Controlling Anger Before it Controls You

A One Day Primer

 Module 1: Understanding Anger
In the Module, we will learn how to:
• Define anger
• Uncover the costs of anger
• Explore the benefits of anger
• Apply skills for success
 Defining Anger
• All of us have experienced anger in some way.
• Can you recall a time when you felt angry?
Close your eyes for a moment and recall a
time when your anger flared. Can you
recall the physical feelings that
accompanied that anger?
• What is the common expression for “stand
and fight or run away”?
 The Costs of Anger
• Most of our beliefs about anger develop when
we are young.
• How did your family – in particular your
grandparents and parents – show their
feelings to one another? What did they say
or show when they were angry?
• How did what you saw influence the way
you get angry?
 The Costs of Anger
• In the workplace, we understand that anger
expressed could mean that we get
reprimanded, fired, or passed over for
promotion.
• But what if we could learn how to turn our
anger into something positive and become
stronger at work because of it?
 The Costs of Anger
• Think about the myths that you have may
have learned about anger.
– If I share my opinion, it will start an argument.
– Anger is about winning or losing.
– If I get angry, I will be abandoned.
– Anger = violence.
– Avoid anger and conflict if you want good
relationships.
– The winner is usually the biggest or loudest.
– If I get angry, I am a bad person.
– If you do things my way, I don’t get angry.
 The Costs of Anger
• Are you surprised that some of these
statements are myths?
• How do they impact the way you express
anger today?
 The Benefits of Anger
• The way we choose to express anger can
create problems.
• Have you ever considered the potential to
benefit from anger in the way that we do other
emotions, such as happiness?
• Anger, when expressed in a healthy and
positive way, can get you what you need or
desire.
 The Benefits of Anger
• In most cases, our expressions of anger do not
bring about change in others, even when we
keep trying.
• Think of working with an older child or a
colleague. They do something wrong like tell a
terrible lie. You get angry and yell at them
never to do that again, that lying is wrong, and
they were stupid to think that you would not
find out. Does that reaction stop the lying
behavior?
 The Benefits of Anger
• Discuss the implications of this kind of
common reaction to lying. Does the
teenager or co-worker get a payoff if they
stop lying?
 The Benefits of Anger
• One harmful aspect of anger is that although
we may believe that we have been offended
and must act on that injustice, our responses
can often be dangerous.
• Think about:
– “Going postal”
– School shootings
 The Benefits of Anger
• If we take the time for purposeful and
constructive action, the path that we take to
deal with our anger can actually be a positive
one.
• Think about:
– MADD
• Expressing our anger constructively means we
can solve problems and get things done that
may not happen otherwise.
 The Benefits of Anger
• List five things you can get done by
addressing anger constructively.
 The Benefits of Anger
• There is no convincing evidence that
suppressed anger is harmful when we feel in
control of the situation and when we assess the
anger as a grievance that can be constructively
corrected.
• If the source of your anger cannot be corrected
by expressing anger, then don’t.
 The Benefits of Anger
• If you are suppressing anger and feel you have
no control, that suppression leads to the same
physiological reactions that anger can
(increased heart rate, blood pressure, face
flushing, muscle tension).
• Continually venting anger can also be
unhealthy, leading to physical and emotional
problems.
 Skills for Success
• It is important to recognize that if someone is
angry, we do not have to change who we are
or the things that we do just because they want
us to.
• When you feel angry over something and you
want to do something about it, you are
receiving a call to action.
 Skills for Success
• Discuss Terry and the Critter Caper.
• How can Terry manage this situation
constructively?
 Summary
• Some of us are conditioned to believe that
expressing anger is undesirable or puts us in a
weakened position.
• By looking at the myths that surround anger,
we are developing an understanding of healthy
and unhealthy ways to respond to that anger.
• We can successfully deal with anger in ways
that lead to a positive, healthy response.
 Review Questions
1. What are some of the physical signs of
anger?
2. What are four anger myths?
3. Where do we learn how to manage anger?
4. If we feel angry about something and want to
do something about it, we are receiving a
______________________.
5. Is this statement true or false: Anger is
always negative. Explain your answer.
 Module 2: The Causes of Anger
In this Module we will learn to:
• Differentiate between buttons and
triggers.
• Identify precipitating factors.
• Explore different kinds of distorted
thinking.
• Define miscommunication in anger
management.
 Buttons and Triggers
• Hot buttons are things that are true about
ourselves that we may feel ashamed of or try
to pretend do not exist.
– Feeling bad about our bodies is a common hot
button.
 Buttons and Triggers
• Triggers are experiences that can remind us of
grief or trauma from the past.
– In North America, asking someone what they were
doing on 9/11 brings a barrage of memories.
• A trigger can bring a memory of an argument
or conflict flooding back, and all the physical
effects, such as an increase in your heart rate,
flushed face, or tense muscles also recur.
 Buttons and Triggers
• Different people have different triggers.
When you understand what your own
triggers are, you can plan ways to deal with
them in a healthy way.
• This could include asking for help, good
preparation, and avoiding some triggers
completely.
• Use the chart on the next slide to identify
some of your own triggers.
 Buttons and Triggers
Sight Unhealthy Anger Response
Wet towel on the bed or floor. Yelling at my kids/spouse/partner.
Sounds Unhealthy Anger Response
Dripping eavestrough. I feel helpless.
Touch Unhealthy Anger Response
Being touched by people I do not know. I want to strike out and hit them.
Smell Unhealthy Anger Response
The basement smells damp again. I yell at my house to get a new dehumidifier.
Gesture Unhealthy Anger Response
My teenager rolls his eyes at me. I yell at my teen to listen and be respectful.
Dates or Holidays Unhealthy Anger Response
Christmas I get depressed and am unable to get anything ready.
 Buttons and Triggers
• You may establish a plan of action to deal
with your anger in a healthy way.
• First, choose one or two triggers that are
interfering with being a part of a healthy
workplace or home, and then develop an
action plan for them.
 Buttons and Triggers
Trigger and Behavior
Yelling at my kids when they leave wet 
towels on the bed or floor.
Action Plan
Cool off before I speak to anyone
about the towels.
 Picture myself as calm and
peaceful.
 Work toward accepting my feelings
of frustration.
 Resolve underlying issues by
implementing consistent
consequences for family members
who do not follow rules.
 Precipitating Factors
• This term refers to the fact that if you are
already frustrated about one thing, a trigger
that goes off could bring you to anger much
faster than usual.
• Are you ever distracted by precipitating
factors? Do you sometimes drive to a
place and not know how you got there?
 Distorted Thinking
• Distorted thinking is defined as a reasoning
process that distorts reality.
• It is a common source of unhealthy anger.
• When we learn to reduce the amount of
distorted thinking we use, we can also reduce
our experiences with inappropriate or
unhealthy anger.
 Distorted Thinking
Distorted Thinking includes:
– Should/Must Thinking
– Circular Questioning
– Black and White Thinking
– Can’t Thinking
– Overgeneralization
– Labels
– Magnification
– Minimizing
– Personalization
 Should/Must Thinking
• Occurs when we transform personal choices or
preferences into absolutes.
• Do you catch yourself using self-talk like this?
– I should have done that.
– I must do it this way.
– I ought to have known.
 Circular Questioning
• Repeatedly asking questions that are irrelevant
or that you know the answer to.

