Label Emotions To Improve Situations
What do you do when you’re dealing with an emotional person? A really emotional person? It could be a customer, boss, friend, family member, or partner. Whatever the case, what do you do when they are emotional and you are not?
Having been trained as a teacher, I usually enter into some sort of attitude of a classroom manager. I slow down my speech, assume a calm, confident voice, and talk rationally to the individual with monosyllabic words. It’s my first instinct.
Yet it is so ineffective. And imperious.
To describe this more clearly, consider the professional circumstance. When dealing with an emotional customer or an aggressive negotiator, I usually try to remind them of what I can and can’t do. This typically involves restating a position or reaffirming a decision they dislike. Because they’re usually screaming about that. So I feel like I have to restate it. As if they’ll miraculously understand when I utter the words a third time.
So ineffective. So imperious.
In personal circumstances, if dealing with a friend or family member, I usually try to speak slowly, calmly, and offer those little reassurances that I wish could help. Some of these phrases feel patronizing when others say them to me. I wish that weren’t the case. Consider the following examples.
