Being defensive may not be a bad thing, but when we become too defensive, it may cause lots arguments and may also trigger defensiveness in other people. Jim Tamm compares humans to chickens. There is the easy going batch of chickens, or the green zone chickens, and there is the mean and evil looking red zone chicken.
The green zone chickens were nice to each other. They also did not have a “star performer chicken”. A star perfomer is basically the chicken that produces the most eggs and makes a big deal out of it. The star performers also tend to be more aggressive. This makes a healthy environment for the chickens to thrive and produce eggs. At the end of one year, these chickens were healthy looking and productive.
On the other hand, there were the red zone chickens. They were aggressive and there was a star performer, only the star performer was good because it broke all the other chickens’ eggs. At the end of the year, these violent chickens had dramatically less eggs, and less chicken. These chickens ended up murdering each other because of the hostile environment.
This just shows even being aggressive or thin-skinned can even cause conflicts within chickens. Being defensive in people can cause other people to become defensive as well, like a chain reaction. One key of being less defensive is recognizing the signs before it happens. Jim Tamm suggests that people come up with a counter plan to stop it before it even shows.