It’s About Making Babies!

Seth Godin observes that to communicate, we have to recognize the difference that anger makes.

I encountered this phenomenon in the classroom. Fred Jones wrote about anger in “Tools for Teaching.” Anger involves adrenaline. Mr. Jones writes about keeping classroom discipline, and getting angry isn’t a good thing for the teacher. It takes 28 minutes for adrenaline to affect the body, and then to dissipate. During that 28 minutes your judgement will be affected. The article in Tools for Teaching recommends taking a calming breath as soon as you feel the anger stir. It can take a couple of minutes for the level of adrenaline to peak - you cannot avoid the half hour that your judgement will be affected, but with luck you can defuse the total amount of adrenaline that is released. A ’smaller anger’ is much less disruptive than a full-blown rage.

What Seth Godin notices is that you have to address the anger of angry people. I think the point he misses is the level of anger. Keep the annoyances in play, and you make the anger more intense, and the possibility of communicating or persuading just keeps getting worse. Seth gives a couple of examples of corporate and individual responses to customer anger that don’t help. Trying to promote the company ‘line’ or story with an angry customer is unproductive; you have to ‘fix’ the anger, first. It isn’t likely that many customers will agree to wait 28 minutes and try again (hint: more likely to make the anger worse). So the next best counter-anger strategy has to be to remove the stimulus that angered the customer, or at least let the customer believe you will work to solve the problem.

Another lesson to be learned from teachers learning and maintaining classroom discipline is to reduce the likelihood of anger, or other signs you lost control of communication. Communicate clearly, keep the story simple, be truthful, respect your partner in communication and understand (as well as possible) her/his engagement in the conversation.

In a recent job interview I was asked, “How did you handle the latest angry customer you encountered?” I think of this as having a couple of conversation ’switches’. One switch is to change from serving customers to solving an immediate problem (whatever is bothering the customer). Another switch is to handling my assigned task, to calling for experienced assistance (this lets the customer understand I cannot solve the problem, that I recognize that the problem is important, and that I want to solve the problem rather than make the customer go away). By making a switch early, I believe I can help the customer manage to keep the tension level lower - making a better solution easier to achieve.

Seth mentions that you can sometimes avoid angry people - choose to not to work with someone that is angry. This makes sense at work. But people that spend time being angry show poor self-control - and sometimes their friends and loved ones suffer. Employers should take responsibility for angry workers. Tempting as it might be to fire someone with an anger problem, the right response for the community is to direct the employee into assistance. The company needs to know if policies are causing problems and fix them, and also to understand how morale affects business efforts. An employer that cannot handle an angry employee, without trying, won’t be any good at taking care of other employees. Seth’s strategy of leaving rather than work with an angry co-worker might work as a warning signal to management - and to other workers.

Anger, a tough subject. For me the important thing is that adrenaline, the ‘engine’ behind anger, is a hormone, affects the body, and has to be dealt with.

Driving home tonight some advice came back to me.

Uncle Everett worked for Northwestern Bell Telephone, back when we called the phone company ‘Ma Bell’. I guess he got this at a safety presentation, Uncle Ev was a lineman for many years, and advanced to manage some of the conversions of mechanical switching stations to electronic. This was probably in the 1960’s. My observation is that we keep producing more new drivers every year, so his advice is as current today as it ever was.

Never enter an intersection the first three seconds after the lights change.

I figure there are two excellent reasons for this. At the time most accidents occurred in the first three seconds after the lights change, so waiting means you won’t be there for such an event. The second reason is that while waiting, you are more likely to be watching for that first-three-second hazard - a late car trying to beat the lights. And watching for a late car makes you more likely to see (notice) a late car - in time to avoid things. At least, you have a better chance of getting through the intersection safely. Three Seconds. You won’t hold up traffic, and may safe repairs, money, or lives.

Uncle Bob was a Warrant Officer in the US Army for many years. And I guess junior ranks before that. In the 1960’s my family took a vacation, and drove to Copperas Cove, TX to visit while Uncle Bob was stationed at Ft. Hood, TX. While riding around the perimeter road, another vehicle came up behind us - closely behind. Tailgating. Uncle Bob described what he was doing as he evaded the danger.

The only thing you can do when someone is tailgating is to slow down.

Presumably the ruthless jerk behind you, violating safe following distance laws and physically threatening you with their vehicle, wants to go faster than you are at present. The problem is that most of the time you can’t go fast enough to please a tail gaiter.

Slowing down accomplishes several things. First, if there is an accident, the slower you are going, the better your chances of surviving. Next, slowing down gives the other driver a better chance to pass - the last thing I want is an irritated driver behind me. Let him or her pass, and their aggressive driving is likely to catch the attention of any patrol cars lurking ahead. In any case, an irritated driver ahead of you is easier to avoid.

Sometimes the driver behind just forgot safe following distance laws, and when you slow down, they back off.

Never slow down aggressively - you could cause an accident, and would be held liable for causing the accident.

Anger on the road most often rides in an ambulance. In the back.

Thanks, Uncle Everett and Uncle Bob. I got home safely, tonight.