1. Don’t take the ‘bait: The number one ‘rule’ as it were in dealing with someone who is being perhaps rude, unpleasant or telling you in an unconstructive way that you are the cause of the problem, is to resist the temptation to argue back to defend yourself against the points they are making. This is of course easier said than done. When we are being ‘attacked’, we are of course programmed to ‘defend’. That’s why Robert Bacall’s analogy which likens this behaviour to a piece of bait being dangled, and which if we ‘bite’, we are drawn into equally unconstructive arguing back, is very helpful. So think of their outburst as a red herring that you are not going to be fooled by.

2. Go for an E.A.R.: Think to yourself – when you are angry with someone, what do you need most that might help you get a bit calmer? Most people need acknowledgement, someone to listen to them, to feel understood, to feel heard. An upset and angry person cannot problem solve. So the first thing required is de-escalation. One approach to this is by using what Bill Eddy terms an ‘E.A.R. Statement’. E.A.R. stands for empathy, attention and respect, so it’s about saying something that conveys that you are attempting in some way to empathise or understand that they are upset and that you are respectful in your words or how you convey it. It’s not about agreeing with the person ‘yes I see you are right about this’ rather something like ‘I can understand that you are annoyed and you feel it has been very frustrating for you’. So you are acknowledging but not agreeing with them.

3. Get clear in your mind what your intentions are: to get the situation sorted. If you are motivated to try and ‘teach them a lesson’ or get your own back then you are less likely to get the problem they have solved and much more likely to cause an escalation. Helping people realise they are in the wrong is a difficult task even when they are calm and somewhat receptive to hearing this, so don’t your time trying to do it with someone who is highly charged. Then use active listening and questioning skills to help you get clear on what it is their key needs and interests are beneath all their blaming and positional statements.

4. Respond with a B.I.F.F.: Another of Bill Eddy’s achronisms and sounds just like what you might feel like giving someone who’s on the attack! Well it stands for a Brief, Informative, Friendly and Firm response. The essential message is not to get drawn into long argumentative and explanatory responses, rather you ensure you convey clearly, concisely but in neutral language your viewpoint or the information you need to convey.

6. Move them out of the ‘emotional’ part of the brain: High Conflict People reside a huge amount of the time in this part of their minds. They are on high alert monitoring the environment for anything that might threaten their needs or sense of themselves. Strategic use of ‘logic’ questions can help to move them into the thinking or rational part of the brain. Such questions  can range from ‘what time did x happen’ or ‘what’s your account number’ to ‘what three things do you need from this’ or ‘what’s your suggestion on how we can sort this out’ – all depending on the context of course.

5. Convey your willingness to help and a sense that you are being supportive by offering if you can a choice between a couple of options. Not only are you demonstrating co-operativeness, you are also getting them into the rational task of thinking and having to evaluate choices.

6. Set limits: Where necessary, set limits on the behaviour but try to do this in a matter of fact way rather than being either threatening or superior about it. So the tone of this message is critical. The same words ‘I want to help you sort it but I need you to speak in a calmer tone of voice’ can be very provocative if delivered with a wagging finger compared to a neutral, friendly tone.

So let’s take an example. Peter is a colleague who has a tendency to be very argumentative and challenging about everything and seem to have limited ability to discuss something in a reasonable way. You were meant to pass on an email last week but forgot. Peter comes bursting into your office, looking very cross and speaking in a raised tone about this. ‘I can’t believe you didn’t send that email – you are always forgetting things and it makes me look terrible now in front of the customers. This is a serious error and it’s all your fault. You are completely inefficient …etc etc.’

Here’s an example of how you might implement the tips above:
You initially give eye contact, listening, remaining calm and silent for a few sentences. Then you could try “I can see this has caused a huge upset…I see you feel you have been put in a very difficult position with the customer…Can I just check to get clear on what exactly has happened…an email came that I was meant to pass on…?” Peter might now start up again saying how he is always having to deal with these situations because you never send on emails on time etc. Here you would try a little BIFF.: “Just to clarify Peter, this is the first time I haven’t passed on an email. I understand it is frustrating for you with the customer and I’m happy to look at getting it resolved as soon as possible” (Little aside: Sybil from Fawlty Towers, dealing with her beloved Basil comes to mind here but you need to drop her superior tone please!)
In terms of choices you might say “In order to sort it out,  the customer needs to be contacted and the matter remedied. If you wish, I am happy to contact them and explain the mix-up or would you prefer to do this?”

