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Get more respect: negotiate status!
// By Natalie Schnack

"I finally want to be taken seriously!" Many people say to themselves who want to clearly and clearly represent their interests in their professional and private lives. But how do you do that without becoming a ruthless asshole?

Elbow or not?

People who can not or do not want to use their elbows are usually at a disadvantage. Because often they feel that they have to be used to taking seriously, ruthless or hard-hitting behavior and thick coat.

The popular belief that one must prevail against others in order to achieve one's own goals has become deeply rooted in the minds.

Winner and loser

When it comes to enforcing, however, it is about winning out of a debate or a conversation. And where a winner is, there are always losers. But that is not for everyone. And it goes differently!

To meet the other person at eye level, to bring him on board, even if he disagrees, fits much more into today's times and is much more promising. The laws of this type of communication are excellent - and very simple! - clarify with the status concept.

Status concept

The status concept comes from the improvisational theater. Keith Jonstone, the founder of the modern improvisational theater, has discovered him in his work with actors. It states that drama and humor arise from situations in which individual players deliberately lower or increase their own social status.

In the improvisation theater, a distinction is made between the high status and the deep state. This is to make it clear on the stage who dominates the scene and determines the situation and who submits. But status plays a role not just on the stage, but determines our whole life.

We negotiate status - always!

Each of us has felt small and unimportant, while the conversation partner seemed to us to be big and important. Or the other way around. This is completely normal. In communication, it is always a question of who leads, who follows, who dominates, who submits.

In every encounter, in any conversation, in any situation where at least two people are involved, status is negotiated, usually without realizing it. Think of it as an unconscious adjustment and positioning of the persons to each other.

It always depends on one's own

In everything we express, in the way of speaking and in the body language, we supply not only the content but also our current status relationship with our opposite: Who leads and who follows.

From a woodcut perspective, it works like this: if you feel “small”, you are in a so-called low status; if you are confident and feel superior to your counterpart, you are in high status.

It does not depend on the rank order?

Status, as it is to be understood here, has nothing to do with hierarchy, titles or possessions. But only with your own personality and the resulting behavior. So it works in all areas of society according to the same rules.

Of course you can not completely decouple it from the social hierarchy. But that is not crucial here. Your own status depends considerably on how you see yourself. And in comparison to other people. I have only modified and developed this principle on our self-management and communication behavior.