Being Emotionally Reactive-Why we almost always make things worse, before we make them better

A few days ago, I witnessed a situation that in years past, I may have been part of...or even caused. It's amazing how differently I can experience and understand it now. 

The sales manager had just finished wrapping up a sale. He was scheduling the delivery of a brand-new truck. The customer had mentioned that he thought the bed of the truck was dirty, and the sales manager proceeded to tell the sales person to tell the reconditioning team to re-clean the inside of the truck's bed.

We've all played the Communication Game, where you tell the person next to you something, and they tell the person next to them...and so on, until it returns to the sender, usually unrecognizable! Something similar happened here. The message sent to the reconditioning team was to "re-clean the inside." 

A few minutes later, one of the reconditioning team members was at the Sales Desk confronting the sales manager. He was telling that manager that the "inside had already been cleaned" and "it was as clean as it was going to get, and he wasn't going to do it again."  The sales manager then told that reconditioning team member that he didn't like his attitude and that he was going to do what he was told, period. The reconditioning team member strongly reiterated his case, and the sales manager sprang out of his chair slammed the door to the Sales office, went toe-to-toe with the reconditioning team member telling him: "You need to treat me with courtesy and respect. I treat everyone with courtesy and respect." The conversation continued to degenerate, culminating in the reconditioning team member being fired on the spot.

I remember thinking to myself as I was watching and listening to this from about 20 feet away...this is a simple misunderstanding. The message to clean the inside of the truck's bed was misunderstood as "re-clean the inside of the truck." Neither person was willing to listen to the other because each was reacting emotionally to one of their personal values being offended. The manager said as much...courtesy and respect. The reconditioning team member was defending his quality of workmanship; pride, perhaps. Neither were their best-selves, nor did they produce the best outcome. 

Episodes like the one referenced above are the focus and topic of my upcoming book: Quiet The Rage: How Learning to Manage Conflict Will Change Your Life (and the World). It walks the reader through my five-step process:

 1. Identifying personal values;

2. Identifying situations that are prone to offending those values;

3. Identifying your default emotional reaction style: Victim/Conflict;

4. Learning to interrupt negative emotional reactions;

5. Transforming negative emotional reactions into positive responses; eliminating conflict by recognizing:

• All human behavior is a function of personal values;
• If you don't understand someone's behavior, you don't understand their personal values;
• Conflict exists when someone feels like one of their personal values has been offended; or, when someone feels like another is imposing their personal values on them;
• Certain situations will tend to offend your personal values. In order to manage those, you must first be able to identify them;
• Emotional reactions create winners and losers.
• When we are emotionally reactive, we are not our best-selves, nor do we produce the best outcomes;
• Sometimes, by being emotionally reactive, we create the behavior in others that we don't want.

“Intense, personal and vulnerable. This is a life lesson, generously shared, that might strike a chord and change a life.” —SETH GODIN, author of Linchpin and The Icarus Deception

“R.W. Burke shares his wisdom and insights about how to manage conflict well in Quiet the Rage. Read this book and prepare for a peaceful life!”—MARSHALL GOLDSMITH, international best-selling author/editor of thirty-five books, including What Got You Here Won’t Get You There and Triggers

“Interpersonal conflict is like friction in a machine—it squanders energy and distracts from what really matters. If you’ve ever wondered why some people have hair triggers and spin out of control at the slightest provocation, read this book.”—PAUL HERR, MS, MBA, author of Primal Management

“What an honest, vulnerable, incredible journey! Burke’s writing style is clear, concise, and bam—to the point! I will need to read this book more than once.”—LINDA GUTHRIE, Coach, Consumer Experience Movement,                                          Ford Motor Company

“Powerful personal narrative plus a practical process for transformation.”—PAMELA COLE, President, PsychTech, Inc.

“In all my years of business coaching, I have never found a book that could so profoundly impact the lives of leaders in many of the organizations I serve. Anger has devastated many relationships. You may not enjoy this book but Quiet the Rage may change your life and the lives of the people around you.”                                                                                                                                                                       —LINDA LIMBERS MITCHELL, Certified Master Executive Coach, speaker, and author of Choose Change . . . Before Change Chooses You!

The book (hardcover & paperback) and e-book, and will be widely available on October 10th, 2017.

For additional content, please visit: quiettherage.com or coachingconflict.com