Jim stood at my desk, all 6’4” of him, yelling at me—in front of everyone. His booming voice reverberated through the office. I was 19, in my first full-time job, and I was mortified. My reaction? I started to cry.
Have you ever lost your emotional “cool” at work?
[ctt template=”3″ link=”h3y0O” via=”yes” ]Have you ever lost your emotional “cool” at work? Here are some great tips on how to get control back.[/ctt]
Jim was one of the salespeople who worked in our office. Jim was successful and demanding, and—when things went wrong—demeaning. Unfortunately, if I was going to do something wrong, it seemed that it was always for Jim. Jim intimidated and scared me, and if I made a mistake, it seemed to always be on his work.
When the tears started rolling down my face, I was mortified. On the inside, I wanted to yell back at him for being so rude and disrespectful to me. On the outside, I felt like a child, and my reaction was something I had no control over at all.
Emotions are a strange beast, and they are hard to control because they are not logical. Typically, if we are going to react emotionally, we will have one of three predictable reactions:
1. We blank out. Have you ever had a situation that you didn’t see coming and your mind completely blanked? It’s as if your body is so shocked to be in the situation you have no idea how to respond. Of course, hours later, you slap your head and say “Oh! I should have said…” because our brain knows what to say then, once it’s had time to cool off. At the time, coherent thought isn’t possible.
2. We yell. Some people react to fire with fire. Anger can be contagious, and if the other person in your situation is yelling, it is common for some people to yell back.
3. We cry. Crying is rarely the reaction we want at work, because it makes us feel childish.
Crying, yelling, or blanking out is rarely a “choice” we make. They are unconscious reactions to a situation. If we want to respond professionally, calmly, and rationally, we need to control our emotions first.
[ctt template=”3″ link=”wz4mX” via=”yes” ]If we want to respond professionally, calmly, and rationally, we need to control our emotions first.[/ctt]
Here are some tips to help you regain your control in a stressful work situation:
1. Ensure you are making eye contact. The eyes are the windows to the soul, and if someone is angry and we are making eye contact, it is easy to get angry back. I just need to see the tears well up in someone else’s eyes, and my own eyes do the same.
Looking down at the floor will make your body feel as if you are being chastised. Looking away will cause the other person to think you aren’t listening to them and are dismissing them, which will probably escalate their behavior.
Make eye contact. A little trick I’ve learned (and it works) is to look at the space between someone’s eyes, right where their eyebrows meet. If you aren’t too close (and you shouldn’t be all that close), they cannot tell that you are looking there and it will seem to them like you are making eye contact. It allows you to detach from their emotions while giving the illusion you are making eye contact.
We don’t want to absorb the emotions the other person is feeling. We need to control our own while being respectful to the other person.
It seems counter-intuitive to make eye contact when we are trying to control emotions, but if we can do this properly, we can control our emotions.
2. Remember to breathe. Breathing is not just essential to keep you alive, it’s also crucial to getting oxygen to your brain during a stressful situation. In panic mode (and emotional situations are panic-inducing) you need oxygen to remind you what you need to say or do.
When you feel panic set in, remind yourself to “breathe in, breathe out.” Consciously slow down your breathing so your body feels in control.
3. Calm your voice. In stressful situations, the emotions racing through your body will have caused your volume to increase, your talking speed to increase, and your tone to rise. Force it down. Lower your tone so that your voice is deeper. Lower-toned voices are calming, not only for you but for the other person as well. Don’t exaggerate so that you are creating a baritone voice, but listen to ensure you don’t have a Mickey Mouse voice either. Lower-toned voices are considered more trustworthy. (Listen to both men and women who are newscasters—they consciously work on their voices to make them lower).
Speak more slowly. Be aware of how fast your words are coming out. When we race through what we are saying, we create a conversation that feels rushed. When it is rushed, the other person doesn’t feel appreciated or listened to (which will cause an emotional reaction from them). Of course, don’t slow down so much that you sound condescending (which will get an emotional response, too) but ensure you are not speed-talking either.
Watch your volume. Not only do we speed up and tone up, we sometimes yell, or at least increase our volume during stressful situations. Once you’re aware of the tone and speed of your words, also keep your eyes on your volume.
All of these tips will help you feel more in control of a stressful situation. Once you are in control, you will be in a better place to respond to the situation more calmly. When you can avoid blanking out, yelling, or crying, you can better deal with stressful work situations and not let your emotions take over.
If you want even more tips, join us on May 7 at 2 pm ET for our webinar Dealing with Difficult People Click Here
Article By, Rhonda Scharf
