This article is an except from Hard learned hacks to deal with conflict. If you’re not sure why you might want to listen to these ideas, the full article provides more background on my experience.
Deescalation ensures that everyone in the conflict can think better. When we are upset we are in a fight or flight state. Literally pumping unhelpful things like adrenoline and cortisol into our brains. What we need is oxygen. Deescalating gives space for breath, which brings oxygen, which allows for thinking and further helps things to calm down.
The key to deescalation is helping the person who is upset back to normal-ville. The secondary objective is showing your audience (co-workers, other customers, your future self) how incredibly reasonable and helpful you are in the face of this craziness. Use any or all of these hacks throughout the conversation, while you work to a resolution.
- Use your big kid words
- Use this magic phrase
- Look/behave as though you care
- Avoid stop word instead talk about what you CAN do
- Calmly lower your tone (and use it to lower theirs)
- Remember your other audience
1. Use your big kid words
Kill ’em with kindness. Be polite. Say please and thank you. Even if they are in an argument, you are not. You are helping them to get out of an argument by solving a problem.
This doesn’t mean you have to take their crap. If they are using inappropriate language tell them. Everyone is going to be polite or the conversation will end.
2. Use this magic phrase
It is important to address their emotion early in the conversation. You can start almost every one of these interactions by listening then saying
“that sounds frustrating”
These three words are always true and do three things really well.
- They acknowledge the emotion and truth the person is feeling. Isn’t it nice to feel seen?
- They do not place any blame on either party. They simply acknowledge this other person’s situation without saying it is your fault.
- You are already agreeing about something!
3. Look and behave as though you care
Ideally you feel empathy or sympathy for the person you are talking to. These are different things, but in terms of you being helpful either will work(most of the time).
Sometimes you can’t feel either. Which is fine. Caring isn’t a requirement. Acting like you care is. The person might be a jerk, a dummy, or way out to lunch, but you still have to help. In those cases trying being fascinated. How does this person live in the world? How do they think? What is important to them?
Being fascinated will make you curious enough to help the jerk, and keep your face from giving you away.
4. Avoid STOP words, instead say what you CAN do
You can have a whole conversation with out saying: “but”, “no’, “I understand” and more. These words immediately stop converastion. They are queues to listen for disagreement. Since you are trying to find agreement they are only unhelpful.
Instead, switch “but” to “and” and speak about what you can do. Here is a this short list of words iy can just stop using.
Example:
“No, I can’t book you this week, but you could have booked next month yourself.”
vs.
“That sounds frustrating. It looks like this week is full. Let’s see what we can figure out.”
What you can’t do doesn’t matter, and just adds a whole bunch of disagreement and stop words (queues for arguments) to the conversation. Be firm, and clear in a helpful way. Sometimes this involves a bit of theatre.
“The next appointment I have is in a month, which sounds further than you were looking.”
Is better than:
“I can’t book you this week because we don’t have any appointments so we can’t fit you in. I wish I could help, but I can’t.”
5. Control your tone (and use it to control theirs)
If they are speaking loudly, don’t.
Speak calmly and at a lower volume than the upset person. Keep doing this until they lower their voice to a regular, subdued level. Yelling “calm down” at someone has never worked.
If you need to, tell them again they they seem really frustrated and speaking very loudly. Remind them you are here to help.
If your job gets you into these situations a lot (aka retail) this is a fun game to play.
6. Think about your other audience
You have at least two other audiences, often you have four. Remembering this can help with the direction of the conversation.
Future you and future them
We remember bad things more than good ones so the minimum two audiences always present in any interaction are future you, and future them.
The worse this conversation is (the worse you behave in the interaction) the longer you will hold that negative memory. The same goes for the person on the other side, who (in most cases) you will want to return as a customer, remain an employee, be a customer once they are not an employee, continue to be your wife, and so on.
This moment is a moment, it is not the end of all time. So remember future you and future them. Decide how you want everyone involved to reflect on this moment then act accordingly.
This does not mean rolling over and giving them whatever they want. Future you will also have to deal with that. We make our own worst monsters. It just means remembering how you want to feel, them to feel, and if you will be good with the promises you are (or aren’t) making.
You other audiences
You often you have two or three other audiences: your employees/team, other customers (other other people from the same customer if the customer is company), and your boss (or at least you may have to share with your boss later, so they are a future audience).
What is it you want to present to those audiences?
Employees
You probably want your employees to see this is a safe place to work and you’ve got their backs. In these conversations you are a shield for your team. Take the bullets and show them you can rise above, that you won’t stand for poorly behaved customers, so they eel supported and not under-cut by their boss and employer.
This doesn’t mean your team did everything right. It does mean if they screwed up you have their backs. Don’t throw them under the bus. If they screwed up acknowledge the error, say you will follow up, and move on to resolve. You can use the conversation to lead by example, and to learn enough to help correct future mistakes.
Most customers are just fine. 90% of the time (not statistically valid) we make them bad (also true of employees).
Other customers
If there are other customers around you want them to be on your side, not the other person’s. The good news here is that if you deescalate, listen, and genuinely work to a resolution they probably will be. This is especially important if the person you are talking with is unreasonable, loud, or whatever. There may be a point where you decide they are a lost cause, but all the people watching and listening are not. So put on a show you can be proud of.
When you get this right customers will tell you how good you are, how unreasonable the other customer was/is, and become even more loyal customers themsevles. Even if you lose the jerk as a customer (which might be great!) you still get a win with everyone else.
Your boss
In a big deal conflict things may go to your boss (if you have one). This might be word of mouth, a report, or further escalation. In any situation you want it to be clear that you nailed this. You will not nail it by getting sucked into an argument.
Thank you for reading! If this helped you may be interested in reading the full article about having a tough conversation, checking out these tips to consider before you get into one, or reading about Hell’s Kitchen and Performance.
If you have a comment, feedback, or idea add it below, shoot me an email, or send me a tweet.
Ian.