That’s just one example, but of course it all depends on the person and the context. Try it and let me know how you get on or what other approaches have worked for you.

My own personal experience of a couple of these situations led me to the work of Bill Eddy who has coined the phrase HCP – High Conflict Personalities as a way of characterising people who display these patterns of behaviour. While I’m averse to defining people by labels and sterotypes and a firm believer that we all engage in unco-operative behaviours at times, his approach has two very useful aspects. First of all he gives a context for this behaviour – that it’s a function of the person themselves rather than the issue or the other party in the situation. Secondly, he outlines some very useful strategies for dealing with it. But simply realising that it’s them not you and understanding why is very helpful for someone on the receiving end of such behaviours to depersonalise it.

A useful model for helping to understand people’s unconstructive behaviours in conflict is is that they arise because the amydala, the part of the brain that is wired to detect and protect us from threat and harm is activated. Our drive for survival leads us to engage in ‘fight’ or ‘flight’ reactions, which in a case of real danger is appropriate. However, according to Eddy, in his book ‘It’s not your fault’, HCP’s have what he terms a Mistaken Assessment of Danger – M.A.D. – easy to remember that one! So in essence, they interpret an unwarranted threat to their identity where there might merely be a difference of opinion or someone expressing another point of view.

This idea of a compelling drive to defend and protect oneself by any means is also reflected in the theory that Laura Crawshaw (a.k.a. The Boss Whisperer!) in her book ‘Taming the Abrasive Manager’. Her take on the clients she works with is that they are motivated by an intense need to ensure they ‘survive’ in terms of their reputation and will use any means to secure this.

Eddy goes on to see parallels with traits of personality disorders in these kinds of behavioural patterns. He cites four sub-conscious fears that underpin these behaviours: fear of abandonnment, fear of being ignored, fear of being dominated, fear of being inferior.

So HCP’s are in amygdala overdrive most of the time, misreading signals and reacting to this. Think of the amydala as a smoke alarm, it’s not meant to go off and cause an immediate response unless there is a fire but if it isn’t working properly, it can start to beep at the slightest air particles. This dominance of the amydala over the thinking pre-frontal cortex part of the brain also makes for errors in how they process events leading to ‘all or nothing’ or ‘black/white’ thinking, difficulty in self-reflecting and therefore in accepting any responsiblity for the situation .

I am not trying to imply that everyone who gets angry or is unreasonable has a personality disorder. I also think that all of us have times when our amydala dominates and we have high conflict behaviours. However, I think this framework of looking at how errors in processing of events is contributing to the behaviour helps us to view it more objectively rather than getting triggered by it and either feeling we are in the wrong or reacting unconstructively ourselves.

In terms of research in this area, the Centre for Conflict Dynamics in Florida, U.S. has found that there are 9 behaviours/attitudes or ‘hot buttons’ that are found to be particularly triggering for people in the workplace. These are: unreliablity, overly analytical, unappreciative, aloof, micro-managing, self-centred, abrasive, untrustworthy and hostile You can take a free test to help you identify what your particular ‘hot button’ is <a href=”http://www.conflictdynamics.org/products/cdp/hb/index.php”>here</a>.

Your hot button may of course be none of these or perhaps even a few of them (none of them are particularly appealing characteristics anyhow!) although it’s worth thinking further to identify which one would lead you into reacting back as opposed to just being mildly irritating.

So the first step in what I’ve termed ‘owning your hot buttons’ is to clearly identify what the exact behaviour or attitude is that bothers you. But knowing ‘aloofness’ bugs you is not enough. Next, it’s important to try and figure out why exactly that particular behaviour bothers you – what is it that’s important to you that this behaviour gets at or challenges. Getting underneath the hot button for yourself is a key part of having ‘ownership’ on it and being better able to manage when it gets pushed. One way to help you figure out why it’s important to you is to ask yourself: “what comes up for me when I meet this behaviour?” and then take note of the thoughts, feelings – both physical and emotional, interpretations etc. that you make about that person doing this. So let’s take for example someone whose behaviour I would term ‘aloof’. For me, reflecting on what this attitude brings up for me, I would say that aloofness would give me a sense that the person doesn’t want to connect with me and isn’t interested in me personally. So by considering this I now have more information about myself – that connection with others is important to me and that this person is violating a value I hold dear as opposed to just being someone I complain about. I also realise that I have made a couple of assumptions, neither of which might be correct – they don’t want to connect with me, they aren’t interested in me. The process of doing this exercise has however taken me out of my stream of negative and blame-focused thinking about this person and brought me to a better understanding of my own values and a realisation that perhaps I should check out my assumptions rather than just believe them all. I feel calmer and more objective about how I view them and myself, rather than being caught up in the irritation or annoyance that the behaviour provoked. I am therefore in a better place to manage any potential reaction I might have the next time I meet their aloofness. I also have a slightly softer attitude towards it, now that I’ve thought it through and see that it’s about my values being different to theirs perhaps rather than them being a ‘person who annoys me’.
The other interesting thing to reflect on from the list of unwelcome traits and behaviours above is which, if any of them, do you think that you might possess and might trigger others?

