Here are some solutions to these problems, if there is a repetition of information, I am sorry. We’ve all been there. There are just some people we can’t stand! Perhaps it’s the Whiner whose complaining drives you to distraction. Or it may be the Steamroller who makes you crazy—the person who pushes her ideas and never lets others get a word. People like this can make your PTO leadership experience seem endless and stressful, even blocking achievement of some of your most critical goals. Every person has his own triggers when it comes to dealing with difficult people. Those triggers stem from your background, perspectives, and from your goals in the situation at hand. But there is good news. There are ways to deal with even the most difficult people that can bring out both their best and your best. The first step, described by Rick Brinkman and Rick Kirschner in their book Dealing With People You Can’t Stand, is to get to know your difficult person—to know what needs that person may be trying to fulfill that cause the problematic behavior. Successful leaders listen carefully to figure out the underlying motives. Generally, people in any given situation are task oriented or people oriented. Their concerns center on one of four goals: getting the task done, getting the task done right, getting along with people, or being appreciated by people. When they perceive that their concern is threatened—the task is not getting done, it is being done incorrectly, people are becoming angry in the process, or they feel unappreciated for their contributions—difficult people resort to certain knee-jerk responses. Responses range from the passive, such as withdrawal, to aggressive, such as steamrolling or exploding. The difficult person often does not recognize that his behavior contributes to the very problems that he is attempting to address. Brinkman and Kirschner identify 10 different behavior patterns often exhibited by people under pressure. * The Steamroller (or Tank): Aggressive and angry. Victims can feel paralyzed, as though they’ve been flattened. * The Sniper: The Sniper’s forte is sarcasm, rude remarks, and eye rolls. Victims look and feel foolish. * The Know-It-All: Wielding great authority and knowledge, Know-It-Alls do have lots to offer, are generally competent, and can’t stand to be contradicted or corrected. But they will go out of their way to correct you. * The Grenade: Grenades tend to explode into uncontrolled ranting that has little, if anything, to do with what has actually happened. * The Think They Know It All: A cocksure attitude often fools people into believing their phony “facts.†* The Yes Person: Someone who wants to please others so much that she never says no. * The Maybe Person: Procrastinating, hoping to steer clear of choices that will hurt feelings, he avoids decisions, causing plenty of frustration along the way. * The Blank Wall (or Nothing Person): This person offers only a blank stare, no verbal or nonverbal signals. * The No Person: He spreads gloom, doom, and despair whenever any new ideas arise, or even when old ones are recycled. The No Person saps energy from a group in an amazingly short time. * The Whiner: Whiners feel helpless most of the time and become overwhelmed by the unfairness of it all. They want things to be perfect, but nothing seems to go right. Whiners want to share their misery. Just Get It Done! Chances are you have had to deal with at least a few of these characters. These are not odd or weird people. They may even be you upon occasion. Everyone has the potential to be difficult given the right, or wrong, circumstances. To understand why, return to the concept of a basic orientation toward people or task. Couple that with the typical ways people respond under pressure, on a continuum from aggressive to assertive to passive. Then add in the goals people have under different circumstances. According to Brinkman and Kirschner, when the goal is to “get it done,†people with a task orientation and aggressive temperament tend to dig in and become more controlling. They are the Snipers, the Steamrollers, and the Know-It-Alls. From their point of view, the rest of us are goofing off, obtuse, or just plain taking too long. The Steamroller can run over you if you get in the way. The Sniper often uses sarcasm to embarrass and humiliate at strategic moments. The Know-It-All dominates with erudite, lengthy arguments that discredit others and wear down opponents. When the goal is to “get it right,†people under pressure who still have a task orientation but a more passive personality become helpless, hopeless, and/or perfectionistic. They become the Whiners, No People, and Blank Walls. When Whiners are thwarted, they begin to feel helpless and generalize to the entire world. Instead of looking for solutions, they complain endlessly that nothing is right, exacerbating the situation by annoying everyone around them. No People feel more hopeless than helpless. Like A.A. Milne’s Eeyore in Winnie the Pooh, their sense of gloom carries its own cloud. Their certainty that things can never be right can pull down morale for an entire group. Blank Walls simply withdraw. They will bear no responsibility when things aren’t exactly right. Drive To Survive People who want to “get along†tend to focus more on the people in a situation. When they are innately passive, they become approval-seeking Yes People, Maybe People, and sometimes Blank Walls. Yes People overcommit and underdeliver in an effort to please everyone. Their lack