Diffusing Tense Situations
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Jun 10, 2014
This past Saturday I was interviewed on a radio program by a guy named Fasil Khan of Khan Consulting. The podcast of the event was titled Leadership With Mitch Mitchell, which isn't a bad title if I say so myself. 🙂 He calls his radio program The Law And Order Of Life; that's pretty snappy also.
  Kai Schreiber via Compfight |
During the call he asked me for a few ideas on how to diffuse tense situations with others, whether it's in business or in one's personal life. I responded to that, and later on I created the video below on the subject. As a sidebar, I'm doing a video a day, or I'm going to try to do a video a day, on my YouTube channel, which is linked over there in the right sidebar in case you're interested in listening to some of them.
In any case I answered it in the interview, which was about an hour, then did it in the video, so I'm not going to talk about that particular subject again. Instead, I'm going to talk about why it's important to try to ease situations when they occur.
We live in dangerous times in America. These days, just looking at someone the wrong way could get you killed. You just never know who might have a weapon and what their state of mind might be. Just a few days ago for instance, a guy got mad because a father was trying to teach his daughter how to ride a bike, the guy wanted to teach her a different way, the father told him all was good and the guy got upset, went into his house & came out with a shotgun, telling the guy to get off of his street. Luckily he didn't pull the trigger but can you imagine how scared the daughter was, let alone the guy?
So we have to consider ourselves lucky when something breaks out into an argument because at least that gives someone the opportunity to try to calm things down. Once a weapon has been produced, it's pretty much over for the most part. Scary, but true.
It behooves all of us to try to stay as calm as we can and to work hard to not let things get out of control. In person, I'm a pretty calm guy because I know what I was like when I was much younger, before everyone was carrying guns, and I also know that some folks will fly off the handle at a moment's notice. If all I had to worry about was getting into a physical fight, at my size even at my age I'd at least have a chance. But I refuse to carry a weapon so if one was produced... I don't even want to think about it.
That's why it's important to at least give peace a shot. In the video I only address that issue and ways to calm things down. Give it a view and let me know your thoughts. And if you decide to take time to listen to the interview, I hope you enjoy that also.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cNM1bg68WA&feature=share
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Few months ago, I was at business meeting. Situation was so tense that you can cut it with knife. The person in front of me was answering with questions of my questions. And actually the questions were irrelevant. Well, the meeting went to normal at the end, after a bit of yelling. Though we’ve shaked our hands and said that we will work together. Well it all ended up with echanging few emails, we agreed not to work together, which was the best case scenario.
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It’s too bad things got tense Carl, but both of you walked out without being mad at each other and it sounds like you made a sensible conclusion in the end.
In Business, things can and do go wrong. It is important to listen to the other person, and hear where they are coming from. When your service involves someone’s new home, things can get personal.
Great Video, TT, and I’m confident you eill get to #30!
Thanks Ken; got through #11 tonight. And you’re right, it all starts with listening.
Hi Mitch,
You nailed again. I used to work in the service industry for a few years as a manager and you know everyone wants to see the manager when things go wrong. My tactic was to talk to them calmly no matter how angry they are. It generally has a calming affect on people. They realize they have your full attention when you tell them that you are going to deal with their problem if they could calm down. So, they don’t need to shout anymore.
I agree with you that you should never turn your back and hope that it will go away. People are vicious and unpredictable these days. The other day I saw two men arguing and one started taking his watch and jacket ready to fight for absolutely nothing. How stupid is that when it takes one silly bullet to take him down.
By the way size really doesn’t matter when guns are involved. And a much smaller person will not fight you with fist. He will hide behind the bushes and gun you down or stick a knife in you. There are so many examples of them and one in my family. One final word, don’t make an enemy out of nothing and by taking a side in an argument that doesn’t concern you.
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Thanks Jen. You’re right, danger these days can be an immediate thing because you never know who might be packing or what could happen when you think you’ve got things under control. We have to find better ways of reacting to these situations because it’s not like when I was younger, when I never even had to consider someone having a weapon worse than a knife, and that was rare. Even so, I’d go the diplomatic route, not out of fear but because of the unknown potential of escalation. I didn’t back down, but I did negotiate, and luckily I was always successful at it.