Try out the hot buttons exercise and let me know how you get on. I’d also like to hear your opinion of the ‘hot buttons’ list that the research identified…does it ring true for you, when you think about the kind of behaviours in your workplace that seem to upset people?

Mindfulness or mindful awareness is about becoming aware by intentional focussing of your attention, on what you are experiencing – your thoughts, feelings, sensations – in any particular ‘present’ moment. There are a huge variety of practices from formal meditation, yoga, tai chi or simply 10 minutes of breath awareness every morning. In this article I want to give you a short overview of some of the emerging research on mindfulness. This identifies some very compelling reasons why it can significantly improve your life – professionally as well as personally and most importantly your relationships with others.
So first a little brain science for which I am drawing on the work of Daniel Siegel, author of ‘The Mindful Brain’. Our brain consists of three main areas: the brain stem and the limbic areas which go from the top of the spinal chord up into the centre of our brains and work together to regulate basic bodily functions, the fight/flight response to danger, emotions and memories; and then the  cortex, the higher part of the brain that allows us to think and reason.

At the front part of the cortex, just behind the forehead, lies the middle pre-frontal cortex which plays an important role in regulating and balancing the brain stem and limbic areas. This means that when we feel tired or triggered by something that annoys us we are able to respond in a balanced and flexible way rather than ‘losing it’.
When the circuits of the middle pre-frontal cortex aren’t working very well, then we are more likely to allow the emotions and impulses that arise from the lower and mid brain to dominate our behaviour. How well these connections work is influenced to an extent by our experience growing up where the initial ‘wiring’ of the brain circuitry takes place. One of the ways we can improve these connections or ’rewire’ our brain is by developing a regular mindfulness practice. Research from a number of neuroscientists is demonstrating that developing a regular mindfulness practices actually changes and rewires the  brain. These changes can be seen on fMRI brain scans and occur even after a short time of regular practice. Siegel refers to this process as ‘neural integration’.
So let me list out some of the benefits for you:

1. You will manage stress and negative emotions more effectively in your life. Regardless of how harmonious and supportive our workplace or family environments are, we inevitably encounter events and people that provoke the usual gamut of unwlecome emotions such as irritation, annoyance, fear, hurt etc. Mindful awareness practice helps you to regulate your body’s energy levels and emotional states more effectively. So you are less likely to ‘flip your lid’ or become overly anxious in a way that causes you to be less effective in how you make decisions and deal with situations or difficult people in your life.

2. You will have greater flexibility in how you respond to your external environment, be less impulsive and more given to pausing before you act. So when someone does something that upsets or annoys you, you will be less likely to respond reactively e.g. get angry, withdraw and foster an ability to have a more thought-through response.

3. You will get to know and understand what Daniel Siegel terms the ‘architecture’ of your own mind and be better able to relate to and understand other people’s less-connected brain circuitry. You are better equipped therefore as a coach, mediator, counsellor, teacher or even manager to support other people’s ‘neural integration’. Not only that but research in the area of ‘mirror neurons’ is demonstrating that when we interact with others, there is a constant resonation between the internal states each of us is experiencing. Bonnie Badenocktells us that connection with others is another way the brain gets rewired so your mindful state of mind in itself has a beneficial impact on the people you work with.