Asking this question… Is the same as saying…

Why did I do that? I shouldn’t do that.
Why can’t I be better at this? I should be better at this.
How could he do that? He shouldn’t be doing
that.
 Can’t Thinking
• Leads us to sabotage ourselves.

Making this Could be the same as

statement… saying…
I can’t lead this meeting. I don’t want to lead this
meeting.
I can’t control myself. I don’t want to control
myself.
 Black and White Thinking
• Tendency to express things as “all or nothing”
events or qualities.
• You will recognize the use of terms like
“right,” “wrong,” “good,” or “bad.”
 Overgeneralization
• The application of a single negative event into
a pattern of never ending defeat or misfortune.
• Characterized by words like “never,”
“always,” and “every.”
 Labels
• Tendency to resort to simplistic and negative
labels to define ourselves and our behavior.
• These labels actually exaggerate our
shortcomings or mistakes.
– “I am such a dummy/jerk/loser.”
 Magnification
• Includes catastrophizing, commonly referred
to as making mountains out of molehills.
• We can exaggerate a personal flaw, a small
negative experience, or the abilities of
someone else.
– A bad hair day becomes, “I am so ugly.”
 Minimizing
• When we discount our personal strengths and
abilities or reduce the impact of mistakes and
imperfections of others.
– Imagine that someone ruins your shirt by spilling
wine on it. If you say that it’s nothing, but are
upset about your shirt, you are minimizing.
 Personalization
• Assuming responsibility for a negative event,
even though you have no basis to do so.
– When you receive an e-mail that says, “Forward this
message to all of your friends or you will have bad luck for
three years,” you ignore the message until one day, walking
down the street, you trip over nothing and sprain your
ankle. The message that you ignored starts poking at your
memory. Thinking that if you had forwarded the message,
this would not have happened to you, is an example of
personalization.
 Personalization
• The next time you receive an e-mail message
from someone that has a closing line like the
one on the previous slide, or that says if you
receive this message back from two people you
are a loser; from five people, you are an OK
friend; from ten people you are a good friend,
etc., your challenge is to remove the threat from
the end of the message before you forward it.
 Emotional Reasoning
• Using emotions as a way to evaluate a
situation, event, or what we believe.
– “I can’t believe I screwed that up. I am such a
loser.”
 Exercise Your Thinking
• Let’s look at an example of distorted
thinking.
• Read Dot’s Story and then underline the
statements that reflect a form of distortion.
• When you have finished, we will look at ways
to challenge those thoughts and
re-frame them.
 Dot’s Story
Dot’s Story
I had bought an old house and was doing some
renovations. My plastering was not perfect, but I was
feeling proud of the fact that I was learning to do these
things. My brother and his wife came to visit and, when
he saw my work, my brother said, “I wouldn’t have done
it like that, but if you can live with it, I guess it’s OK.”

