Quote from John Freeman on August 5, 2023, 7:31 am

Hello,

here is a common power move: "It's not against you".

The context is a conflict, example:

You: I expect you to do this differently next time

Subordinate: it's not against you

The frame is : "Don't take it so personally (my dear)".

It's disempowering: people who takes things personally are thin-skinned people. And thin-skinned means easily hurt, emotionally weak. It's also babying hence I put "my dear" in parentheses

It is a power move:  weakness is low-value/low-power so it pushes down the person framed as weak. So it pushes relatively the attacker up. It also implies that the person has the power to hurt you. It's also a covert aggression: it contains the words "against you", so it subconsciously signals: "It's against you".

There is also a component of gaslighting: it could also influence the person to think: "Am I taking it personally? Maybe she's right?". But here it's not about the content. It's about power. So it's important to not let us get sidetracked. It's also playing the innocent as in "I didn't mean harm" which could frame the other person as the aggressor. Finally, there is also a component of playing dumb: "Did I do something wrong here? Well what I actually did was..."

 The self-defense is about rejecting the frame first:

Philosopher's frame

You: I expect you to do this differently next time

Subordinate: it's not against you

You: It's not about being against me or not. It's about you executing the orders. 

Here it's quite smooth. Philosopher's frames are powerful for a reason.

Frame rejection

You: I expect you to do this differently next time

Subordinate: it's not against you

You: I know it's not against me. You're a resident and I'm the attending you must follow my orders. (optional:) I gave them to you for a reason ("you don't know and I do that's why I'm the boss" counter-power move to take back the upper hand)

Here it's higher investment so it might build more buy-in but is weaker. However, it still somehow buys into her frame and can sound defensive. Also pulls rank on the person, so it's an argument of  title which is weaker than the style of leadership I aspire to. The last power move is optional, it's more of a "you wanna play games? I can play games."

Frame mirroring

You: I expect you to do this differently next time

Subordinate: it's not against you

You: It's not against you either. I expect you to follow the orders that I give you.

This is a good default answer. Good in the sense that it does not require too much to be quick-witted. This self-defense directly addresses the part of the power move that is implying: "I have the power to hurt you" and says back: "I also have the power to hurt you". So it nullifies the power effect of the power move, in the sub-communication:

You: tasks

Subordinate: I'm powerful

You: I'm powerful as well

It's also lower investment than the "raw frame rejection" above.

It takes the same structure of the self-defense of "I'm not angry with you". This one has more of judge undertones than "It's not against you", I use it as a parallel but it's not exactly the same sub-communication:

[Context of conflict]

Subordinate: I'm not angry with you. [...]

You: It's not angry with you either.

Frame ignoring and reframe

You: I expect you to do this differently next time

Subordinate: it's not against you

You: I think you understood what I said

In the context of this interaction in real life, this is the one I chose. This takes away the "playing dumb" and "I'm innocent" gaslighting. It subcommunicates: "you're smart enough to know what you did". It's also a positive judge power move. So it's somehow empowering to the attacker and therefore also rapport-building. It's also low-investment/low effort so it's high power.

If the person says: "no I did not understand". Then it's an opportunity to play a teacher frame, in this case it's a warranted power move as it's a counter-power move.

You: I expect you to do this differently next time

Subordinate: it's not against you

You: I think you understood what I said

Subordinate: No I did not

You: Well, I'll explain to you then [...]

Here I make it very obvious "I'll explain to you then" for the sake of the example, to highlight the teacher's frame. In real life, to me it's about using a slightly superior and condescending tone, speaking slower and explaining the obvious.

So these are a few self-defenses I thought about, there are other options I'm sure. Then the next course of action would be to rebuild a win-win frame and/or to rebuild rapport and/or to re-empower the person. Here I'm focusing on the self-defense aspect of it.