You’ve experienced an interaction “gone wrong”: a fight, an argument, flipping a table, storming out. Maybe even merely tension that you could cut with a knife. When this happens, quite often, we object strongly to how the other person behaves. They yell, they use biting sarcasm, they shoot us “the look”. This probably doesn’t feel good. We become protective. In that moment, we might even tell them to stop!
How well does that work? Terribly? For me, too.
What’s going on? I call it The Fundamental Irony of Interaction.
When an interaction "goes wrong", the thing we object to most is the thing most people find hardest to change: their reaction.
Stop trying. Really. Focusing on their reaction is risky and invites failure. Do you remember the last time you told someone to “calm down”? Do you remember the last time someone did that to you? Exactly. Pushing back directly on their reaction rarely helps, especially since their reaction is almost certainly perfectly rational, once you know more about how they’re interpreting the situation.
Instead, I propose you direct your attention to something else: their interpretation.
We are always interpreting what’s going on around us. If we’re not careful, we believe our own stories before we’ve had a chance to think about them. This is an especially easy trap to fall into when we’re under stress, such as feeling confused about why the conversation we’re having seems to be going off the rails. That colleague who snaps at you in a meeting? They might be openly trying to put you in your place. They might also be running on empty after weeks of stress before a looming deadline. They might even have just got some very bad news about their family and you happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. When we jump to our first conclusion in trying to explain their behavior, we’re usually wrong, especially when we feel right. Particularly when we’re painting ourself as the victim and the other person as the aggressor.
Instead, consider The Law of Three Interpretations. Think of at least three different stories to tell yourself about why the other person is behaving the way they’re behaving. And if you can’t do that, then think of at least one more. Just one more. Imagining other ways to interpret their behavior already goes a long way to defusing the situation. It can change your mood. It can lower the temperature in the room just enough to make a positive difference.
Why three? Your first interpretation is likely the quickest one to come to you. You’re protecting yourself from an immediate threat, so you have to react decisively. You likely feel overconfident here and that gets you into trouble. The second interpretation is the first time you’ve considered an alternative. It’s the first moment where you’ve allowed the feeling of being threatened to start to dissipate. By the third interpretation, you likely feel much calmer. You think more clearly. The threat is mostly over. You become much more creative.
And more generous to the other person.
You don’t have to excuse their behavior, but it’s almost always worth it to consider that maybe your kneejerk reaction isn’t the best move right now. Future you will likely feel grateful to present you for not making a difficult situation even worse.
It’s not easy to remember to do this in the heat of the moment, but repetition leads to ease leads to better results. And if you really can’t think of three interpretations, then even just one more is enough to get started.
This article is part of a new series called “Debugging Human Interactions”. If you’d like to sharpen your communication skills, then subscribe to this feed to learn more. And if you need more urgent help than this, then you need The jbrains Experience, where we work through your difficult interactions and your struggles in leadership together.