The Anger Dissipation Tool - Talk 21 of 25

Topic: The Anger Dissipation Tool

Theme: Emotions Management 

Author: Barry Sweet

Date: January 7, 2018

Video Production by Tim & Karen Morse. Morsephotography.com

Music: Strolling by Brad Fitch. CowboyBrad.com

Music: Pensive by Brad Fitch. CowboyBrad.com

Occasionally in public service, we work with angry visitors. 

And I've got to teach the staff how to manage that well, and through the years we have learned this model from Highway Patrol that we ended up calling the Anger Dissipation Tool. And here's how it goes… The important piece is to know that there are three waves, that state patrol discovered, of anger out on the road where you're exposed and things are dangerous. And so that means that there's the Primary Vent Wave, The Secondary Vent Wave and then the Tertiary Vent Wave.  At the Primary Vent Wave, you give absolutely zero resistance, zero resistance. You invite the Vent and say “Now come on.. now tell me what happened…?” And invite it… 

Then during the Secondary Vent Wave, you'll say “OK now, tell me more… Tell me more…”.

And give no opposition, and give no “yeah, buts”. None. Especially in the uniform. On the Tertiary Vent Wave, you'll say “Okay now, is there anything else you want me to know…?”

And then completely let them wind down. Let them vent off all the steam, so that no hissing remains. And here's what I mean by that. Before the microwave oven, there was a thing called a pressure cooker. It was a big pot with a lid that you'd crank the lid on and it has a little vent at the top and a weight that would sit on that vent. And you can cook potatoes in half the time.  And it would sit there, and because the steam pressure would build up, but that little weight was on top of that steam vent… it would go“Psst, psst, psst, psst”, and it would sort of rock back and forth. And when it came time to take the potatoes out, you had to go (and tip it to the side) and “Psssssssssssst”… Let all the steam out, take off the little weight, so the thing wouldn't blow up. In other words, if it didn't have a vent on the top and you put water in there and then heated it under flame it would become a bomb that would blow up because of the compression. 

So we grew up with those and this is what we've learned about the Anger Dissipation Tool.  That there are Three Vent Waves… and here's how they go… 

You go… 

“Pssst”

“Pssssst…”

“Psssssssssssst…”

Until all the steam is gone. And then you can lift that little weight off….  

It's the exact same thing with people. And if you know that there's three… you don't try to shortcut the system by just doing one… because if you take off one… and you pull that little weight off… you burn your hand with steam. Same thing here. People need to be given the privilege of doing all Three Vent Waves. They won't even know you're doing it to them. 

But it's a reality. And then we just work that to our advantage to the other side to make sure that they've told us everything that they want to say and vent off their steam. 

Then comes the fourth stage, which is the sympathy stage and that's where you just simply say “Wow, that must have been hard…” They won’t be used to this, especially from somebody in a uniform, because they're used to seeing people say “No you can't do that sorry”.  Just tough luck you know, draw the hard line and you'll be the first person maybe even in their life that's actually listened to them all the way. Think back to the conversations about listening and how important it is. This is another way to listen even through anger.  In the fifth stage you start to do problem solving with them and say “OK, let's see together how can we fix this”. And they'll be going “Wow… they're going to look for a way to see if we can fix this…” 

In the next stage. You give the regulations. Let's say we're talking about no pets in wilderness in the National Park. You'll have to say “But we do have some regulations… We're going to try to fix it, but we do have some regulations… there are no pets (permitted) in the park on trails. Then… we'll give the reasons and some of those reasons are:  that they're carnivores. You know your dog is a carnivore, it's got pointy teeth. Anything with flat teeth chews grass, anything with pointy teeth eats meat and they may chase the wildlife. But this is really the wildlife's home, not your pet’s home, and your pet is a guest, so that's one of the reasons. Another reason is that they will scent mark and they'll go around and try to scent their territory as though it's theirs, when it's really not their territory. And this is a place that we want wildlife to live in its natural setting and with its natural pathways and patterns. So you'll give them a couple of reasons not just the regs… but the regs and the reasons. 

Next, you'll give alternatives. You'll say “So I know you want to be here with your pet, but let me give you some places over here in the National Forest Service land where you can go and it's permitted to have your pet…” A curious thing happens at this stage. This is the “…And one more thing…!” Vent Wave. About this time they will have percolated under the scenes just enough to go “Oh yeah! And one more thing! Let me tell you this!” And that should just quietly make you smile. And (I hope you'll just do your inner smile, not your outer smile) and let them get that little last bit of steam out. And then the very last thing you would do, would be to give the fines because you don’t want to beat them over the head with the punishments unless they show that they sorta need to go that far. In the end, you have tried to fix this thing together with them. 

In the end, you have made an ally, In the end, you've made a friend for the park. And now take the whole conversation and take it out of context of the Park and the Rangers and just apply this whole principle to people that you deal with, that you end up having angry encounters with. It is one of the most powerful tools that we know. I'll give you one more example of how it can work. A guy came in and said I want to camp with my horse in Rocky Mountain National Park. And I said “Wow, I'm sorry there's no place for you to do that”. And he said “I drove all the way here from (And then he listed his state which I can't remember). And and I went through all those stages with him and we got to the “Let's see how we can fix this” part…

And I spent 15 minutes… a good 15 minutes on the phone calling places that I thought would be able to take him and his horse trailer and his horses. I called the YMCA Conference Center, I called the stables… Finally I found a place on the west side of the park… Two and a half hours away… 

But, it was still right on the edge of the park… 

He had overheard me doing all these phone calls and when I told him I found a place he said “I want to thank you, son”. He said “I was mad when I came in here, but I could see that you cared about my trip. And I'm happy to drive two and a half hours just as long as I can be near the park and take my horses in. And you have made a friend for the park today”, He said.  And I thought… “There is an example of what I'm talking about and how it works”. 

It works in every circumstance, even out on an open highway, in a dangerous situation for State Patrol, so use it for yourselves.

What we're doing is making this not “Us versus Them” but we're making it “We”. It's all about “We” and in the process… you'll find that you'll build your Life Skills Resumé. You've got your resumé about work, I'm not talking about that here. I'm talking about your Life Resumé and the skills that you have. Those of us that have been Office Managers have done this so many times, with so many visitors, that it's like a sporting event for us now.  We're not afraid of it anymore. We don't get that huge beating in the chest that we used to get at the beginning. And that's why we want you to try out the model, because you'll get confidence in yourself by trusting the model and having a few experiences under your belt with the model, so that it finally becomes part of you and then you're not afraid of angry people anymore. You're able to just to say “We'll figure something out… It’ll work…We just need to have time”. And on that note, I want to tell you something I learned last week. It's just so interesting to me, it's taken me a lifetime to get to this thing but… it will probably go into the topic of confrontation. But I learned that there really is no confrontation. All there is, is conversation.  And if you go up thinking you're going to confront someone… your heart beats just out of your chest. But if you go and say “I'm just going to go have a conversation with someone…” It's different. Your heart doesn't beat that hard anymore. You just realize you're going to have a conversation and discuss things over a little bit. And if you realize that you really can't change anybody's mind… but you can nudge them a little bit, then when you go for that time with that person, you're just going to have a conversation and see if you can nudge them a little bit, it takes that pounding out of your chest.

Same thing here with the Anger Dissipation Tool.  A little experience realizing that you're having a conversation and realizing that you can very well fix things for them or give them alternatives, but you can also nudge them a little bit. 

And it's good for all of us to be nudged a little bit.