4. You will develop a more non-judgemental approach to other people. Our brains are actually hard-wired to make judgements all of the time. According to Bonnie Badenock, the single most important factor in therapeutic (and I would include in this term many interventions such as mediation, coaching, counselling, informal support sessions) efficacy is non-judgemental acceptance. She defines this as being able to hold someone with a non-judging mind and heart. Think of how much more effective all of your interactions would be if you could ‘hold’ people  in a calm and mindful way in how you are present to them.
5. You will be more resilient in meeting new challenges that arise. The work of Jon Kabat Zinnhas demonstrated that following a number of weeks of mindfulness practice a “left-shift” in the brain activity of participants was noted, in which the left frontal activity of the brain is enhanced. This electrical change in brain function is thought to reflect the cultivation of an “approach state,” in which we move toward, rather than away from, a challenging external situation or internal mental function such as a thought, feeling, or memory.

6. ….It’s free! There is no VAT, no levies…it costs nothing but your time and committment. Why not read some of the research yourself or even better, try it out. You can find some introductory exercises right here. Let me know you you get on!

1. First off, get into the right ‘mindset’. This is one where we consciously decide to give time and attention to this person and set an intention to connect with them. So we need to bring a sense of mindfulness to the discussion we are having. It can be helpful even to do some deep breathing to empty our own minds and to slow us down because true connection takes time. One of the things I find useful to do is rather than think about ‘what should I say next’ or in fact to ‘think’ about anything, is to have an image of my own heart centre or intuition centre attempting to connect with theirs. So I’m attempting to listen at deeper levels than just the content’ of what they are communicating.

2. Next, tune into yourself – what are you feeling/sensing here and what’s your own intuition telling you about this person and what might be going on for them ‘beneath’ their words. What sort of energy – which is a kind of catch all word for feeling, sense, aura or mood – are you picking up from their tone and body language.

3. Go for simple open questions. For example ‘What’s going on for you with regards to…’ and even simpler ‘Tell me more’. At a recent NLP training I attended, Trevor Horne talked about the power of the ‘Tell me more’ question followed by ‘And can you be more specific about that’ to take people down to deeper and deeper levels of what’s important to them or at the core of what they are trying to say.

4. Slow down – effective communication takes time. This gives you the space to pick up the unstated and use an acknowledging statement to help draw this out. So when your team member says ‘This presentation is such a pain and I really don’t see the point of it at all’ and they are sighing or a bit uptight you can say ‘it sounds like you aren’t feeling very positive about the presentation next week, tell me more about what’s going on for you’.

5. Keep the question in the back of your mind all of the time ‘What might be going on for this person that they are reacting like this’  and allow this to guide your questions. You might even name this, for example ‘I’m picking up that you are very keen to get this piece of work done but see a lot of barriers…can you say more about what’s getting in your way’

These are just some of my ideas – do you have any to add on how you think you can connect and communicate more authentically and effectively with people’? I’d love to hear your comments below.

You might think ‘all very nice but do we have the time and what about the bottom line??’ – however it appears there were also organisation-wide improvements in co-operation between departments, efficiency and cost reduction, profits and productivity.

The reality is that most managers get promoted because of their expertise and experience in their field of training. But management of a team requires not just skills as an engineer, nurse, IT specialist but also skills in effectively managing and bringing the best out in people. Expecting managers to be able to do this without adequate support and training is setting them up for failure and leaving them exposed to being seen as a source of stress.

If you are finding some of the people management aspects of your role  challenging, then get in touch – we can provide you with training, consultancy or coaching in key skills around communication, preventing and resolving conflict.

1. Initial needs assessment – carrying out a conflict audit of the organisation in order to assess how conflict currently impacts people, productivity and profits. This gives a clear benchmark to do a costs/benefits analysis as to whether such a panel is in the first place warranted. It also provides a basis for future evaluation of an internal mediation service.

2. Ensuring there is a good understanding of, and openness to, the process of mediation and the benefits of having an internal mediation service, from key stakeholders – senior management, unions/employee representatives, human resources department, health and safety representatives etc.in championing and promoting such a service.

3. Mediator Selection Process: There are a number of options here for example, candidates can be nominated by key stakeholders or the role can be advertised internally – ideally there would be some awareness raising about mediation and conflict management prior to this to help potential candidates make an informed choice as to whether this role would fit for them.

4. Training of Mediators: Ensure that mediators’ training conforms to recognised accreditation standards such as the Certified Mediation level with the Mediators’ Insititute of Ireland

5. Access to the Mediation service: Develop clear procedures around how staff and managers can avail of this service, information leaflets, protocols around key mediation principles such as confidentiality, impartiality of mediator.

6. Underpinned by policies and procedures: Ensuring that there are supportive and complementary policies and procedures in place underpinning the use of mediation to resolve disputes. A policy document around terms of reference for the in-house mediation programme would also need to be developed.

