De-Escalation Techniques: How To Take The Wind Out Of Their Sails
Have you ever been involved in a situation with an angry person when you felt defeated? Either you escalated to their level of aggression or you allowed yourself to get lambasted and felt battered in the end? There are some easy techniques to work with an angry person to take their level of volatility down to a manageable level so you can intellectually process the problem with them.
Attempting to reason with those who use anger to intimidate, control, get attention, avoid responsibility, or pump themselves up will generally further add to the aggression or at the very least, be ineffective. Your first order of business is to de-escalate the level of anger.
Often in our work environment, we are confronted with angry people, co-workers, those we supervise, customers, supervisors and stakeholders. In the majority of the situations, it is to your benefit to reduce the level of anger in the other person.
Before intervening, do a quick assessment to see if you are in the proper frame of mind for an intervention. This generally means can you view this person as someone who is doing the best...