Equip Yourself for Success

Emotional Triggers Exercise

Emotional What Can I Do
Trigger Thoughts Behavior Emotions (Cognitive/Behavioral
(Event) Strategies)?

Being unfairly
judged or
treated

Condescension
and lack of
respect

Being
unappreciated

Feeling that
you’re not
being listened
to

The Johari Window

 Private-Self Questions:
- If you are competent in some area, why don’t others see it?
- Is there a cost to you and others for maintaining private-self characteristics?
- If you were to demonstrate this competency so that others could see it, how would you do this?

 Blind Spot Questions:

- Do other people see you differently that you see yourself?
- Are you open to feedback about that?
- Powerful questions for feedback and sharing

1
Managing Defensiveness Journaling Exercise
Find below a list of 48 behaviors that are common signs of defensiveness. Take a moment and put a check
by the top three defense behaviors that you most often do. If you do not think you do any of these
behaviors, then just check off box number 12.

# Defensive behaviors 24. Intellectualizing ☐

1.
Loss of humor ☐ 25. Holding a grudge (resentment) ☐
2.
Taking offense ☐ 26. Eccentricity ☐
High charge or energy in the ☐ 27. Being too nice ☐
3.
body ☐
28. Selective deafness
4. Sudden drop in IQ ☐
29. Trivializing with humor ☐
5.
Wanting to be right (“No ☐
question about it”) 30.
Inappropriate laughter or ☐
☐ giggling
6. Wanting the last word
31. Personalizing everything ☐
7.
Endless explaining and ☐
rationalizing 32. All-or-nothing thinking ☐
8.
Flooding with information to ☐ ☐
prove a point 33. Catastrophizing
9. Playing “poor me” ☐ 34. Fast breathing/heartbeat ☐

10. Teaching or preaching ☐ 35. Cold, clammy skin ☐

11. Rigidity ☐ 36. Hot, sweaty skin ☐

12. Denial ☐ 37. Mind reading ☐

Withdrawal into deadly ☐ 38. Jumping to conclusions ☐
13.
silence
39.
Making fun of others (being ☐
14. Cynicism (victim) ☐ highly critical)
15. Sarcasm ☐ 40.
Attacking (the best defense is ☐
a good offense)
16.
“I’m aware of that; leave me ☐ ☐
alone” (defense of awareness) 41. Acting crazy
Terminal uniqueness (I’m so ☐ 42. Magnifying everything ☐
17. special; rules don’t apply to
43. Minimizing everything ☐
me)
18.
“It’s just my personality; it’s ☐ 44.
Emotional rigidity (if I feel it, ☐
just how I am” it’s true)
19. Not wanting to negotiate ☐ 45. Speaking too fast ☐

20. Blaming ☐ 46.

Becoming physically ☐
immobile
21.
Sudden onset of illness or ☐ ☐
accident 47. Obsessive thinking
22. Confusion ☐ 48.
Addictions: alcohol, shopping, ☐
work, or other
23. Suddenly tired or sleepy ☐

2
Communication Collaboration Matrix

Action Plan

Resources

Scenarios
Managing Defensiveness
3
Amit is a vendor manager based in UK, working on an ambiguous customer
journey project. The goal of the project is to increase customer basket size by
diving deep into customer purchasing insights. This analysis has not been done
Questions:

 What happened to Amit to feel that way?

 What do you think it could be the consequences/impact for both
parties? In hindsight, what could Amit have done to avoid this situation?
 How does he need to explain to Ana for her to understand his
perspective? What questions can be asked to better understand her
perspective?
 How would you react/respond in this situation? If needed, what would
you consider after this training to face this kind of situation?

Managing Expectations

4
Li Mei works in Amazon Advertising. She has worked with her colleague
Theodore in Retail to create an exciting brand campaign for a vendor. The
vendor has agreed to invest in advertising and retail promotions simultaneously
for the first time. Unfortunately, a tech issue combined with warehouse capacity
5