“Always give confrontation the ‘sandwich treatment.’”

A thought by John C. Maxwell (2013-02-15) from his book, Be A People Person: Effective Leadership Through Effective Relationships (p. 157). David C. Cook. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title of the book to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

There will be times that we need to confront as a parent, as a boss or as a friend. There are also times that you and I need to be confronted. John gives some good thoughts on this.

John says, “Always give confrontation the ‘sandwich treatment.’ Sandwich the criticism between praise at the beginning and encouragement at the end. To leave a discouraged person without hope is cruel and vindictive. Goethe, the German poet, said, ‘Correction does much, but encouragement does more. Encouragement after censure is as the sun after a shower.’”

That is very good.

John then says, “In my effort to simplify things as much as possible, I have come up with one-word descriptions of the various ways people will respond to confrontation:

BYE. The ‘bye’ people never profit from confrontation; they don’t hang around long enough. Their egos are too fragile.

SPY. Spies become suspicious of everyone. They begin an investigation to find out who in the organization is out to get them. Often they will avoid risking a failure again.

FRY. Some people will simply get mad and either fly of the handle or do a slow burn.

LIE. The liar has an excuse for every mistake. Therefore he never faces up to the reality of his situation.

CRY. Crybabies are overly sensitive and become hurt by confrontation. Unlike the ‘bye’ people, criers hang around in hopes that people will see how mistreated they are and sympathize with them. They have a martyr complex.

SIGH. These people have a ‘That’s-too-bad-but-there’s-nothing-I-can-do-about-it’ attitude. They don’t accept any responsibility for making right the wrong.

FLY. This category of people takes criticism and flies with it. They learn from it and become better because of it.”

Such good advice.

So which category are you in when you are confronted?

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