When fight or flight just won't cut it

Last week I discussed why it is so important to not let negative personal emotions and petty feelings run - and potentially ruin - your business. In almost all situations these sorts of emotions will confuse your decision-making and ultimately affect the outcome for your business. Now it's fine to say 'don't do something', but it's probably more productive to provide an alternative to tackling this issue.

While setting up my own company I came across my fair share of potentially blood-boiling situations. In fact, since starting my business, I have found myself more often than not on the receiving end of an angry temper and, in most cases, I had no other option but to talk down a person with more years business experience than myself and calm the situation. I did this because I wanted the result to be positive for my business not my ego.

When faced with a business decision people all too often seem to draw from one of two basic responses: fight or flight. These survival traits kept our direct ancestors from being eaten, stuck-fast, run through or just plain wiped out, and although very useful, these responses can also be very limiting. In most situations people either get angry (an example of fight) or slowly back down and give up (flight). The key is to introduce a third option - reasoning - and work towards instilling this as a reflex, along with the other two responses. With conscious reasoning in your back pocket you can approach each situation without always having to just decide whether to fight or retreat and instead find a calm, reasoned solution to the issue.

Once an openness to the idea of using calm reasoning in your business has been developed, your daily task will inherently be to deal with people who haven't yet had the decency to do the same. A simple example would be when I have to use a large call centre like Telecom.

You call because of a problem with your phone line. First they help you to adequately regress to a child-like state with automated motherly prompts from Michelle A'Court and hold music (when I usually leave the phone on speaker and do something else with my time) before connecting you with an under-paid, over-worked call centre worker in the Phillipines who just wants to get through the day without being fired or yelled at. Now at this point most callers are at a tipping point and the options they feel are available are either fight - vent their frustrations to the call centre worker, who will probably respond by being similarly unhelpful - or flight - withdraw from the issue that needed fixing and just hang up. Both of these reactions are only natural but neither gets your phone fixed. In the same situation, using calm reasoning and understanding the perspective of the person you are dealing with can keep the conversation at a calm level where it is easiest to reach your goal.

When taking any action or making any decision in business it is also important to decide what your end goal needs to be and then create a plan that will see you reach this goal quickly and with an economy of energy. Go through different plans in your head or on paper and see whether your chosen plan will help you reach your goal or just start an argument and prove you are right about something. In nine out of 10 situations I guarantee that if you stick to a plan that uses calm reasoning and keeps the end goal in sight you will not only have a better business but also a much nicer time talking to call centre workers.

Remember, it's not about winning the argument, it's about finding an equitable outcome and achieving your goal, whatever that might be.

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