When dealing with angry people, expressing empathy and understanding towards them can calm them down as they are able to find someone who gets what they are saying. Express empathy by showing you care about how they feel - try to be helpful if there is something you can do. Understanding can be shown through discussing how frustrating their experience must be and how much it must annoy them.

Empathy diffuses tension

Listen - listen to what they have to say and show that you are actively listening.Empathise - show that you care by declaring your understanding of their feelings. Ask - ask open ended questions to both find out information and allow people to vent, rather than just saying yes/no.Paraphrase - accurately repeat what they are saying to show you're listening and to better understand - "so what your saying is x y z, is that correct?"Summarise - reduce the emotion by calming the situation

Use L.E.A.P.S. to communicate with angry people

Generalising is making statements in which you generalise behaviour, for example "you never wash up" or "you are always on your phone".These are poor to use as it is an exaggeration, and the person hearing that will hear those statements and disagree with and attack the frequency, rather than what you want to discuss.For example a response might be: "I do wash up, I washed up yesterday morning" - this is about the frequency, rather than what you wanted to achieve by saying that.

NEVER generalise in arguments

We can be wrong when we believe we are right as people can be right in different ways. Think about misinterpreted communication between person A saying something to person B.B might not hear A say something and so could say B ignored them, while B says A said nothing to them. Technically they are both right. Neither will change their opinion.By understanding that your unbeatable logic might be wrong in their eyes, you can prevent situations caused from a difference in perception.

You can be completely right but they won‘t agree

Rather than giving praise at the start, say it at the end. Usually when people hear praise they expect something negative to come after it, which can devalue the praise as it can be seen as fake: a tool just to deliver something negative.Be specific with what you're praising and give it at the end so it appears more genuine and less incencere.

Give praise at the end of a sentence

Improve communication, resolve conflicts, and avoid the most common conversational disasters through simple, easily remembered strategies that deflect and redirect negative behaviour. Verbal Judo is the martial art of the mind and mouth that can show you how to be better prepared in every verbal encounter. Listen and speak more effectively, engage people through empathy (the most powerful word in the English language), avoid the most common conversational disasters, and use proven strategies that allow you to successfully communicate your point of view and take the upper hand in most disputes.

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

books

Books

Verbal Judo is the martial art of the mind and mouth that can show you how to be better prepared in every verbal encounter. Listen and speak more effectively, engage people through empathy (the most powerful word in the English language), avoid the most common conversational disasters, and use proven strategies that allow you to successfully communicate your point of view and take the upper hand in most disputes.Verbal Judo offers a creative look at conflict that will help you defuse confrontations and generate cooperation from your spouse, your boss, and even your teenager. As the author says, "when you react, the event controls you. When you respond, you’re in control."This new edition features a fresh new cover and a foreword demonstrating the legacy of Verbal Judo founder and author George Thompson, as well as a never-before-published final chapter presenting Thompson’s "Five Universal Truths" of human interaction.

Verbal Judo

Samuel Fairbrass