Taming the Righting Reflex

When temperatures and emotions rise, the most powerful thing we can do is to hold steady.

I don’t know about you, but I love to tell people what to do.

My bet is if you care deeply about the planet and the myriad of life we share it with, you probably are inclined to tell people what to do, too. Especially if it involves trying to help humanity from careening into an avoidable yet catastrophic trajectory.

The founders of Motivational Interviewing (MI), Stephen Rollnick and Bill Miller, understand this impulse deeply, because they are in the helping profession.

As two public health clinicians, Steve and Bill confronted the unfortunate yet irrefutable truth: you simply cannot tell people what to do, and expect results.

They call this The Righting Reflex: the well-intentioned yet often ill-fated drive to tell, yell and sell people on solutions, how to change, what to do. How to think. What to believe.

It may come from passion, it may come from love, it may come from a desire to course correct. To make things better. To heal. To help.

Even so, unless we are asked for our input (what in MI is called “asking for permission”), it often doesn’t land—and can ignite even more resistance and outright hostility.

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Right, right, right…

I was reminded of this psychological truth this past week, when confronted with the unfathomable magnitude of the California wildfires that are tearing through the densely populated SoCal urban-wildlife interface.

Not only are these fires horrific, but the responses across the globe ignited a maelstrom of reactivity, trauma and blame.

As I was on retreat during this time, I was somewhat shielded from the news and noise, dipping in and out via friends, colleagues and LinkedIn. What I noticed, however, and felt so poignantly was the wave of remorse, the “what will it take for us to wake up?” energy amongst those of us who have been tracking and witnessing escalating global climate disruption for decades. And this led me right into the telling, yelling and selling response. The Righting Reflex.

Let’s play a game

This tendency of the Righting Reflex was a topic, at a recent special evening in San Francisco hosted by the Society for Sustainable Events—one of a growing number of vitally important professional networks that provide resources, connection and knowledge sharing for practitioners often working solo in their roles. Held at the Chase Center, home of the Golden State Warriors, with breathtaking views of the Bay, I was honored to share the stage with two phenomenal women, Marley Finnegan and Alyah Kelso, where we spoke openly about grief, and how our emotions in this work are the fuel for our ability to connect with diverse stakeholders, show up authentically and be effective.

In the opening talk, I took the risk of inviting the community to reflect on how we show up in this work.

Our audience in San Francisco!

Using the game I’ve now introduced to thousands of sustainability, climate and environmental practitioners and students around the world, we each had a card with a particular changemaker style: Cheerleader, Educator, or Righter.

Each of us role-played with vigor, focusing on an issue near and dear to our hearts. Then, I asked the group to turn the card over to: The Guide.

Where do your tendencies lie? Take our quiz

Each person was then asked to turn to their partner, and using the same topic, instead ask: “What is your relationship / experience with x?”

And to then listen. And listen some more. Then, and only then, they can ask, “Would you like to hear more about what I know/have experienced/think?” (This is called asking permission.)

Assuming the response is yes, only then can we offer our input… our knowledge, our gifts, our experience. Our passion. Our stories.

We don’t dump, we don’t push. We ask, and then offer. And it takes a lot of practice, and is one of the hardest things for humans to do.

This is called Guiding. It is also called “Ask, Offer, Ask,” a classic practice in the MI world. And it is known, and documented for lowering the temperature when stakes are high, and enabling the kinds of interactions that make shifts in perspective or actions more possible.

Despite mountains of evidence and human wisdom, this orientation of asking, listening, asking permission, and then “offering” has not found its way into how we address our most critical, pressing existential threats facing us and the planet.

I have to ask why this is the case.

What I shared with this group of courageous and dedicated group of leaders in the hospitality and events sectors, is that these ways of showing up—as Cheerleaders, Educators or Righters, aka “selling, telling and yelling”—are coping mechanisms. They are an expression of how we manage and deal with our own sense of high stakes, frustration, and yes, love and care.

I have found that when we recognize that how we express ourselves as changemakers is often a reflection of our own concern, love, grief, passion and care—it may create a compassionate opportunity to pause, reflect and consider learning new skillsets.

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An intervention, if you will.

New ways of being in the world that require us to practice taming our righting reflex (credit to this phrase goes to MI and Steve Malcolm Berg-Smith, my colleague, mentor and trainer, who I shared about in a previous newsletter, Righting vs Guiding!)

As we navigate the weeks and months ahead, I want to ask you to consider doing an intervention on how you show up in this work. A compassionate intervention. A loving way to ask yourself if you are falling into the righting reflex. And if you are willing and open to evolving and learning new ways of being, that may be difficult and painful but ultimately, much more generative.

And with that, friends, I wish you a good weekend, take good care, and tell someone about this newsletter. Let’s grow this and share the love.

x Renée

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