Yet most people don’t do this because they don’t know how to understand their own or the other person’s core needs in the relationship.

It helps to use open questions rather than closed questions. Open questions invite a multitude of answers such as “How was your day?”

A closed question, on the other hand, invites just one answer or a yes or no answer as in “Did you have a bad day?” Open questions allow the other party to describe the circumstances that led up to a disagreement you may be having. Within their description, you can often find the beginnings of a mutually satisfying solution.

Remember to ask an open question in a neutral tone of voice versus a closed question in a negative tone. You may have to fake the tone of voice first until you both have calmed down, but it can make a huge difference. For example, “I notice you haven’t finished that project yet –what’s going on around that?” versus “You are so lazy!”

The first question might attract a response such as, “I’m waiting on a response from a service provider,” which will lead to a constructive conversation about how to move along the project instead of reactive conversation about how hard working the person is or not.

Do you have another tip to share on how to better collaborate, or a question, or insight? Please post your comment below. Also feel free to check out our programs and online learning HERE

If you can prevent unnecessary conflict and can find win-win outcomes to workplace challenges, you will be indispensible on the job. You will also tend to be much happier in your personal life. Excellent communicators tend to have small habits that almost force them to deal with an issue before it becomes destructive, or at least these habits help them turn conflict around before it gets too destructive. See if any of these habits would be helpful for you. Feel free to customize them to your personality style and circumstances.

Habits to De-escalate Yourself and Others

Most conflict resolution training programs will tell you the best things to say or do in a conflict, but if you are feeling triggered, you won’t remember. Have you ever noticed that? The trick is to get out of the Reptilian Brain and activate the Neo-cortex area of the brain. The Reptilian Brain is the most primitive part of the brain. It’s like one of those old computers from the 1950’s that could do two functions. The Neo-cortex is much higher functioning and is more like your iPhone; it’s where you store all that great learning about how to communicate in a tense situation.

Think about the last time you felt “triggered”

Chances are your adrenaline levels went up, your pupils dilated, your breathing became shallow along with a number of other physiological changes. In short, your Reptilian or “fight or flight” brain was activated. In this state of mind, you only have two choices…to defend yourself or run away.

In a workplace argument, that could look like avoiding talking about something that is important to you or using defensive language (“Your manner is unprofessional!”) Let’s face it, nothing good usually comes from avoiding an important conversation or blowing up at someone, and yet most of us succumb to both from time to time. Have you ever noticed that if you are feeling calm but the other person becomes triggered that you suddenly can become that way, too? It has a viral effect.

Learn to be aware when your fight or flight brain has been triggered

It also helps to recognize it in others. If you are “seeing red,” take in a long, slow, deep breath and exhale slowly a few times. These actions will activate your neo-cortex where your higher level communication skills reside. If necessary, take time out, walk around the block, and re-schedule a meeting when you have calmed down.

Do you have a trick or a tip for getting “un-triggered?” If so, leave your comment below. For more information on our programs and online learning click here.

Many people like to “win” a disagreement. They want to leave the conversation feeling like they were right and the other person was wrong. The downside is that this often leads to further escalation of the fight or flight response, which can lead to more loss and destruction. It can ruin your relationship and raise your stress levels. It can also lower your productivity in life because the issue entirely distracts your thinking. In the long run, this behavior can damage your self esteem and make you feel more isolated.

Yet, when triggered, humans will default to the fight or flight response – wanting to “win” an argument. This primitive part of your brain overrides the higher functioning parts. Therefore, the fight or flight brain will convince you that winning an argument will make you feel safer, when actually it might create the opposite and often does.

This default response will keep happening unless you re-train your brain and actually re-route the neuro-pathway pattern. The good news is that you can create a new default behaviour by establishing a new habit. This could be an action, words you say to someone, or a question you ask yourself, that helps activate the neo-cortex.

Usually, if you seek an outcome in which all parties feel satisfied, this can activate the neo-cortex where your higher functioning resides. It also leads to better relationships, less stress, improved reputation, enhanced leadership skills, better self esteem, etc.