7. Designated champion: Consideration of the need for a designated co-ordinator and steering committee to champion and drive the programme within the organisation

8. Adequate resourcing: Ensuring that the organisation is prepared to resource the programme, which in addition to set-up costs will involve ongoing costs in relation making the Mediators available to conduct mediations during their working week as well as time for ongoing support and training for the team

9. Promotion of the mediation service: Consideration of how the mediation service will be promoted – the development of information booklets and guidance and dissemination of this throughout all levels of the organisation

10. Supportive Continuing Professional Development: Setting up a framework that would ensure mediators have access to supervision/mentoring as structured further training opportunities

11. Evaluation: Establishing in advance the framework for evaluation of the mediation service.

If you would like to know more about establishing an internal mediation programme in your organisation, please email us at mary@consensusmediation.ie

So how might organisations go about making mediation more mainstream and increase the level of understanding and use of this very effective tool? Establishing a panel of internal mediators to resolve disputes as they arise is an increasing recent trend in this area. For example, the Health Services Executive has a very well developed internal mediation panel here in Ireland and in terms of the private sector, the well-known high street retailer Topshop cite savings of £80,000 with an internal mediation programme. Advantages of having an internal mediation service are that it can be more immediate and certainly more cost effective than bringing in an external mediation provider.

But aside from this, establishing an internal mediation programme also has the potential to set in motion a culture change in how an organisation deals with disputes. It introduces to the organisation in a very concrete way a ‘mediation mind-set’ which can have positive consequences far beyond getting Mary and Tom’s dispute resolved. It means in a core cadre of staff understand, practice and champion an approach that promotes and models constructive listening and problem-solving. This can only have positive ripple effects for both the formal and informal culture in the organisation.

Please get in touch if you would like to hear more about how to go about establishing an internal mediation programme in your organisation or check out upcoming blog posts.

Mediation yes, is a great process and has many advantages over its more adversarial cousins such as investigation or litigation. However, it’s not without its challenges. In order for mediation to be able to work, people need to be in some sort of mindset that fosters collaboration and compromise and be able to think in terms of needs rather than wants. Yet, it can be hard to help people clarify this for themselves in advance of the process and to get clear on the type of challenge they need to rise to if the process is to be successful.

I have drawn up a short questionnaire here that people can take in order to help assess whether they are in such a mindset. I’d welcome any thoughts or feedback you might have as to whether this would be useful or not. Maybe consider a conflict situation you are in yourself and how well this questionnaire would help you identify where you were at in terms of willingness to move forward in the situation.

An obvious indicator of a person having taken time to reflect on themselves is if they attend some form of one-to-one intervention such as counselling or conflict coaching. A couple of recent mediation cases illustrated this. The first was a situation following an investigation of a bullying complaint that was put in by two people against one person. Mediation was proposed as a means of rebuilding the working relationship. At the pre-mediation meetings with both of the complainants, they both spoke about their fear of the person and there was also lot of anger towards her. At the time, I had suggested that they consider attending the company’s Employee Assistance Counselling service. One of them did and the other ‘couldn’t find the time’. Notwithstanding the fact that both had different issues, personalities etc. there was a clear difference in how each of them presented and dealt with the mediation meetings that they then had with the person they complained about. The person who had attended counselling was much calmer, accepting and although still somewhat fearful, was able to see the situation from a broader viewpoint, not just one of ‘victim’ and ‘offender’. They reached an agreement about how to restart working together. The other person was still palpably angry and predictably, the mediation was more about how little contact they would want from each other and how best to manage that, in the future working relationship.

A second interesting case was one where an organisational glitch in moving people and departments resulted in one employee being quite hurt and traumatised. The organisation recognised and acknowledged their faults and her line manager actually met with her in a facilitated meeting and apologised profusely for what had happened. Yet almost a year later, the employee requested an independent mediator to facilitate a meeting with her and her manager, telling me in pre-mediation that the manager had never actually apologised to her! She had in the meantime attended counselling and the mediation worked well, her manager reiterated the apology. The client said later that she had been so angry and upset she hadn’t actually heard the apology that had come in the first meeting!

In my view and experience, mediation will only work to the extent that parties are willing and able to engage in some sort of process (and it might just be taking the time to think it through themselves) that causes them to work on themselves internally rather as simply turning up on the day and hoping that the other person has done all the changing!