Dealing with aggressive, negative people

Dealing with aggressive, negative people

How to avoid playing their game.

I recently had an interaction with someone that was, frankly, a bit unpleasant, but gave me an opportunity to practice some of my leadership skills.  In this case the person came at me quite aggressively and borderline hostile in an email out of the blue.  They were in attack mode.

Most people don’t like conflict.  I certainly don’t like being attacked.  But, conflict is part of life and sometimes conflict can be quite constructive in making progress and solving problems.  Conflict stimulates action and throws issues into high relief so that they can be worked on.

This person was attacking me.  What should I do?  What would you do?  What should we do?  What shouldn’t you do?

–          Don’t get angry.  Keep calm and take a deep breath.  You control your emotions.  You control your response.

The problem is that when you are confronted by an aggressive, surprise attack out of the blue like this, whether in writing or in person, your dinosaur brain kicks in.  You immediately go into fight or flight mode.  Your first reaction when someone takes a verbal swing at you might be to rear back and knock them on their ass.

Don’t do it.  Don’t fight on their ground.  This is the hardest part. You need to choose the ground for the interaction and you need to move it out of the dinosaur brain into your big brain so you can make rational decisions.

Keep calm and let the aggressive person state their case, express their anger and blow off steam.  Let them vent.

The caveat here is that you cannot accept or allow them to be abusive.  If they start to attack you personally or if it looks like it’s going to get physical you need to calmly state that you are willing to listen but you will not allow personal abuse – if they want this interaction to continue they’ll have to become less threatening.

–          Don’t argue with them.  If you argue with them you are stooping to their level and you are playing to their strength.  You don’t have to agree, but you need to listen and ask the right questions instead of returning the attack. You don’t have enough information to work with.  All you know is that you are being attacked.

Once you get your dinosaur brain out of the way and involve your big brain you can start to ask the appropriate questions.  Why is this person attacking me?  What is their issue?  What are they trying to accomplish?  Can I help them?

If someone is riled up to the point of coming at you hardcore from left field then they have some issues that they are dealing with.  Try to figure out what those are.

–          See if you can figure out why they are coming on so strong.

More than likely they are under some sort of pressure and just got surprised by something that has thrown them into a panic.  That doesn’t mean you have to panic with them.  Understanding that they are in trouble may allow you to empathize and see that in reality they are a person in trouble and in need of help.  Help is what you can provide once you get them over the hump of emotion.

It may just be their normal state.  Different cultures and personality types are just argumentative by nature.  You may have run into someone who is acting perfectly normal for their culture.  Especially if you are reading an email – you can’t always determine intent.  Don’t’ assume anything.  Don’t pour gas on the fire.

It’s also helpful o use their name.  You assume power when you use another’s name.

Try this:  “I’m sorry, can you help me to understand?  I’m interested.  Can you step back and tell me your story?  How did you get to this point Bob?  Tell me about your organization and what you’re trying to accomplish.”

Note: In business there is a specific situation where executives will attack you as a way to test whether you are worthy to work with or not.  They will say something like “Why would I waste my time working with you?” in an aggressive way.  The appropriate response in this case is to aggressively come back with a strong positive response.  “Bob, you’re about to make a big mistake.  You need to work with me and here’s why…”

–          It’s perfectly ok to state your case, but you need to do it calmly and with facts not emotions or opinions.  “Bob, it’s my understanding that…”

Which is what I did in my email interaction.  I did what I could do to provide the information needed and explained our situation.  I offered to help.  The next response was still an attack but they had moved away from the original emotion.  I again offered to help and tried to understand.

The other rule that I follow is no more than 2 email exchanges in this type of situation.  After the second email you need to pick up the phone or meet in person.  This removes the unintended nuances of email and forces people to interact person to person – which is much better for resolving conflict.

In the end the individual ended up thanking me for being so nice and apologized for being pushy.  I was able to find a common ground that was important to both of us.  They had been surprised and something they had put a lot of personal capital into was at risk.  I was able to help them get beyond panic and into solutions.

They had attacked me without having complete information.  They essentially didn’t know who are what they were dealing with and were making assumptions that a frontal assault was the best way to resolve a crisis.

We’ve talked strategy before and you all remember that you should never use a frontal assault as your default strategy because it is costly and only successful if you have a large numerical advantage.  Unfortunately the people you deal with in this world may not be as well schooled in leadership theory as you are and you have to hold your cards, be patient and let it play out.

It’s human nature to respond to attacks with attacks.  If you take the time to engage your big brain and come up with the appropriate response you can get a much better result.  There is no need to create enemies even if you are capable of a crushing response – as much fun as that is!

When dealing with aggressive and negative people don’t stoop to their level.  Engage on your level and create a better resolution for everyone involved by being a leader.

Note:  The situations I’m involved in are normal interactions in the community and in the business world.  You need to be aware of any personal danger you may be in and act accordingly.  I am never at personal risk in any of my interactions.  If you are at risk seek help from a professional.