of follow-through can have disastrous consequences for which they do not feel responsible, because they are just trying to be helpful. When, instead, the people they want to get along with become furious, they may offer to do even more, building their lives on what other people want and also building a deep well of resentment. Maybe People avoid conflict by avoiding any choice at all. Making a choice may upset someone, and then blame will be heaped on the person who decided. Maybe People delay choosing until the choice is made for them by someone else or by the circumstances. When Blank Walls have a people orientation, they want to avoid hurting anyone’s feelings. The old saying, “If you can’t say something nice, say nothing at all†gets carried to the ultimate extreme in this case. But Blank Walls also avoid sharing anything genuine or honest about themselves and therefore never really achieve the “getting along†goal. Like To Be Liked To “get appreciated†is the ultimate goal of people-focused, more aggressive folks. They include the Grenade, the Think They Know It All, and sometimes the Sniper. They share attention-seeking behaviors that never accomplish what they intend. The Grenades are aggressive Rodney Dangerfields; they think they get no respect or appreciation. When that feeling builds to a certain point, they have an adult temper tantrum. It’s not pretty and it certainly gets attention, but blowing up never gets them to the ultimate goal of appreciation. The Think They Know It All person knows a little bit about a lot. He is so charismatic and enthusiastic that his half-facts and exaggerations can sound plausible and persuasive. When people discover that these people really don’t know what they are talking about, the attention they seek becomes negative. The Sniper in this case is attempting to gain attention by being playful. Many people engage in playful sniping, but we all need to be careful about how it is being received. Whether it is funny or painful is truly in the eye of the beholder. Sometimes this kind of sniping is passed off as teasing, which can leave scars even when it’s friendly. Looking in the Mirror So what can you do to change the course of your interactions with these difficult people? There are some simple strategies that work well with practice and patience. In general, when your difficult person speaks, make your goal habit number five in Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: “Seek first to understand.†Often, unless you’re dealing with the Grenade or other overt hostility, it helps to mirror some of the nonverbal cues the person displays. Don’t overdo, as it can look like mocking if you copy every gesture. Your aim, according to Brinkman and Kirschner, is “blending.†If you adopt some of the same traits as your person, such as a facial expression or posture, you send the message that you are “with†them, on the same wave length. Blending begins to facilitate trust. Often we do this kind of thing without even noticing that it’s happening. You also need to blend vocally with the person you’re trying to understand. Volume and pace are two examples of how to blend with another person. Blending is how you begin to build rapport with people and signal that you are really listening. The only exception is yelling. Also, some of what the person says needs to be repeated in a technique that counselors call “reflection.†This is a way of feeding back what you’ve heard, on both feeling and content levels, so that a person is sure that you’ve heard him. With no interpretation and without parroting exactly, use some of his actual words to demonstrate your understanding. How much to do it depends on the person you’re dealing with. With Steamrollers, keep reflection to a minimum. With Know-It-Alls, Yes People, and Maybe People, a great deal of reflection may be useful. This is especially true on the feeling level with Yes and Maybe People. Get to the Real Issues Next, ask clarifying questions to help your difficult person open up and to ensure that you fully understand all she has to say. The kinds of questions you want are open-ended, those to which there is more than a yes or no answer. They begin with what, how, where, who, when, and sometimes why—without an accusatory tone. A simple “Tell me more about...†can also serve the same purpose. The importance of this information-gathering stage cannot be overstated. It keeps you out of a reactionary mode and helps you bring all of the issues to the surface. At the same time, it shows that you really care about what the person has to say. It can also begin to defuse emotions and help the person think more logically. Finally, still in a “seek to understand†mode, summarize what you have heard and confirm your understanding. Do not assume you “got it.†Ask, “Did I get it right?†If not, keep listening until the person is satisfied that you understand. The next step in the process has to do with attitude. Search for and acknowledge that the other person’s intentions are positive. This means giving the person you are dealing with the benefit of the doubt. Brinkman and Kirschner advise, “Ask yourself what positive purpose might be behind a person’s communication or behavior and acknowledge it. If you are not sure about the positive intent, just make something up. Even if the intent you try to blend with isn’t true, you can still get a good response and create rapport.