10 Ways to Deal with Angry People

Page 2 10 Ways to Deal with Angry People

Handling Angry Parents, Conflict, Criticism, and Rumors

Clinic Table

March 21, 2003 PASBO Annual Conference

Todd P. O’Shell, Administrative Assistant/Board Secretary

South Butler County School District

Page 2 10 Ways to Deal with Angry People

Page 2 10 Ways to Deal with Angry People

#1 – Ten Ways to Deal with Angry People

Most of us, at one time or another, have been confronted with someone who seems to be perpetually negative, or just has a proverbial "chip on the shoulder". Here are ten ways to deal with these kinds of people.

1.Don't react!

Easier said than done, you say, but that's exactly what your angry or negative opposite number won't expect! Instead of reacting and zinging off the first thing that comes to mind, take a moment, count saliently to ten if you need to, step back mentally and create some space between you and your angry/negative person.

2. Listen for the message behind the words.

Something like 90% of anger is misdirected. Anger is often a function of fear or frustration about something that has little or nothing to do with you. Often, in or behind the words, there's a clue as to what's really bothering your troubled friend. Listen for it with all your senses.

3. Acknowledge that you heard what was said.

When you acknowledge what the other person has said, you aren't necessarily agreeing with him or her. You're simply letting them know that they've been heard. Example: "I can see that you're not happy about this."

4. Ask a clarifying question.

There are two reasons for asking a question at this point. First, it tends to defuse the anger by causing the person to expand upon what he or she has said initially. Second, it lets the person know that you're really interested in finding out what's going on. Example: "Can you tell me more about what concerns you?"

5. Repeat back.

This is the first of three steps designed to further defuse the situation prior to looking for a solution. Repeating back lets the other person know that you really did hear what was said. Example: "If I understand you correctly, you are concerned that ______. (Here, try to use some of the exact words used initially by the other person.)

6. Expand upon what has been said.

Get in the other person's shoes and take it a step further. Done properly, this lets the other person know that you really do understand and, in the brief time allotted, have thought about what he/she said. Example: "In light of your concern, that would mean _____. Is that correct?" Ending with a question encourages the other person to confirm to you that he/she feels you're open.

7. Legitimize.

As in #3 above, to legitimize does not mean to agree. It simply means that, based on where the other person is coming from, you can understand why he/she said what was said. Example: "I can certainly understand why you feel the way you do."

8. Offer to explore solutions.

Different from "offer solutions." Chances are, if you offer a solution out of hand, you'll be shot down. Better to ask permission to participate in the problem solving process. Example: "Would it be helpful to you to consider what can be done to resolve this?" Of course, a negative response alerts you to the fact that the person really doesn't want to resolve it! Notice that you didn't say "we" consider what can be done. Putting it that way can inadvertently place you in the position of assuming responsibility for the solution, and it may not be yours to assume. Keeping the question generic allows you to get additional feedback as to just how willing the person is to assume responsibility for finding a solution.

9.Establish your boundaries.

You've asked a reasonable question and you're entitled to a reasonable and courteous reply. If you don't understand it, stand your ground. Point out, if necessary, that your question was prompted by your concern that this person be able to resolve the situation. Sometimes, at this point, you simply ask: "What can I do to help?" Surprisingly, that can trigger an awakening in the other person that it really isn't your responsibility to solve the problem.

10.Use as much force as necessary to enforce the boundaries you've set.

Occasionally, you'll encounter someone who, like an old dog with a bone, just won't let go. They'll return to the same litany and begin all over, or they'll toss in a nasty dig or accusation which is probably wide of the mark. The fact is, you've listened, acknowledged, explored, legitimized and offered, and that isn't good enough. Some examples: "I believe I understand your concern, and I've offered to help you reach a solution. What more do you want?" If the person becomes verbally abusive after all this, you can simply say: "I'm sorry. I don't believe that I can help you any further, and I don't appreciate your tone. If you're going to speak to me in that manner, I'm afraid you'll have to work it out for yourself. I don't appreciate abuse." You'll have to judge just how far you want to go with this by observing the other person's demeanor, and whether or not you feel the situation might still be salvageable.

