If only the world were populated
exclusively by the sane and rational, your job as a business owner would
certainly be a lot easier. But as we all know, some people spend much of their
lives over-agitated or spoiling for a fight, and even the most level-headed of
us sometimes let our emotions get the best of us.
You can’t always avoid having to deal
with overly emotional people, but while these difficult conversations are
simply part of life, there are ways to make them less painful and more
constructive. That’s the message of a useful post that recently appeared on
blog Barking Up the Wrong Tree.
The piece features an interview with
Dr. Albert J. Bernstein, a clinical psychologist who, while treating the truly
psychotic, perfected his techniques for bringing out-of-control conversations
back down to Earth. His advice includes tips like, “If you feel like a
preschool teacher, you’re probably doing it right,” and suggestions for
soothing outraged folks on the phone, as well as these phrases to help turn down
the emotional dial on your most challenging conversations.
01. “PLEASE SPEAK MORE SLOWLY. I’D
LIKE TO HELP.”
The problem may not be that they’re
speaking too quickly; the problem may be they’re screaming their head off or
sobbing uncontrollably. Nonetheless, this phrase can work its magic, according
to Bernstein.
“Why does this work? It breaks the
pattern in their head,” the post explains. “They’re expecting you to resist
them but you’re not. You’re asking them to clarify. You’re interested. This
makes them shift more out of ‘dinosaur brain’ and into thinking. And that’s
good.”
02. “WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO DO?”
This one works on similar principles
to phrase number one. It knocks the over-emotional person out of using their
“dinosaur brain”—the primitive, emotional part that only knows flight or
fight—and forces them to start using move evolved thinking skills.
03. ANY QUESTION AT ALL
It doesn’t matter how loony the other
party is being; if you want to get the conversation back on any sort of sane
track, telling them they’re insane or explaining how your viewpoint is more sensible
isn’t going to help. Why?
“Explaining is almost always a
disguised form of fighting back,” says
Bernstein. The other party will sense that and just get more aggressive and
emotional.
So even if they’re raving that
they’re Elvis back from the dead, you’re better off asking where they’ve
stashed their sequined jumpsuit than you are explaining that, in truth, they
appear to be an extremely unwell psychiatric patient. “The act of listening is reflecting
back the person’s emotional state, not necessarily the content of what they’re
saying,” according to
Bernstein, and doing that by asking relevant questions is more likely to calm
people down and lead the conversation onto firmer ground than any attempt to
inject level-headed good sense.