†Some Specific Responses Consider this example. “One of the duties of the vice president is to choose which six members go to the PTO Show this year,†Jerry reminded Jennifer again. “You have only two weeks before the deadline. Do you have any idea whom you want to go?†“Not yet,†said Jennifer. “I want to be sure I make the right decision.†“People need to make their plans, and we need to commit the money. The sooner you make a decision, the better for everyone,†prodded Jerry. “OK. I’ll get to it,†promised Jennifer. The next week, when Jerry inquired again, Jennifer said, “I’m still thinking about it!†Jennifer is a Maybe Person. She will delay her decision until there is almost no decision to make because the deadline has passed or people can no longer rearrange their schedules with the short notice. Jerry might say to Jennifer, “I appreciate the care you are taking with this decision, Jennifer. I know you don’t want to leave out anyone who would like to go or who deserves this special reward. Who have you considered?†Simply stating understanding of Jennifer’s positive intention may unlock her indecision enough to move forward. The next step to take when conflict emerges is to go beyond people’s stated positions to identify underlying interests or objectives. Brinkman and Kirschner call these “highly valued criteria.†They are the “reasons why†people desire specific outcomes. Here’s another example: Susan had agreed to chair the annual PTO carnival. The second planning meeting was underway when Marge, the vice president of the group and also the immediate past chairperson, barged into the room and started to berate Susan. “I heard that you’re eliminating the dunking booth! What a dumb decision. Don’t you have any brains at all? I thought you’d do a good job and now you’re making decisions that will ruin our carnival! Now here’s what you have to do…†And with that she barked orders while everyone else on the committee stared in disbelief. As quickly as she had come, she turned around and left. Marge typifies the aggressive, angry style of the Tank or Steamroller. Once Susan gets her calmed down, it would be important to ask, “Why the dunking booth?†If she replies that the day invariably is hot and people enjoy the splashing and cooling effect of the water, then you have her underlying interest on the table. Another water game might satisfy that interest just as well, but you do need to slow the Steamroller down before you can get to the whys. Say What You Mean Stephen Covey’s habit number five also has a second part. Part one, “Seek first to understand …,†is followed by part two, “…then to be understood.†Once you have put in the time and hard work of deep listening, the goal is to speak so that you may in turn be understood. But watch your tone of voice. The old saying applies: It’s not just what you say but also how you say it. The next step is to state your positive intentions: “I care that people at the carnival have a chance to cool off, too. I want to make it a fun and safe day.†When the Steamroller starts to interrupt again, tactfully intervene. Repeating someone’s name over and over until she stops to listen can accomplish that end. So Susan might say, “Marge. Marge. Excuse me, Marge.†Once the person has paused, you can insert your positive intent or a clarifying question, for instance. Then speak about the situation as you honestly see it. Use “I†statements, be as specific as possible, point out the impact of the behavior, and suggest a new behavior or option. So Susan might say, “Marge, I appreciate your input. I know you want the carnival to go well, the same as I do. We replaced the dunking booth with another feature for a good reason. When you try to override our decisions without asking why, it sure makes the rest of us feel like our work isn’t worth much. Would you sit down and discuss our plans with us?†Marge may try to raise the volume and continue to steamroll, at which point Susan would need to start repeating her name again until she stops. Once Susan gets her piece said, she will need to be ready to stop and listen again. When you have a Blank Wall, the person who chooses the ultimate passive response instead of an aggressive response, your tactics need to be a little different. First, even though you may not feel particularly relaxed, calm yourself. It will not help to push, so plan plenty of time. Ask the open-ended questions with an expectant tone and body language. Try to lighten things up with absurd guesses as to the cause of the silence. Be careful with humor, but if you can get at least a smile, it’s a beginning. Make It a Habit Difficult people are really all of us. Depending on the circumstances and our own perspectives, our behaviors can slip-slide into the childish, rude, or even churlish realms. The key is to think first instead of simply reacting when we feel pressured by time or by the competing interests and needs of others. Thoughtful responses can help people identify their real needs and break negative behavior patterns that don’t serve anyone well. If you make a habit of listening deeply, assuming best intentions, looking for common ground, reinforcing and expecting people’s best behavior along the way, then the difficult people in your life may come to view you as a respected friend—as opposed to one of their most difficult people.
