Yesterday I attended full day training on developing assertiveness skills. The entire training was really good…full of activities like role play on various situations…discussions on various personal experiences etc. I got a chance to narrate the recent incident happened with me…hope the reader of this blog will enjoy this…
(Before going through the case below…let me tell you there are 4 kinds of behavioral traits: Assertive, Passive, Aggressive, Passive – Aggressive).
Following is my case:
This case is about Nilubhaii and his 2 good close friends; say, Person X & person Y.
Person X has joined a new job in an insurance company couple of months back. As a new entrant he has to undergo lot of pressure and slog accordingly. One day around some month end X came to nilubhaii and discussed one of the problems in his job. X said now we are approaching to month end and I don’t have any prospective client from whom I can register an insurance policy by 5th of the next month. And if he fails to do so then his name will appear in ZERO club list (ZERO club list highlights the name of those people in office who have failed to book any policy by 5th of the new month). Last month he had his name in this list and again now its going to be there. But if this time it appears again there it will have very negative impact on his performance per se. So, he asked nilubhaii for some help to avoid this. He said he will register a policy in his (nilubhaii’s) name and will cancel it immediately within next 2-3 days before the policy get issued. Nilubhaii always considered X as very good friend and definitely he didn’t have any problem in helping his friend. Also the amount involved was quite less.
As per the plan the policy is registered in Nilubhaii’s name with all the formalities duly completed. But here because of personal reasons nilubhaii went out of town for couple of weeks. Meanwhile X got busy in his schedule and forgot about the cancellation of policy. When nilubhaii returned after couple of weeks he got the policy document. He was not able to understand how come that policy got issued at first place. He called up X and informed him about that. X asked him to check the policy and let him know what is free period (within 15 days after the policy is issued it can be cancelled and it is called as free period). Nilubhaii informed him that almost 14 days are already over and hence he need to act fast. But ultimately X couldn’t.
Now the policy got registered in Nilubhaii’s name and there was no way it could be cancelled. Also he asked X couple of times about it and every time X was saying that there is some problem in the cancellation of the policy.
Meanwhile for nilubhaii some urgent financial commitments pop up at personal & professional level. He successfully honored all the deals but ultimately ran out of liquidity. At this moment another person Y, again a very good & close friend of nilubhaii came to him and requested for some financial assistance. Actually person Y was not in good condition financially and because of some unavoidable circumstances and emergency medical reason at home suddenly this requirement of huge financial need pop up. Nilubhaii told him that he won’t be in position to help Y that large financially; but, yes, definitely he will help Y within his limits.
Now nilubhaii himself was in liquidity crisis from some time. So he thought better would be to get in touch with X and asked him for repayment of his amount (It was decided earlier that if X failed to cancel the policy then he will return nilubhaii the requisite amount from his pocket). Accordingly he contacted X and asked for the refund. As X & Y didn’t know each other nilubhaii didn’t explained the actual reason for refund to X. But X was too much occupied in his own work and ultimately failed to refund the amount. He delayed the payment for almost 2 weeks. And here nilubhaii was in tension because he had to help anyhow to Y whose need was genuine.
Finally nilubhaii started reminding X very frequently but all the reminders went in vain. One day nilubhaii sent X a message with some aggressive comments like: “Where the hell is my money…” But X took it the other way round and thought what kind of friend this guy nilubhaii is…he is talking to me such a manner…he keeps on saying always that we are best friends of each other…and so on…and now sending these kind of messages to him. Really nilubhaii is not worth friend kind of a person. Here the friendly relations between nilubhaii and X got spoiled. X returned the amount somewhat angrily…and nilubhaii forwarded the same to Y.
Now X is so angry with nilubhaii that he has almost said Good bye forever to him. But nilubhaii don’t want to break this friendship as there is no any reason as such. It was just for the moment that aggressive comment came out. That was the only mistake of nilubhaii.
Here following kind of behavioral traits can be observed in respect of nilubhaii:
- Passive: when he agreed to demands of both X & Y
- Aggressive: when he sent the message to X
Your task is to:
- Suggest at which stages how being assertive might have helped nilubhaii to maintain his relationships with both X & Y.
