Difficult conversations at the office are no one’s basket of flowers. We’d like all conversations to be smooth, harmonious, focused on what we have to do. But, lo and behold, it happens that a client gives us negative feedback, postponing a meeting for the tenth time; or a colleague disagrees with something we’ve said and is overly vocal, and this vocal expression makes us feel bad; or a boss gives us feedback that takes us into the area of self-doubt; or someone is late for a meeting with us, as they always are, and we feel that they do it on purpose, that they don’t respect us. Such interactions may be very brief, but they can negatively influence our mood, our day, our week even. Especially in situations where we interact with customers, it is necessary to display a constant state of well-being. Easy to say, but not so easy to put into practice. We don’t need British researchers to tell us, we feel it in our own skin or see it around us often enough.

That’s why it’s important to have a few strategies to help us recharge our batteries and keep ourselves in balance. Without claiming to be exhaustive, I propose a few things that can help us when we find it hard to recover from a difficult interaction that spoils our feng shui, our well-being.

  • Get out of the room, go on the balcony, to the bathroom, to another room and breathe deeply, focus on your breath. If it helps, close your eyes and imagine air going in and out of your lungs and diaphragm. It can also help to look in the mirror, in the bathroom; you’ll see that you won’t like the state you’re in, it helps to shake it off a bit, to reposition yourself.
  • Get out of the office for a bit and walk around for a few minutes. Walking helps reduce anger and frustration, stress. Pay attention to the people around you, nature, shop windows, focus on something else in those minutes. It helps to detach, you’ll see things a little differently, from a different perspective, when you get back to the office.
  • Think that maybe the other person’s behaviour was not intentional.
    Maybe something is happening to him/her at home, maybe he/she has other challenges he/she is not talking about, maybe he/she is worried, couldn’t sleep, has a medical problem, had a fight with a friend, spouse, maybe his/her stress is coming from somewhere else and the reaction is driven by that stress. Often people don’t realize that their reaction may be too harsh, inappropriate, that it may hurt others.
  • Talk to someone close to you who can give you another perspective, help you detach. It can be a friend, a girlfriend, a coach, mentor, a family member who you know has this ability.

It is however essential to remember that a particular interaction does not define you, what a person may say when they have a frustration is not a judgement on who and how you are.

I read somewhere that “no one is worth crying for; and those who are worth it won’t make you cry”. I would add that no one and no difficult conversation is worth getting so angry that it cracks a vein.