#2 – HANDLING ANGRY CUSTOMERS

Albert J. Bernstein, Ph. D.

(reproduced with permission)

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 an angry customer is to stay out of your dinosaur brain long enough to get them out of theirs. Here's how:

1. 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.

1. 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 can’t help a person and get her back at the same time.

1. 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.

1. 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.

1. 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.

1. ASK, “WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO DO?” This question is usually the last thing an angry person expects. They’ll have to stop and think to answer. This is exactly what you want.

1. 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.

DON’T TAKE THIS CRITICISM PERSONALLY

Summary: Easy to say; hard to do, since most criticism is personal.

Albert J. Bernstein, Ph. D.

(reproduced with permission)

Don’t take this criticism personally.

Easy to say, hard to do. In fact, “don’t take it personally,” 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:

1. 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.

1. 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.

1. 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.

1. 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

Handling Angry Parents, Conflict, Criticism, and Rumors Clinic Table

March 21, 2003 PASBO Annual Conference

Todd P. O’Shell, Admin. Asst./Board Sec., South Butler County School District

Page 2 “Good Communication is Best Remedy for Complaints”

Good Communication Is the Best Remedy for Dealing with Community Complaints
(reprinted from the National School Public Relations Assoc. PRincipal Communicator, March 2001)
Public challenges to a school’s curriculum — or anything else in the education bailiwick — were almost unheard of in 1925, the year of the infamous Scopes Trial on evolution. Not so today. Dealing with complaints from local residents can be one of the most frustrating tasks a principal faces. On-going communication with an emphasis on facts can head off and temper these situations.
An Educated Consumer Is the Best Customer
Some residents of the Orchard Park Central School District in New York, for example, question the need for a new high school. Robert Farwell, principal of the current high school, says there’s a lot of misinformation in the community about how the district spends tax money, and the local media seem eager to publicize the malcontents’ position.
Farwell has invited the opposition to the school to share the facts and engage in dialogue. He takes them on a building tour to show how crowded it is and explains how educational requirements have changed in the last 25 years. “We don’t mind being challenged rationally,” he says. “There are a lot of swing voters who have open minds if their concerns are addressed, and we try to respond ethically and sensibly.
“If it seems that more people are asking questions than was the case a generation or two ago, it’s probably a result of our educating students to be independent thinkers. But independent thinkers also need to be willing to listen to others and to obtain the facts.”
The school has no traditional student government. Instead, there’s STAPComm, a student-run forum of students, teachers, administrators and parents. “It empowers the students,” Farwell says, “and encourages discussion among all the interested parties. Often parents are more willing to accept facts from a 16-year-old sophomore than from the principal!”
Farwell is in favor of any method that gets accurate information to the public. His motto, borrowed from SYMS retailers, is “An educated consumer is our best customer.”
Keep Communicating, Even When You Think Everyone Understands
When Roosevelt Elementary School in Norman, Okla., opened eight years ago, Principal Carla Kimberling hired teachers who were forward thinking and eager to try out new ideas. “Our classrooms and teaching methods probably seemed very different from what parents had experienced when they went to school,” she says.
“We had lots of meetings to explain our goals and what we hoped to accomplish. Teachers wrote letters to go home in the weekly communication folder, telling what they were doing in the classroom and how parents could follow up on those activities.
“About four years ago, we wanted to do additional testing on some students because we were concerned about their progress. Resistant parents became vocal, and we realized we needed to expand our communication, which had slowed down a bit when it seemed that everyone understood and supported what we were doing. It took about a year of one-on-one meetings to work through that problem.”
Another case emphasizing the need for on-going communication related to Roosevelt’s multi-age classrooms. When the school opened, parents were invited to grade-level meetings to hear about options and decide whether they preferred a multi-age or single-age class for their child.
The one year such a meeting wasn’t held — because it was assumed everyone was familiar with the choices — was the year complaints developed. “I did everything except turn hand-springs to keep the situation from turning into a letters-to-the editor campaign,” Kimberling says. “We saturated parents with information, and were soon back on track.”
It’s Easier to Resolve Complaints With Individuals Than With a Group
Chaparral High in Scottsdale, Arizona, is a “high-end” suburban school with constant pressure from parents about grades and GPAs. The principal, Dr. John Kriekard, has also found that it’s much more effective to deal with parent concerns on a one-to-one basis, rather than meeting with an angry group that “feeds off one another.”
Sometimes, this proves to be impossible. Three years ago, when Chaparral had an open noon hour for juniors and seniors, a young man was killed in an auto accident when he went out for lunch. There was an immediate outcry to restrict students to the campus. The site council, composed of students, parents and teachers, recommended a public meeting, which Kriekard reluctantly agreed to, because he realized it would be unfair to deny the request and leave supportive parents in the middle of the controversy.
His 40-minute talk, stressing that the cafeteria staff and available space couldn’t, in mid-year, handle double the number of students, didn’t convince everyone, but a random telephone survey of parents, conducted by the council, provided suggestions for compromise.
The next year, only seniors with permission from their parents were able to leave campus for lunch, and a group of students worked with cafeteria staff to make the menus more acceptable. “If students trust administrators to act fairly in their best interests, the conversations at home have a whole different tenor,” Kriekard says.
Lessons learned: Get out the facts and engage in dialogue. Don’t cut back on communication when you think everyone knows what’s going on. When possible, talk one-on-one with upset individuals. Don’t let down parents who support you. Building trust with students creates support
at home.
Uncovering What People Really Say
About Your School
(reprinted from the National School Public Relations Assoc. PRincipal Communicator, March 2001)
Public opinion comes to life in that gritty world where reality and perception mix. In this world, facts can easily get tossed aside, overrun by rumors and bad data. That’s why — no matter how great your school is — it pays to stay plugged in to what people are really saying about it.
Staying on top of feedback doesn’t take a big formal program or new commitments of time and money. Tracking comments and concerns that surface in everyday activities can yield the best clues.
To keep your early-warning-system working well:

