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Why Are You Being So Defensive?

I love music. I love how it makes me feel. I love how it can brighten my day and energize my thoughts. There are many songs, from many different genres that make up the soundtrack of my life.I almost always have a song going on in my head.

Because I love music so much, I have from time to time offered to be the disc jockey at our church youth dances. It is a fun experience. It keeps me current on the supercool songs of the day and helps me to expand my music library. It is a lot of work putting together a dance for a youth group. There are so many different interests. It is hard to please everybody. Sometimes I am asked to play songs that are not very danceable or popular. It stifles the mood of the dance until we can bring it back with one of the hits.

At the dances, I have a wireless connection which makes it easy to buy songs on the spot that I do not already own. This means if we don't have it, I can usually get it in just a few moments and then I can play someone's request. I am very busy during the dances trying to coordinate the next song, buy new songs and keep everyone happy. It seems that no matter how hard I work at it, somebody is always disappointed. Sometimes the disappointment can lead to some stressful times.

As I was preparing to set up for one of the dances, an adult leader came to me with a list of songs and a CD that had the songs on it and asked me to play during the dance that night. I explained to her that I would look at the list and play as many of the songs as possible, but that I couldn't guarantee that I would play all of them. She was a bit more persistent and let me know that the song list had been put together by some of the kids and that it was they wanted to hear. I told her again that I would play as many of them as I could and that I was sure there would be other kids who were not part of the group that recommended these songs that would have other requests. I assured her that I always play what the kids want to hear. She stated again that this is what the kids wanted to hear and that I should play the list.

As I mentioned, I was in the middle of setting up the equipment and doing the sound check and getting everything ready and I did not have time to discuss it any further and so I said I would play as much of it as I could and asked her to leave so I  could finish what I was doing. I am aware that as the conversation progressed, my tone elevated as I demonstrated my frustration with the timing of the request and the request in general.

All of a sudden, this person says to me, "why are you getting so defensive?" I did not feel like I was previously acting defensive, but this question set me off. If I wasn't defensive before I quickly became so. Sadly, the situation escalated and resulted in a less than happy result. My frustration grew and my actions and tone demonstrated that frustration to those around. I didn't feel very good about it in the moment and felt even worse later.

The question, "why are getting so defensive?" really through me for a loop. I have thought a lot about it sense that time and I have wondered what a proper answer to that question would be. I even posted the question, "how do you respond when someone asks you why you are being so defensive?" on LinkedIn. I got some great answers. One of my favorites was to respond by saying, "because you are being so offensive." Even though I liked that answer, I knew I could never really use it.

As I analyzed the situation I realized that I was in complete control of what was going on, and that I had in fact become defensive. I was frustrated because somebody brought me a list of songs to play 20 minutes before the dance. I wanted to teach that person a lesson so I said I would play as many of them as I could and then I explained why I would not and why I could not play all of them. I had a lot of good reasons for not playing all of the songs which sounded like I wasn't going to play any of them. I don't think the person who brought me the list really expected that I would play all of them, but my tone, my facial expressions and my behavior demonstrated that I would play whatever I wanted to play and that I may not play any of the songs on the list.

As I look back on it, I realize that all I really had to do was to say something like, "thanks for giving me this list. I may not have many of these songs and that means I won't have to buy them. I am sure the kids will be happy when they hear the songs they have requested." That was all I needed to say. If I would have said that, the person would have said thanks and left me alone to do my work. During the dance, the kids would have requested the songs they wanted and I would have played them and nothing more would have been said about it.

Has This Ever Happened To You?

Has anybody ever asked you why you are being so defensive? How did you respond? Think about your response for a moment, would you respond differently if you could go back to that moment? I would love to hear your thoughts. Be sure and leave a comment or send me an email.

Life is Good!

Andrew Thorn
760-559-3548

Tags: Defensiveness. LinkedIn

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 29th, 2009 at 8:02 am and is filed under Personal Best Leadership. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.