As soon as the words got to my ears I was ready to

explode! I can’t stand it when he does this. Everyone
picks on me. They never help me with this stuff. They
just wait until I screw up and then laugh at me. It isn’t
fair.
 Miscommunication
• Miscommunication is a prominent factor in
provoking anger.
• If you consider precipitating factors again, can
you think of ways that miscommunication can
also be a precipitating factor?
 Miscommunication
• What are two elements to this
miscommunication example?
 Summary
• Understanding hot buttons and triggers helps
us control our anger.
• When we exist in denial, lacking awareness of
our buttons and triggers, we are more likely to
exist within an environment of unhealthy
anger as events around us continually provoke
negative reactions.
 Review Questions
1. Describe should/must thinking.
2. Describe magnification.
3. Explain how precipitating factors can
worsen miscommunication.
4. What is the difference between a trigger
and a hot button?
5. What is the value in developing an action
plan as a response to triggers and
behaviors?
 Module 3:
Understanding Behavior Types
In this Module, we will learn to:
• Differentiate between different behavior
types.
• Develop an understanding of the different
ways that people express anger.
• Learn to recognize signs of manipulation.
 Behavior Types Abound
• Just as there are different people in the world,
there are different ways to express ourselves.
• Once you understand your preferred approach
for dealing with anger, you can also recognize
how other people express it.
• Use this knowledge as part of your tool kit for
managing your anger proactively and in healthy
ways to avoid the side effects of holding onto
stuff that is unhealthy.
 Passive Behavior
• Passive behavior refers to the responses that
you choose when you are so angry that you do
not appear to even respond.
• These behaviors can be the way that people
look good despite doing bad things.
• Passive behaviors can be covert, hostile, and
even nothing (where you are behaving badly
simply by refusing to act).
 Manipulative Behavior
Manipulation is:
• Really a type of passive behavior.
• Controlling people without their knowledge.
• A way to create an environment we can
tolerate when we work with difficult people.
• Sometimes the action of choice when we do
not want to confront someone constructively.
 Assertive Behavior
• Assertive is defined in the Oxford Dictionary of
English as “having or showing a confident
personality.”
• When we discuss strategies to manage anger, we
can apply assertive behavior when it comes to
confronting someone else’s behavior.
• Assertive means that we are looking out for
ourselves and that we can say what needs to be
said at the appointed time.
 Assertive Behavior
• Describe a way that you could be
assertive about your need to express your
anger.
• What does that mean?
 Aggressive Behavior
• Aggressive is “ready or likely to attack or
confront; characterized, by or resulting from,
aggression.”
• Usually takes place with all of the
physiological signs of anger:
– Increased heart rate
– Increased blood pressure
– Flushed face
– Tense muscles
 Aggressive Behavior
• Write 3 to 4 points that describe an
aggressive response to the garbage
example.
 Passive-Aggressive Behavior
• Passive-aggressive behavior is passive planning
(conscious or unconscious) that results in overtly
aggressive, even violent, behavior.
• For example, the husband who criticizes his wife’s
cooking (nicely, because she has ruined an expensive
roast again) but gets no response, and then discovers
that all of his white underwear has been washed with
the red towel and is now pink, is experiencing
passive-aggressive behavior.
 Passive-Aggressive Behavior
• Passive aggression comes in different forms,
but with common elements.
• Normally, the person is struggling against
anger, often with helplessness, feelings of
inadequacy, and a lack of control. In order to
feel that they have some control but remain
“good” on the outside, they manipulate
situations.
 Passive-Aggressive Behavior
• A destructive cycle occurs when a passive-aggressor
manipulates someone who is outwardly hostile or
aggressive.
• The passive-aggressor may not recognize how
destructive their actions are. You can ask them:
– “What are you thinking?”