We all meet people who we find difficult to get along with. From people who mildly irritate us to someone we genuinely can’t stand, these situations provide challenges and opportunities. How can you handle these kinds of situations? Many people will be reactive, immediately responding according to their learned subconscious scripts. For example, many people will get angry and start to attack the aggressor; others will be upset and hurt and will withdraw from the situation as quickly as possible, perhaps harboring some resentment for a long time into the future. The effective person, however, will be conscious of these scripts and will choose to be proactive, effectively managing the gap which exists between stimulus and response, about which Viktor Frankl writes so movingly and passionately in Man’s Search for Meaning. How you deal with the situation, however, will need to depend on how important the situation is – if it’s someone you need to work with then you’ll have to put in a lot more work than if it’s someone you don’t see very often. If you see the person a lot, or you need to work with them, you’re going to have to find a way of building a relationship of some sort. The alternative is a poisonous and destructive situation, which will eat away at you over time. We have a tendency to think that our way of seeing the world is accurate or ‘correct.’ However, there are many different types of people, all with a different way of seeing things. According to the American Psychologist David Keirsey, there are sixteen different personality types, and this does not take into account such things as gender difference, differences in age, nationality or culture. It is little wonder then that we don’t get along with everybody. In fact, it’s amazing that we get on so well with so many other people! Sometimes you are going to meet individuals with a very different way of looking at things, so much so, perhaps, that you can hardly agree about anything at all. The key here is to genuinely try to put yourself in the other person’s position and try to see the world as he does. The fifth habit in Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is ‘seek first to understand, then to be understood.’ People are almost always trying to do the best they can as far as they see it, and it can be an eye opening exercise to truly see things through the eyes of another person. If you are open minded, it can give you a whole new perspective, and it will probably disarm the objectionable other to the extent that you can begin to communicate. This being said, there are many difficult people who crop up in life who are not going to be around for too long or who are not really important to us. In cases like these, you might find the following simple tips helpful. Keep it in perspective Although you should listen to and see what you can learn from them, the opinions’ of other people aren’t actually that important. Nobody has lived your life except you and nobody is in exactly your shoes – you are unique. Sometimes advice is given with the best of intentions, but it is often not really a ‘best fit’ for your situation. Of course, people have various agendas and axes to grind, and there are as many opinions and criticisms as there are people to give them (probably more!) So my advice would be to take all advice and criticism with a big pinch of salt. Don’t be defensive Like everyone else, you are trying to do the best you can. You are (probably) not deliberately trying to be mean or selfish or cruel, or to make someone else’s life difficult. So there is no need to be defensive. If other people attack you, let their attacks wash over you – they really can’t hurt you unless you let them. Arguing back, defending your corner or trying to justify yourself often leads to both parties becoming more entrenched. But if your attacker sees that his or her attacks don’t elicit much response, they may well fade away. A phlegmatic and laissez faire approach can often be the best thing. Don’t take it personally If you find someone difficult to get along with, chances are you are not the only one. Some people just have a hard time being easy going and they rub a lot of people up the wrong way; it isn’t just you. When someone complains about you, remember the words of Benjamin Franklin, who said ‘Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.’ Look for the lesson you can learn, especially about yourself Often, people we find difficult can reveal a great deal about ourselves. Ask yourself some searching questions and try to answer honestly. Why do I react to this person in this way? Am I being sensitive about something? Am I trying to hide something? Am I protecting myself against some imaginary threat? Am I missing out on an opportunity to grow and improve? Sometimes I have found it useful to think of difficult people as Angels sent to teach us something. We usually only grow by experiencing pain, and difficult relationships can be among the most powerful of teachers
