Now that Summer is in full swing, life seems to be heating up. Temperatures aren’t the only thing increasing—everyone’s mood and the speed of situations also seem to be on the rise.
When the heat is on, do you feel triggered by stress others bring? When situations escalate, your first thought might be, I need to get worked up, too. If I’m worked up, it shows that I care about what I’m doing. This issue matters!
But my experience as a professional negotiator is that getting as loud, anxious, or as worked up as the person across the table or on the email thread rarely takes you where you want to go. Nervous energy doesn’t improve contract terms. Being tense doesn’t make the sensitive conversation where you ask for a raise go better. And strain only makes the talk with your stubborn teenager more complicated.
So, let’s agree to stop accidentally piling on stress to stressful situations and start using soft skills to de-escalate. Let me tell you how a colleague learned to care without getting carried away.
Jessica has a knack for starting each meeting fresh, no matter how many back-to-back calls she’s booked. That’s why I was surprised when we caught up and she told me about her no-good day.
“This morning’s sync was just like the song: Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right!” Jessica laughed. “There was The Ideator, popping off with ideas and going in a million different directions. Then The Sniper, who tossed out little insults to anyone who disagreed with his passionate ideas. And last, there was The Jumper, who didn’t want to slow down and think things through.”
“That sounds awful,” I said. “I probably would have lost my temper with one of those people, let alone all three!”
Jessica shrugged her shoulders and said, “Been there, done that! I finally said, ‘Hey everyone—how about working on the problem instead of each other?!'”
In the July series, Brush Up Your Mindset, we’re looking at small, elegant changes you can make which will bring big dividends. In the past, you may have thought that the only way to solve hard problems was to dig in or double down, the louder the better!
But even during the worst tension and pressure, there’s a tiny window where you can choose how to show up. Jessica’s approach was differentiating between, “Hey person—you’re a problem!” vs. “Everyone is tense because of this problem. We need to find a clever way to fix it.”
You’ll find better answers faster without going overboard. But to discover those options, you’ll need to step back from anger and confusion and employ soft skills like flexibility, imagination, and smart trade-offs. Think of it this way: Who would you rather take advice from—the insightful, clear thinker or the person screaming the loudest?
Here are three ways to start:
The next time it feels like unreasonable people are becoming the boss of you, give yourself a pep talk like you would a little kid. When kids are escalating, you ask them to slow down and take a few deep breaths. That advice holds for grown-ups, too!
So, brush up your mindset and ditch the perspective that you need to match someone else’s tone of voice, delivery, or mood to be taken seriously. Safeguard your peace and care deeply about the results without getting carried away.