– “You have been silent about this; what can I do?”
– “What do you see as the next step?”
– “What is bothering you?”
 Summary
• Understanding different behavior types means that you
can recognize and work with them.
• A good understanding of your own behavior or responses
to anger may allow you to improve your ability to cope,
as well as your overall communication strategies.
• Manipulative behaviors can be the most difficult to
recognize despite being quite common.
• When people are angry, it is important to recognize that
they might be struggling with their own emotional
baggage.
 Review Questions
1. Define passive-aggressive behavior.
2. Describe the difference between
aggressive and assertive behavior.
3. What are some helpful questions to ask
someone who is behaving passively?
4. List three ways that people can be
manipulated.
5. What are the positive effects of
expressing anger aggressively?
 Module 4: Using Coping Tools
In this Module, we will learn to:
• Manage our reactions.
• Start and maintain an anger log.
• Constructively analyze and release anger.
• Apply relaxation techniques.
• Use coping thoughts.
• Make the best of things with humor.
 Managing Reactions
• Delay tactics, like counting to ten, do nothing
to help you deal with underlying anger in a
healthy way.
• A constructive release of our anger is a way to
rid our bodies of the physical effects,
invigorate our minds with positive and healthy
cognitive effects, and enrich our spirits
through not hanging onto baggage.
 Managing Reactions
Ask yourself these questions to uncover what is really behind an angry reaction:
•What have I lost? Is the loss real?
•Was it something important to me? Why was it important?
•What was its value?
•Is this my loss or someone else’s? If it is someone else’s, how do I know about it? Why do
I care?
•Do I feel like someone has attacked my dignity? Have I been humiliated or embarrassed in
some way?
•Has my reputation been damaged? Was I denied a fair reward or a form of recognition?
•Is the insult unfounded or is it an accurate interpretation of something that I have done?
What is it that bothers me so much about this?
•Has my freedom or safety been threatened or removed?
•Have I lost power, authority, influence, or status?
•Thinking objectively, how big is this loss? Will it have an impact anywhere in my life? Are
there ways that I can recover or minimize the loss?
•What will happen if I just ignore the issue?
 Managing Reactions
• I have lost __________________ and this
makes me angry. This loss is important to me
because I (value/believe/want or need)
__________________________________.
 Managing Reactions
• Next, look at the individual or issue who is the
target of your anger, and evaluate their intent. Ask
yourself:
– Who is responsible for what has happened (the
culprit)?
– Did they do this deliberately? If so, how do you
know that? How can you find out what their
intention really was?
– Do they consider themselves responsible for
what took place?
 Managing Reactions
One final component is to understand whether a culprit acted unfairly.
•Why do you believe that this action was unfair?
•What would it look like for you to consider it fair?
•What is the culprit’s point of view?
•If the willing culprit were a good friend or someone with a strong sense of
fairness, what would they have done? How do you know this?
•What would you have done in a similar situation? What did you do the
last time you found yourself in a similar situation?
•What do you see as a fair outcome to this situation? What standard did
you use to determine “fair” in this case? It is a widely accepted and well-
founded principal of fairness? Is it a standard that the agent would accept?
•How can you check any assumptions that are in this list?
 Starting an Anger Log
• An effective way to explore what your own
triggers and hot buttons are, as well as your
reactions, is to keep an anger log.
• Keeping an anger log will help you to become
more aware of the number of times that you
become angry, as well as what your reactions
are.
 Starting an Anger Log
• Each anger “event” gets a separate entry in
your log.
• Use “SEFAC” to remember the steps when
creating your anger log.
– S: Story
– E: Examine beliefs
– F: Feeling
– A: Actions
– C: Challenge
 Starting an Anger Log
Anger Log
Date