Don’t take this criticism personally. Easy to say, hard to do. In fact, “don’t take it personally,â€would rank near the top of my all time list of useless things to say to people. It’s not because there’s anything wrong with the concept, it’s just that people who are taking things too personally are so seldom consciously aware of what they’re doing that the advice is perceived as just another personal attack. What does it mean to take things personally? All of us have external things -- our children, our pets, our favorite sports teams, and our creations at work -- that we experience as if they were parts of our bodies. Psychologically, we make little distinction between verbal disparagement of these things and physical attacks to our vital organs. When it comes to criticism, we all take it personally. It’s part of our psychological make up. We’re hard-wired to defend what we do and what we love. That doesn’t mean we have to respond to every criticism with an instinctive kill-or-be-killed counter-attack. Luckily, we have evolved brains that are capable of over-riding our primitive default settings. We just have to remember to use them. Here are some suggestions on how to keep from being seen as taking criticisms too personally: Stop and think before you say anything -- This is good advice no matter what the situation. When you feel attacked the first thing that pops into your head is seldom the most effective response. If you make it a practice to wait twenty-four hours before you answer criticisms the people around you may be so surprised by your maturity and reasonableness that they will listen to you for a change. Listen carefully -- Every criticism contains useful information as well as an attack. If you don’t hear anything useful at first, keep listening until you do. Ask for advice rather than giving answers -- The explanations you think of will sound perfectly reasonable and at least 150% correct. To you. To other people they will sound like a misguided defense against a misperceived personal attack. Most any explanation you choose will make you look even more wrong. Trust me on this. If, by sheer force of reason, your explanation actually succeeds in getting the criticism modified or withdrawn, it may feel like you’ve won, but it probably means that people have decided it’s easier to humor you than treat you like a rational human being. What if you have to criticize someone who takes things too personally? Structure the situation so that he or she doesn’t have to admit wrongdoing by accepting what you have to say. In Asia they’d call it allowing the person to save face. Make it clear in your comments that you understand how a reasonable and honorable person might do what he or she did. Direct your advice toward improving the situation rather than pointing out mistakes. Focus on what you want to happen rather than what’s wrong with what has already happened. Come to think of it, this is a good way to present criticism to anyone, because you never know who’s going to take it personally. Summary: In case you haven't noticed, the world is full of idiots. Here are some ideas on how to deal with them. IDIOTS The world is full of idiots. Of course, you don't need me to tell you that. Look around. They're everywhere--in the next cubicle at work, on the highways as you drive home, and probably hiding out in your own house as well. Just think how easy your life would be if the people around you would just use their heads for once and do what they're supposed to do. Dream on. While you're at it you might want to think about what you'll do when you win the lottery. The rest of us have an existential question to ponder. How do we do our jobs and live our lives in a world where most of the people are idiots who cant be counted on to do what they should? Your answer to this question will, in large part, determine how effective you are in your job and how happy you are in your life. Here are some options to consider: Get mad -- The idiots certainly deserve it. If it weren't for (put the name of your favorite idiot here) your life would be so much easier and more productive. Of course if it weren't for gravity, you could fly, too. Get even -- The advantage of this strategy is its utter simplicity. You don't have to be very smart to use it, in fact, chimpanzees are quite capable of grasping the concept. What they miss is the law of physics that states “For every action there is an equal and opposite reactionâ€â€™ The psychology can be stated in this simple equation: Get mad, get even, get retaliation. Help the poor fools by explaining what they're doing wrong -- This is how people get even without admitting it to themselves. Some may actually believe they are doing a kindness by showing people the error of their ways. There is a special place in the afterlife reserved for the holier than thou, and it's a lot warmer than they expect. Nag -- People may change in response to nagging, but they seldom change in the way you want. Keep trying; you may be able to convince yourself that you've done everything you can, but since the fools just wont listen, whatever happens to them is their own damn fault. Go on Oprah and talk about your favorite idiot -- You can also call in and tell Rush; I'm sure they'll be interested. Other people who cant do anything may sympathize as well. Remember, the more you repeat the story, the better it gets. don't say anything to the idiots themselves but think about them all the time -- This is the way people create stress related physical symptoms for themselves. The idiots around you wont listen, but maybe your doctor will. Give up because you cant do anything anyway -- Depression strikes someone every ten seconds. The minute you give up, the next victim could be you. Learn how to share the planet with the competency-challenged --You are never going to make idiots into smart, responsible people like you. The best you can hope for is to keep control of your own life and not give it to them by letting their problems push your buttons. Can you imagine how miserable life would be if every idiot had the power to make you miserable? Summary: Control freaks are more afraid of you than you are of them. CONTROL FREAKS Why are some people obsessed with control? Do they think they have the only brain on the planet? Why do they insist that