third and insistent, “Your money or your life!”
Benny finally answered. “I’m thinking.”
When I was twenty I thought about it, and decided that the money, even a billion dollars of it, was not worth my life.
At seventy-three I am pleased to report that I have accumulated more than enough wealth to satisfy almost anyone, and that I am not and do not intend to ever become a billionaire. I can provide education and medical care for my family, as well as unusual vacations to places like Antarctica and Easter Island. The bonus is that money buys time for me to enjoy my relationships.
One People Tool I use often is to Dangle a Carrot in front of myself for motivation. This entire book is a carrot to dangle in front of yourself. I hope you find it tasty and enjoy the crunch of discovery.
The story is told of a doctor, a priest, and an anarchist arguing about which profession came first.
“It must have been medicine,” said the doctor. “How else could Cain and Abel have been born?”
“No, it was religion,” said the priest. “It must have been God who brought order out of chaos.”
“Aha!” said the anarchist. “And who created chaos?”
Chaos and uncertainty abound, and every day I use the People Tool of Sunk Cost to focus my life on the future rather than the past, to help me achieve the result I want—joy, a satisfying relationship, or wealth.
Although I could try using my hand to pound a two-penny nail into a block of Douglas fir, I would be considerably more successful, and my hand less bruised, if I used a tool, in this case a hammer.
When I wanted my wife, Daveen, to start a relationship with me I could have shown her my expensive house with a pool and view, trotted out written testimonials from my parents, or flashed my bankroll (held together by a large paper clip) in her face. I didn’t think that would work with Daveen, and I wasn’t trying to sell her my house, my parents, or my money. I was selling me—the real, scared, sensitive me.
I had asked her to lunch. As we sat down she said, “I can only think of two reasons why you’ve asked me to lunch. Either you want me to come to work for you, or you want to have a relationship. Which is it?”
Daveen always is direct. Thirty-five years ago I was often indirect, but in an act of divine inspiration I invented, on the spot, a People Tool to win her over. We now know it worked, and worked rather well.
You are already familiar with many People Tools and use them every day. The Sizzle and the Steak—you might already realize that in certain situations appearance is more important than substance. The 80% Solution—when is a person in your life “good enough”? No Before Yes—isn’t it difficult to give an unqualified “Yes” unless you are confident you can, when necessary, say “No”?
With the various ideas introduced in this book, you can fill your mental toolbox with useful new tools and refresh those techniques that you already know, trust, and use. This is simple, but important and life-changing stuff. With the concept of People Tools you can employ your favorites in new and more effective ways.
A mother was teaching her young son how to cook a roast. “Before you put the roast in the oven you have to cut off each end.”
“Why?”
The mother thought for a moment.
“Because that’s what my mother taught me. Let’s ask her.”
The son telephoned his grandmother. “Granny, why do you cut off the ends of the roast before you put it in the oven?”
Grandma didn’t hesitate. “Because that’s what my mother taught me. You’d better ask her.”
So mother and son drove to the rest home where Great-Grandma, eighty-nine years old, crocheted away her afternoons.
“Great-Granny,” her great-grandson asked, “why do you cut off the ends of the roast before you put it in the oven?”
Great Grandma put down her yarn and smiled at his eager question. Then she whispered to her favorite great-grandson, “That’s an easy one. When I began to cook many years ago the oven wasn’t big enough to hold the whole roast. So I cut off each end.”
Like her great-grandson, you might reappraise your old tools in light of new circumstances. At the appropriate time, you might consider listening instead of talking, or acting now instead of later (or later instead of now).
The People Tools described in this book provide a foundation on which you can build. The total potential supply of People Tools is virtually unlimited. And People Tools are free. You can easily invent your own personalized set of tools, selecting those which work best for you and eliminating those which are not helpful. You do not have to cut off the ends of the roast just because that is what you or your great-grandmother did in the past.
You might begin with the Tool of Imagination. Open your mind to the possibilities. You are unique. Your needs are different from mine. Your abilities are different. Your background and goals are your own. Every possibility presented to you in this book can be expanded and improved upon, or you may wish to discard a tool that does not suit your personal taste or needs.
You are the world’s foremost expert on yourself. After all, you’re the only person who has lived with you for every moment from infancy through childhood and into the present. I invite you to blend your own knowledge and experience with the ideas which follow, and to discover, explore, and label many of the unnamed resources of your mind, as you fill your Toolbox with People Tools to build relationships, create joy, and embrace prosperity—in short, to build the life of your dreams.
RULES:
VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE
You never had time to learn. They threw you in and told you the rules and the first time they caught you off base they killed you.
—ERNEST HEMINGWAY
A Farewell to Arms
The exception proves the rule.
—PROVERB
I watched with interest when my daughter, Ingrid, then seven years old, followed the rules. When her first grade class was taught a song, she faithfully memorized each word. When the class was learning a new dance the teacher would say, “Watch Ingrid. Do what she does.” Ingrid took her rule-following role very seriously.
When I was in first grade I had a more complex relationship with the rules. Because I was often punished for breaking them, I wanted to know what the rules were, not for the pleasure of following them or the personal satisfaction of doing a “good job.” I simply wanted to know what the rules were to avoid being spanked by my dad, or sent to the principal’s office by my teacher. Both of those events happened to me more times than I like to remember.
Not only was I often punished, but I was also often confused. I followed the rules but was punished anyway. As I grew older I gradually realized that society operates with two entirely separate sets of rules.
First there are the visible rules which are loudly proclaimed by parents, teachers, and religious leaders, and often enacted into law. (Parent: “Always tell the truth.” Teacher: “Don’t talk in class.” Religion: “Thou shalt not kill.” Law: “Writing a check for more money than is in your bank account is a crime, punishable by law.”)
But there is also a second, parallel universe set of invisible rules, society’s actual standards of conduct that even your mother will not divulge. All too often the invisible rule is the exact opposite of the visible. “In some circumstances lying can be helpful.” Did your mother ever tell you that? Think of all the social situations where telling the truth would hurt someone’s feelings and telling a white lie might be more appropriate.
And, of course, we often follow the invisible rules. Does everyone cross the street only at the crosswalk? Does everyone tell the truth all of the time?