Story

Beliefs

Feelings

Actions

Challenge
 Working with Your Emotions
Try some of these techniques to work anger out of your system:
•Play music that helps you express what you are feeling.
•Think about something that made you mildly angry. If you can’t think of
anything right away, you can make up a situation.
•Turn your anger into a gesture or movement as you listen to the angry music.
•Get your body into it as you listen; move about the room.
•Has your anger changed at all? How does it feel now? Did you notice a
difference in how you felt or the intensity of your anger after you moved
around?
•If you don’t notice a decrease in your anger by this point, put on some music
that you find soothing and allow yourself to shift to a more neutral place.
Again, create a physical gesture or movement that reinforces the feeling of the
music.
 Thought Patterning
• When you catch yourself thinking an angry thought, write
it down. Then, re-write it so that it is positive.

Angry Thought Positive Thought

Nobody makes a fresh pot of coffee but me.
These people are so thoughtless!
People are always asking me to do more. I am
such a pushover for always saying yes.
If the coffee pot is empty, I know how to make
more. I like drinking coffee. I will approach my
colleagues and remind them that if they finish
the coffee in a pot, it is considerate of them to
make a fresh pot. Since the machine is new
and people may not be familiar with it, I will
prepare a “how to make a new pot” sign and
post it for people to refer to.
People often ask me to take on extra tasks.
They must like what I do. Rather than let that
define that they must like me, I can choose to
take on the work or not.
 A Model for Confrontation
• There are times that we must assert ourselves
and respond to a situation in an appropriate
manner.
• Having a model helps us to recall a helpful
process and gives us the chance to practice the
technique before we need it.
 A Model for Confrontation
Confrontation in Five Steps
1. Describe a positive future.
2. Outline the specific problem.
3. State why this is a problem.
4. Offer a positive solution.
5. End by recapping the positive future.
 A Model for Confrontation
If you can, set up an argument rule list.
• We will not have physical contact.
• We will not name call.
• We will not shout (unless both parties agree to it – some
people prefer volume).
• We will not interrupt one another.
• We will not walk away unless one of us feels unsafe.
• We will take a full deep breath before expressing our anger.
• We will not answer the phone or door.
• Everyone will do their best to keep the argument in the present
and not bring in anger from the past.
 Relaxation Techniques
• Releasing anger in the workplace can be
related to what is commonly referred to as
“stress management.”
• Basic things like exercise, good sleep, ample
nutrition and building strong relationships, all
reduce stress and your susceptibility for anger.
 Relaxation Techniques
• A helpful relaxation technique is meditation.
• In an anger management context, some people
who are trying to deal with their anger solely
through mediation and prayer can spend
several hours a day working at it. In reality,
most of us do not have that luxury of time.
• In addition, some of those people are not
actually releasing their anger; they are
quashing it.
 Relaxation Techniques
• If you use meditation or prayer as a way to
resolve anger, there are a couple of important
features that you must include:
• Anger is an emotion. You must feel it in order
to release it.
• You cannot give your anger to anyone else in
the hope that you will no longer be affected
by it.
 Coping Thoughts
• In the midst of an angry confrontation –
whether started by you or someone else – it
may not be safe to express your own anger. In
those cases, it may be necessary to cope with
the anger and then find a safe way to express it
later.
 Coping Thoughts
• Anger will seep out slowly or burst explosively
unless we actually let it out intentionally. While
we need to release anger physically, it does not
have to be violent/loud.
• A release can be as simple as breathing deeply,
making ugly faces, or sharing your outrage with
a friend.
• The important thing is that no one is hurt,
threatened, or frightened by your release.
 Coping Thoughts
• Here are the most common reasons that people
choose not to release their anger:
– They don’t know how to release their anger safely.
– They get embarrassed thinking about screaming or yelling and
being judged by a possible bystander.
– They are afraid. They have learned that anger is equal to pain and
that if they express anger, they will hurt someone or themselves.
Emotional release work can be frightening because the thought of
working hard to get anger out feels like we are giving up control.
However, emotional release work is done in safe and appropriate
circumstances which means that you remain in control at all
times.
 Using Humor
• When we use humor as a way to manage – and
release – anger, we can diminish its effects on
ourselves.
• You can apply mindfulness to laughter;
purposely laughing heartily to release tension
stored in our bodies and minds is a very
effective way to relieve our bodies of anger.
 Using Humor
• Think of a time when you felt really angry.
• Does your physical self react to the memory?
• Can you recall the physical sensations that
accompanied your anger?
• Can you take the story of that time and turn it
into a humorous anecdote that would make your