The trick is to set an intention of collaboration (or a win-win outcome) before you begin a discussion on a touchy subject. Why? Because the other party will usually assume you just want to win and want them to lose out; so reassuring them that you have their interests in mind as well as you own will help them calm down. This action also helps create the possibility for both of you to achieve a win-win outcome, which often requires high level creative thinking. That kind of thinking resides in your neo-cortex, so you will need to be untriggered to access it.

You can use a simple statement such as, “I’d like to talk about how we can find an outcome to this situation that works for both of us.”

Feel free to post your comments, questions and insights below.

For more information on our programs and online learning CLICK HERE.

1. Play with perspective

Make a list of what you don’t like about your work. Ask yourself “What’s good?” about each of these items. Feel free to use your sense of humor, be practical, be whimsical, be bold. It’s for your eyes only.

Ex: Too much email – it’s a great distraction from other jobs, at least there are people (or spammers) that want to connect with me, I can avoid an uncomfortable face-to-face conversation with that annoying person down the hall.

2. Lean into the job

Act as if you loved this job, just for 10 minutes. Take your hands off the handle bar of the roller coaster and jump into the job like it was a thrill ride. Imagine it is something you absolutely love to do, like salsa dancing, or going golfing, or having a double mocha latte from Starbucks.

3. Stay curious

Ask yourself open questions. What triggers me most about this job? What is another way I could deal with this job? Could I be delegating it? Could I abandon it? Could I re-systemitize it so that it’s more enjoyable? Could I invite others to do it with me? Could I do it at another time of day so that I’m not interrupted so often?

4. Become exceptional

With this new information now ask yourself “If I were exceptional at loving this job and doing it brilliantly…what would I do?” When I asked myself this question about email overload I decided to make a game of it. I created a system.

First I went through and deleted anything unimportant. Then I color flagged them: red = deal with now, blue = deal with this week, yellow = deal with next week. Emails for reference only I created a separate folder for in my InBox. I used Dragon Naturally Speaking voice recognition software (which makes it go much faster once you get it going). I decided to do this system for only one hour.

After the hour I took a break to actually go get a double mocha latte from Starbucks as a reward

Send us a story

If you have a way of loving a job you hate, post it below in our comments. ) Or you can email it to carla@carlarieger.com

your finances take a nose dive?…

you get rejected for the job you want?…

your boss loads you down with another work deadline?…

the world seems full of social and environmental injustice?…

your teen calls you phat-phree?

The old back brain gets triggered, and you’re in fight or flight response. You get sarcastic, passive-aggressive, petty or crawl in your cave and watch Frasier reruns. That is your genetically programmed response to bad news. In other words, it’s normal.

Of course, you could re-program your response pattern. That is what neuro-scientists are now telling us.

Apparently, you can train your brain to stay relaxed, trusting, happy or confident under normally “triggering” events. You simply need to remember times when you’ve done it before and then create a habit or ritual to anchor it. Remember the last time someone else felt triggered and it didn’t bother you at all?

Here’s a simple example. I was driving on a rainy day and my wipers were on. After about 10 minutes in the car my friend in the passenger seat blurted out, “Those wipers are driving me crazy! Can you please turn them off!” I hadn’t even noticed they were squeaking. Squeaking wipers used bother me, but now they don’t. Unconsciously, I somehow trained myself to be “untriggered” by that sound.

What would you like to train yourself to be untriggered by?

But if you think back on challenging experiences personally, in your community or in history, you can almost always see how they seeded something new and creative. At the personal level, I can think of the time I bought all that Nortel stock just before it tanked. It motivated me to learn about real estate investing, which I grew to love. Many historians say that the Renaissance in Europe was seeded by the Plague. One third of Europe’s population in the Middle Ages died from the Plague. The surviving relatives took their inheritances and funded scientists, inventors and artists to help their society re-invent itself so that something like the Plague wouldn’t happen again.

Times of crisis are easiest to convince people (or yourself) to try something new, because clearly the old just isn’t working anymore.

Negativity can be the kick in the butt we all need to finally make a creative change. One way to un-trigger yourself is to form a habit of seeing negativity as the seed of new development.

Just remember as innovation expert Sir Ken Robinson says “In the coming decade creativity will be as important as literary.”