- What would have been the best possible assertive responses at these stages.
- Now since the relation is already spoiled with X what should be the next course of action for nilubhaii.
(Before going through the case below…let me tell you there are 4 kinds of behavioral traits: Assertive, Passive, Aggressive, Passive – Aggressive).
Following is my case:
This case is about Nilubhaii and his 2 good close friends; say, Person X & person Y.
Person X has joined a new job in an insurance company couple of months back. As a new entrant he has to undergo lot of pressure and slog accordingly. One day around some month end X came to nilubhaii and discussed one of the problems in his job. X said now we are approaching to month end and I don’t have any prospective client from whom I can register an insurance policy by 5th of the next month. And if he fails to do so then his name will appear in ZERO club list (ZERO club list highlights the name of those people in office who have failed to book any policy by 5th of the new month). Last month he had his name in this list and again now its going to be there. But if this time it appears again there it will have very negative impact on his performance per se. So, he asked nilubhaii for some help to avoid this. He said he will register a policy in his (nilubhaii’s) name and will cancel it immediately within next 2-3 days before the policy get issued. Nilubhaii always considered X as very good friend and definitely he didn’t have any problem in helping his friend. Also the amount involved was quite less.
As per the plan the policy is registered in Nilubhaii’s name with all the formalities duly completed. But here because of personal reasons nilubhaii went out of town for couple of weeks. Meanwhile X got busy in his schedule and forgot about the cancellation of policy. When nilubhaii returned after couple of weeks he got the policy document. He was not able to understand how come that policy got issued at first place. He called up X and informed him about that. X asked him to check the policy and let him know what is free period (within 15 days after the policy is issued it can be cancelled and it is called as free period). Nilubhaii informed him that almost 14 days are already over and hence he need to act fast. But ultimately X couldn’t.
Now the policy got registered in Nilubhaii’s name and there was no way it could be cancelled. Also he asked X couple of times about it and every time X was saying that there is some problem in the cancellation of the policy.
Meanwhile for nilubhaii some urgent financial commitments pop up at personal & professional level. He successfully honored all the deals but ultimately ran out of liquidity. At this moment another person Y, again a very good & close friend of nilubhaii came to him and requested for some financial assistance. Actually person Y was not in good condition financially and because of some unavoidable circumstances and emergency medical reason at home suddenly this requirement of huge financial need pop up. Nilubhaii told him that he won’t be in position to help Y that large financially; but, yes, definitely he will help Y within his limits.
Now nilubhaii himself was in liquidity crisis from some time. So he thought better would be to get in touch with X and asked him for repayment of his amount (It was decided earlier that if X failed to cancel the policy then he will return nilubhaii the requisite amount from his pocket). Accordingly he contacted X and asked for the refund. As X & Y didn’t know each other nilubhaii didn’t explained the actual reason for refund to X. But X was too much occupied in his own work and ultimately failed to refund the amount. He delayed the payment for almost 2 weeks. And here nilubhaii was in tension because he had to help anyhow to Y whose need was genuine.
Finally nilubhaii started reminding X very frequently but all the reminders went in vain. One day nilubhaii sent X a message with some aggressive comments like: “Where the hell is my money…” But X took it the other way round and thought what kind of friend this guy nilubhaii is…he is talking to me such a manner…he keeps on saying always that we are best friends of each other…and so on…and now sending these kind of messages to him. Really nilubhaii is not worth friend kind of a person. Here the friendly relations between nilubhaii and X got spoiled. X returned the amount somewhat angrily…and nilubhaii forwarded the same to Y.
Now X is so angry with nilubhaii that he has almost said Good bye forever to him. But nilubhaii don’t want to break this friendship as there is no any reason as such. It was just for the moment that aggressive comment came out. That was the only mistake of nilubhaii.
Here following kind of behavioral traits can be observed in respect of nilubhaii:
- Passive: when he agreed to demands of both X & Y
- Aggressive: when he sent the message to X
Your task is to:
- Suggest at which stages how being assertive might have helped nilubhaii to maintain his relationships with both X & Y.
- What would have been the best possible assertive responses at these stages.
- Now since the relation is already spoiled with X what should be the next course of action for nilubhaii.
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