friends or loved ones hold their sides with
laughter?
• If so, you have reframed an angry moment into a
humorous one. Good for you!
 A Model of Release
• There are different methods for releasing
anger; the right one for one person may not be
right for everyone, just like people need
different foods to be nourished.
• Releasing anger should be controlled and safe
for the angry person as well as any bystanders.
• Releasing anger should be done with intention
and awareness.
 A Model of Release
• You can choose adapt this model to your
needs.
• The steps are to:
– Interrupt
– Assess the situation
– Respect
– Release
– Forgive
 Interrupt
• In order to remain in control, to diffuse an
emotional or anger filled conversation, step
back and assess whether this is part of a
pattern. If you can interrupt a pattern, you can
reduce the level of anger that you feel.
• Name three ways that you could interrupt
the pattern of argument in the example.
 Assess the Situation
• Look at the situation unfolding as objectively as
possible.
• Is there an opportunity here for you to do some damage
control?
• Are you aware of the triggers for this angry response
(whether it is your anger or someone else’s)?
• Is there a healthy way to diffuse and then work through
the anger?
• If the situation is dangerous, can you remove yourself
safely, and if so, how?
 Respect
• When a situation becomes volatile, it is
important to conduct yourself in a respectful
manner, just as it is important that you treat
everyone else respectfully.
• What are three ways that you can begin a
discussion with someone, despite being
angry, while maintaining respect for that
other person and yourself?
 Release
• Releasing anger is about actually, physically,
feeling the feelings that are present at the time
they occur and then intentionally behaving in a
manner that discharges them from your body.
• We have already discussed the ways that
anger can be unhealthy for our bodies.
Write down three key negative effects.
 Forgive
• Forgiveness is something that you actually do for yourself, not
to make someone else feel better.
• Forgiveness is not:
– Letting someone off the hook.
– Denying or ignoring what has happened or your hurt feelings.
– Condoning, justifying, or making excuses for bad behavior.
– Condemning the offender.
– Forgiveness is not trust. Forgiveness can be given, but trust must be
earned.
 Forgive
• Forgiveness starts with an acknowledgement of your feelings
of hurt, anger and even hatred.
• You must analyze the event and determine exactly what you
see as injustice.
• Avoid the “why” and be comfortable with understanding
“how.”
• The next step is for you to decide to forgive.
• Tell the wrongdoer that you forgive them.
 Forgive
• List the six steps for forgiveness.
 Notes on Awareness
• Awareness and mindfulness are extremely helpful in
releasing anger.
• Awareness refers to being open to all the
circumstances of a situation (even the aspects we do
not like to admit are present).
• Mindfulness refers to consciously dealing with the
situation and, in this situation, purposely allowing
those tensions to be released from your body.
 Summary
• Understanding anger and the behaviors
associated with it is strengthened by the tools to
cope with and release tension from our physical
body while also having the courage to deal with
issues.
• A model for confrontation, as well as a model
to release anger, is supplemented with
discussion on forgiveness and acting with
awareness.
 Review Questions
1. List the five steps in confrontation.
2. What are the principles of forgiveness?
3. Can humor be used affectively in anger
management? If so, how?
4. What is the value in keeping an anger
log?
5. What are two ways to release anger?
 Module 5: Communication Skills
In this Module, we will learn to:
• Apply good listening skills.
• Ask the right questions.
• Solve problems effectively.
• Develop assertiveness in order to get what we
need.
 Listening Skills
• When we actively listen to someone, we have
to put all other brain noise away. We need to
hear what the person is saying. Observe their
body language (unless we’re speaking over the
phone or online).
• When someone is listening closely to what
you say, what sort of body language or
words do you expect?
 Listening Skills
• Read the following statements closely and then write your rating on the line
beside each statement.
– I check my watch when people speak with me.
– I plan my response before the person gets through their question or
statement.
– I have been known to misunderstand what someone means.
– I have upset a good friend, child or co-worker by not listening to them.
– I have upset a parent, spouse or significant other by not listening to them.
– I have a tight schedule so very little time for chit chat.
– When someone shares a problem with me, I want to solve it for them, not
just hear about it.
– When I go in to a restaurant and the server explains what the special is, I
quickly forget it.
– When I am watching television, I tend to change the channels in mid-
program.
– I argue with people that they have never told me about something, even
though they are certain that they did tell me.
 Asking Questions
• Two powerful roadblocks on our journey
through life can be mind reading and passing
judgment.
• If you feel yourself getting angry, or that angry
feelings are intensifying, you could be entering
the mind reading trap or passing judgment.
You need to ask yourself some questions.
 Asking Questions
Mind Reading Judgment Reality Truth

