Skip to content

Dealing with a coleric person

peopleTool difficultConversations communication


I'd like to ask you to sleep on it. I am happy to discuss in the future how we can collaborate more. Feedback is a gift, you dont need to keep it, but hold on to it a bit to see if it resonates with you.


Dealing with a person in a strong emotional state:

  • Sending the person for a timeout, to calm down
  • Remember this has nothing to do with me
  • Stay calm. "You seem very emotional, lets take a breather"
  • If he stays screaming:
    • I am happy to continue the conversation when you are again in a calm space. This is not me being passive aggressive, I really want to sort this out, and understand you, and that can happen when we both are in a calm space, so that the conversation can keep being a dignifying experience for both of us.

Preventing anger explosions (To use when you sense a bit of frustration building up)

Build up: not feeling understood.

Ask:
Let's slow down for me to ask you questions so that I understand: 1. Can you give me an example of what you mean? What your context is? why do you think this? What are your assumptions? Do you have a previous experience where this happens? 2. Just for you to understand, these are my assumptions. But I understand you 3. What is the outcome that you would like to see?. My ideal way forward is__. Why do you want to do that? What are you optimising for?

If person loses patience:

I am trying to understand, and if you dont have the time or patience right now, we can do it in other time when you have more time. Whenever you have time, reach out, I am here.

If you are being emotional/when you are emotional, you are not being rational, and It makes it very hard for me to understand you.