By: Korey Staley
Religion and politics are topics you’re often advised to avoid at dinner parties, not because they’re unimportant but because they’re incredibly personal. These subjects can quickly turn a light-hearted talk into a heated debate, as people tend to hold their beliefs close.
We’re equipped with two aspects of our brain – the logical and the emotional. Ideally, the logical brain is in the driver’s seat during the conversation, navigating with reason and respect while accepting some directional suggestions from the emotional side. However, when the emotional brain takes over, it’s like a storm cloud rolling. Conversations can become more about defending personal viewpoints than exchanging ideas. This shift from logic to emotion is precisely why religion and politics can transform a benign chat with the in-laws into a verbal tug-of-war or even assault.
It is crucial to recognize when someone is speaking from their emotional brain rather than their logical side. Emotionally driven conversations are not confined to religion and politics; they can arise in almost any context and setting, including the workplace.
Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to understand and manage your own emotions as well as understand the emotions of people around you. De-escalation training is emotional intelligence training. It involves recognizing when a conversation is at a point where it’s no longer productive and may even escalate into an unsafe situation. It is knowing when to disengage and when to intervene appropriately to prevent ‘lightning from striking,’ as we say in our industry.
Daniel Goleman, psychologist, and author of the book “Emotional Intelligence,” outlines five key components of EI: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills.
Mastering these five elements is essential for enhancing your emotional intelligence and imparting this skill to your team and across all levels of your organization, which will help prevent violence.
Self-awareness – be able to recognize how you are feeling and why, as well as being able to recognize how your behavior might be affecting those around you. When does a conversation no longer become productive and start to escalate? You can identify this often by body language changes – hand gestures become more significant and more dramatic, the tone of voice changes, the volume increases, and they may start to interrupt or no longer be listening or hearing what others are saying. This conversation is now emotion driven.
Self-regulation – Manage your negative emotions. When you start to feel amped, take a breath and stay calm. Treat others with respect, always. Amid an emotional conversation, this is the time to pause before you respond. This allows you time to regulate your emotions.
Motivation – Set high standards for yourself and your behavior. Treat others with respect. Always. Next, you respond thoughtfully; don’t react. By doing this, you’ve started to de-escalate.
Empathy – Consider the situation from their perspective. Acknowledge the emotion of the amped up person in the scenario.
Social skills – The key to success and finding confidence in any social situation is to actively listen. Empower that individual by asking them a question, enabling them to propose a solution to the problem. This will make them feel in control, which will help them to self-regulate and calm down.
Managing one’s own emotions and recognizing and empathetically responding to the emotions of others is EI and is a de-escalation technique. Training in emotional intelligence can equip individuals with the tools they need to navigate challenging interactions more effectively. Workplace violence, as we know, is not only the active assailant but also the enraged customer or angry staff person. If EI is learned and practiced at all levels of your organization, there will be less potential for violence.