Tame the savage beast

As a PR counselor for a major charter school system, I've seen my share of irate parents, overzealous news reporters and complicated situations. Half of my job is calming the emotions of all involved. I watched rumors escalate to mob lynchings (almost) and non-stories get top status. Through it all, there is always a common denominator - lack of good communication. As is usually the case with disintegrating relationships, one side says one thing and the other side hears something entirely different. If I were to get technical, I could probably find a quote from my APR text book that talks about the underpinings of communication models or something, but I don't think we need to go into all that. Instead,there are a few simple rules to getting to a solution before a simple issue blows up into a major catastrophe.

1) Listen to the other side.
I mean REALLY listen. Don't just hear the words. Listen to what the other person is saying. If they are screaming at you and telling you how you are feeling or what you are doing - (ie: You're just trying to make more money and don't care about us!) There is probably something they are having a hard time articulating. Perhaps if we took the screaming and epitaths out, you'd find the REAL sentence to say "I'm frustrated that I'm not getting my way. Help me to get there or truly understand why I can't.

2) Remove the emotional attachment.
Much easier said than done, but critical if you want to move forward. Listen to an upset person and imagine them talking like the adults in a Charlie Brown cartoon. Only pick out the important words. For example: "Wa wa wa wa, my child is not doing as well as I think he should. Wa wa wa, I want to find a way to make this better. Wa wa wa wa wa, this is something you should be aware of and need to take action. Wa wa wa wa, here are some suggestions." Without the "S.O.Bs" and the "you don't know what you are doing", this conversation becomes more manageable.

3) Help the other person feel important.
Most people want to make things better. Many don't know how to express that calmly. Many want to be the big man (or woman) who is the savior who came up with the solution. If you have one of these people standing in front of you, let them be that person. Imagine how quickly an escalating conversation can become tame if you say, "I am so glad you are involved in this solution. I really think your expertise and leadership will help us all solve this problem. Let's figure out how we can get this resolved" Egos are strong things and when you acknowledge someone, that ego can accomplish great things.

4) Know when to stop the conversation.
Regardless of how calm you remain and how reasonable you attempt to be, there will be times when the savage beast just refuses to listen and calm down. In a situation like this, you have to be the one to say, "I'm so sorry, but we are getting absolutely nowhere right now. Perhaps we both need some time to calm down and think things through. I promise, I will call you at ?? time and we can try again, but I believe we've hit an impasse."

Sadly, in a school environment, we've had to actually get police involved to remove irate and abusive parents from the situation. That's really unfortunate, but you know that ego thing I talked about earlier. Without proper stroking, that ego can become completely unmanageable.

Recently, I had an opportunity to be a peacemaker. An irate parent and concerned citizen with a very sarcastic side, a blog and an audience to boot was mad at a situation at a couple of our schools. Legitimate gripes? Absolutely. The problem was that he used violent language. Being from the northeast, I recognized this violent rhetoric as sarcasm. In the education world, however, it is considered a threat. However, instead of getting lawyers involved and issuing a cease and desist, we had a face-to-face with the parent. Setting the ground rules first, we asked him right away to curb any future violent rhetoric in his blog if he wanted to be part of the solution. Afterall, we can't have someone who threatens - even in a sarcastic way - to hit a child to be part of a reasonable discussion. I think it embarrassed him a little. He meant it as sarcasm. I don't think he ever put himself in the shoes of an educator. Once it was pointed out, he agreed. We'll see in future blogs if the reasonable approach works, but I believe it will.