Jim is mad at me. Jim’s jealous that I Jim got stuck in a Jim is happy that
have been asked to fifteen minute lineup you are doing the
present the report at at the coffee shop. presentation. He
the shareholder Jim was worried that likes working with
meeting. he kept you waiting you and thought you
too long. should have been
presenting the last
report too.
 Asking Questions
When you are ready to start asking questions:
• Avoid using ones that start with “why” or
“how”
• Also avoid personalizing by using “you”.
• During the next week, keep track of the
number of times you notice yourself mind
reading and making unfair judgments.
• Then, get real on each one by asking
questions.
 Moving Forward

• Just because we have learned to express our

anger does not mean that everything will
change the way we want it to.
• Don’t let fear hold you back.
• Use the resources you have (friends,
acquaintances, support groups, etc.) to help
you with your fear.
 Solving Problems

1. Identify apparent problem

2. Seek and analyze the causes
3. Define the real problem
4. Identify alternative solutions
5. Choose the best solution
6. Plan a course of action
7. Implement the plan
 Solving Problems

Apply the seven-step model to Gina’s

punctuality problem that we discussed
earlier today.
Apparent problem
Causes
Real problem
Alternative solutions
Best solution
Course of action
How Gina can start implementing the plan
 Assertiveness
• Assertiveness is about behaving with outward
confidence.
• When you use assertiveness techniques like
establishing rules for confrontation and having
steps to follow, you will find that you actually
resolve tensions.
 Summary
• People who have excellent listening skills are
important assets in the workplace.
• Once you have learned to approach conflict
assertively and skillfully, you will find that
your enjoyment of work improves dramatically.
• Asking the right questions and avoiding mind
reading and judging makes you an effective
anger manager.
 Review Questions
1. If you give someone an ultimatum in a fit
of anger, and later want to withdraw it,
what are your options?
2. Describe mind reading.
3. Explain why anger management is a key
skill in the workplace.
4. Why is assertiveness an important part of
communication?
5. What is one way to ensure we listen well?