• Track questions phoned into your school. Look for trends. Ask staff to alert you to common questions they hear in the school and community.
• Strengthen your visibility through your leadership tasks or roles in community organizations. How: Position yourself as a willing, plugged-in communicator that people should be comfortable sharing info, insights and questions with.
• Attend as many school and community meetings as you can — not just to speak but to listen too. This may actually save time in the long run as misperceptions are headed off early.
• Try holding occasional informal focus groups. Example: Ask several parents to show up before a planned meeting. You can pick their brains on a topic or two you need to know more about.
• Remember that Key Communicators should do more than keep the community informed. They should be keeping you briefed as well. Make it a point to meet one-on-one regularly with those who are your best feedback sources. (For more info on Key Communicators, see PRincipal Communicator, Aug. ‘02, or e-mail for a copy.)
• Pay attention to everything the local media is reporting that relates to you and your school. Don’t forget to scan editorials, letters-to-the-editor, key columnists and so on. Look for trends.
• Use technology. Offer an e-mail link on your web site’s home page that actively solicits comments and questions. Consider using a voicemail box for phoned in comments and queries.
• Great communication is a two-way enterprise, and your flow of good feedback can be used to develop responsive messages for your more formal communication ventures. Examples:
• Publish common questions — along with answers — in your school and district newsletters, Create a “Hot News” link on your web site to address new or developing issues.
• Use your insights to suggest feedback-based changes of the information that is included in standard school publications.
• Make the time to carefully address questions or rumors at staff, parent and community events and meetings. Never pass up the chance to show how you care about open, accurate communication.

Handling Angry Parents, Conflict, Criticism, and Rumors Clinic Table