everything be done their way even when you can show them that your way works just as well? Or better. What is it with these control freaks? Control freaks see themselves as overburdened with the task of protecting an ungrateful world from mistakes. They are seldom aware of the abject terror at the heart of their obsession. Imagine a dog inside an electric fence. After he touches it once or twice, you can turn off the power, because he wont go near it again. This is the way people with control problems deal with their fear of making mistakes. Somewhere in the dim past perhaps they were burned badly, but now they never get close enough to their fear to see if the power is still on. They spend their lives keeping themselves and others away from the fence. The strategy is self-defeating. Unconfronted fears mutate in the darkness beyond the fence like alien fungi. Gradually they take over more and more of the person's daylight world. The safe area becomes narrower, and the only way to keep back the creatures of the night is with more control and more distance from the awful possibility of fear. If you ask them about it they'll just say they're doing their job. So what do you do if you have to work for one of these poor, frightened people? Getting mad and calling them control freaks will make the situation worse. They will see your behavior as clear evidence that they must watch you even more closely, because you're the one with the problem, not them. Forget trying to talk them out of it, too. Even seasoned therapists have trouble convincing the control obsessed that their behavior might be causing more problems than it's solving. (Between you and me, at least part of our difficulty lies in the fact that it's always hardest to cure people who have the same neuroses as we do.) The answer to working with control freaks lies in negotiation, not recrimination. Every task has an end product -- whatever it is that needs to be done -- and a process -- the actual behaviors through which the end product is achieved. Negotiate to deliver a very specific product at a very specific time. If you hand over the goods, there is less motivation to quibble about how you got them. Not that the control-obsessed person wont try. Treat attempts to control the process as requests to change the end product, which any business person would have to agree would reopen the whole negotiation. If the end product is not affected, why change the process? Needless to say you have to have some history of delivering the goods for a strategy like this to work. Bottom line is: If you do what you say, when you say you'll do it, the control freak will go and bother somebody less reliable. By the way, if you are wondering whether or not you might be a control freak, there is a sure test. If, once every day, you cant publicly acknowledge how somebody else's way of doing something important was better than yours, start looking for that invisible electric fence around your mind. A mistake every day keeps the fear away. HANDLING ANGRY CUSTOMERS One angry customer can spoil your whole day -- unless you have a working knowledge of neurophysiology. Angry people are using the walnut-sized part of the brain that hasn't changed since the age of dinosaurs instead of the more intelligent hardware that has evolved over the past hundred million years. The dinosaur in them can bring out the dinosaur in you, which leads to the Godzilla-meets-Rodan effect, in which there is considerable sound and fury, but very little constructive reasoning. The secret of dealing effectively with angry customers is to stay out of your dinosaur brain long enough to get them out of theirs. Here's how: ASK FOR A MINUTE TO STOP AND THINK: This will have a calming effect on you and the customer. No one will get angrier at you for asking for time to think things over. KNOW YOUR GOAL: The dinosaur's rules are simple -- if attacked, fight back or run away. Either response will make the situation worse. Try instead to help your customer calm down and use the part of the brain that can reason. Remember, you cant help a person and get her back at the same time. IF THE OTHER PERSON IS YELLING, don't DO ANYTHING UNTIL YOU GET HIM OR HER TO STOP: Just keeping your own voice soft may do the trick. Saying “Please speak more slowly. I’d like to help,†works particularly well on the phone. Have you ever tried to yell slowly? On the phone remember the “Uh-huh†rule. We usually respond with “Uh-huh†when the other person takes a breath. If you go three breaths without saying “Uh-huh†the other person will stop and ask, “Are you there?†Following this technique will allow you to interrupt without saying a word. DO NOT EXPLAIN! Explanations are all too often a disguised form of fighting back or running away. The typical explanation boils down to: “If you know all the facts, you will see that I am right and you are wrong.†You cannot be right and effective at the same time. don't even try. LET THE CUSTOMER KNOW YOU HEAR: Before you try to solve the problem, let the customer know that you understand why he or she is upset. This will save you from having to hear it again. ASK, “WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO DO?†This question is usually the last thing an angry person expects. Hell have to stop and think to answer. This is exactly what you want. NEGOTIATE: It's a lot easier when the customer is using the part of her brain you can negotiate with. P.S. These techniques also work on angry people who are not customers. Even spouses.