How To Stop Hiccups (And Widen Your Managerial Toolbox)
I found a very effective way to stop someone's hiccups. Will you guess what it is?
One kind reader recently told me:
You are now one of those people whose articles I read regardless of the subject.
This is quite a compliment to live up to…
Please consider today’s article as an experiment to see how much this reader’s statement is true. My success criteria will be: after reading this email, less than 20% of people unsubscribe.
The topic of today is hiccups, and how to stop it.
From a medical standpoint, a hiccup is an involuntary contraction of the diaphragm, instantly followed by a closure of the vocal cords.
Hiccups usually go away on their own, but people sometimes try home remedies to make them stop faster — drinking a glass of water upside-down, holding one’s breath for a minute, placing sugar under the tongue, being frightened by someone, etc. From a scientific standpoint, none of those has demonstrated any efficiency.
A decade ago, I was under the empirical impression that scaring the person with hiccups was working very well. The only trouble with that approach is that it was actually hard to scare someone standing right next to you. The surprise effect, who plays a big role in fear, was hard to generate on the spot.
For a reason that is probably enough to justify a monthly visit to a shrink, I tried to solve that problem. And, surprisingly, I succeeded. That’s right — I found an approach that can systematically stop someone’s hiccups.
Here's what to do the next time you're around someone with hiccups.
1. Tell that person: “I know a guaranteed way to stop hiccups. I’ve tried it many times before, and it always worked. But I must warn you that it’s quite a radical approach…"
2. The person will want to know more. Continue: "The most effective way to stop hiccups is fear. So I'm going to scare you really bad. For that, I’m gonna need you to trust me. Are you up for it?”
3. Important note — it is possible that the person does not trust you enough to blindly follow your instructions. Do not force her!
4. If the person trusts you, continue with the instructions: “You must close your eyes. It is very important that you keep them closed until I tell you otherwise. Is that clear?"
5. The person nods, and closes her eyes.
Let's pause for a second. Are you ready to play?
Think about how you would approach that situation.
Remember, the person:
has hiccups,
wants to get rid of it,
understands that fear is the remedy,
and trusts you enough to close her eyes.
Now, what do you do?
…
Seriously, stop scrolling, and give it a thought. What could you do?
Honestly, reading the rest of the article will be way more interesting for you if you take the time to try and address this small puzzle.
…
I’ll give you a hint — your answer may reveal the type of manager you are likely to be. There are no good or bad answers.
So, did you make a guess?
OK, then read on.
I know, I just told you that there are no good or bad answers. But I must admit that, considering that the approach that I came up with has a 95% success rate, you’re scoring more points if you found it. That being said, if you thought of an approach that you believe would have similar success, please share it by replying to this email.
So, the approach is…
To wait.
To do absolutely nothing.
(After twenty seconds, if the person didn’t open her eyes on her own, tell her to do so.)
And her hiccups will be gone.
Pause again. Did you guess it right?
If so, congratulations!
If not, here’s a second chance to boost your self-esteem: Can you guess why this approach works?
Like the previous time, take a second to think about it. You’ll learn something about yourself, I promise.
Ready?
OK, here's my interpretation.
As soon as the person closes her eyes, she will immediately try to guess what you are going to do to her. She knows you're going to scare her. She noticed that you seemed confident about your approach, but she also noted that you asked for her permission. All those clues lead to one conclusion in her mind: you are going to do something wild in order to scare her.
Her brain is naturally going to explore her worst fears. Her imagination will start to invent scenarios ten times more incredible than the ones you could have thought of yourself to scare that specific person. By doing nothing, you’re making room for her to fill the gap. By waiting, you’re giving her time to let her develop a unique thread of thought.
Simple, and highly effective.
I could stop here, but I cannot help myself to connect this approach with a pattern that I often see in people management.
The pattern is the following: managers adding value by bringing solutions to problems faced by the people they are managing.
What’s wrong with that? Absolutely nothing. It’s great in many ways. It means those managers listen to the people in their teams, care about them, think about their problems, take action to resolve them, etc.
The only thing that tickles me is when this approach is the only approach used by a manager.
In the hiccups situation, I’m sure that some of you tried to come up with very creative ways to scare the person. Hey, maybe they would have worked. But it’s interesting that you spontaneously went towards a path where you would be the hero — solving the person’s problem with your creativity.
As a manager, there’s a very different approach you can take to add value. When learning about a problem someone is facing, an alternative approach can be to:
Frame the situation in a new way.
Let that person mobilize her own resources to fix the problem.
Get out of her way.
In a way, it’s just another take on the old proverb:
Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.
Now, I actually don’t think that one approach is better than the other. It’s just a different approach. But not having it in your managerial toolbox is likely to make you miss opportunities to accelerate the personal growth of the people you’re managing.
This article is long enough already, so I’ll stop here. But if you’d be interested in learning more about this managerial philosophy, let me know so I write more about it.
The other day, I was walking in a new city, and I passed by a night club. The entrance door, unopened for months now, had been painted with a quote:
The night is the proof that the day is not enough.
Quite an elegant way to define their reason of being. And a good reminder of the necessity of always approaching problems from two opposite angles.
Every two weeks, I write an article to explain how the mind works, usually through a comparison that everyone can relate to.
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