10 Tested (the hard way) Methods to De-escalate a Conflict, Part 1

In case you haven't noticed, we are living through days in which people are quick to "get riled up." As a society we seem to be drifting towards a condition in which everyone is on defense. Say the wrong thing, wear the wrong shirt, laugh at the wrong thing, and suddenly you may find yourself in a battle that you never saw coming. In my years of being a church music director, I've been argued with, yelled at, had emails sent to the pastor about something I said or did, and have found myself in the midst of conflict that I never intended to occur. In fact, I'm a dedicated conflict avoider. I hate it, but sometimes conflict just seemingly comes out of nowhere and it can't be avoided. However, it can be mitigated and lessened.

I had intended this post to be written for choir directors, church leaders, and anyone else who is the leader of a group. But in these days of heated politial debate, arguments over masks, and any number of other hot button issues, it seems appropriate to share some de-escalation techniques that I've picked up over the years. Learning them was painful at times, and sometimes I had to learn lessons again that I either forgot or didn't truly learn the first time. There are ten of them, but we'll start with the first five. I'll share the next five in a future post.

1. React with Calm. This one is tricky, because there are times when calm looks like indifference or apathy. But if a fire is starting to burn out of control, the first thing to do is stop giving it fuel. If you respond to anger with anger, nothing de-escalates. It soon burns hotter and hotter on both sides. You may very well be the unfortunate target of someone's unthinking emotional blast, but the smart move in the short term is to breathe, listen, and let some steam be vented.

2. Keep your shields down, or at least mostly lowered. This is so counterintuitive to the way we're wired, but if it can be remembered, it's a great way to calm down a tense situation. As I mentioned in the last technique, sometimes people just need to vent some steam. What they say may not be fair, may not be very nice, and may not even be true. But if they sense that your defenses are going up, the temptation for the other person will be to up their game and come at you even harder. The purposes of keeping your shield down is certainly not to allow yourself to be abused, but to listen to what's being said. By listening, you'll probably find out pretty quickly where the source of anger is coming from and can focus on addressing that rather than focusing on what kind of response you're going to give that will hit them as hard as they hit you.

3. Repeat what they say back to them. You have to be careful with this one. When I was a child, I would do this to my sister to intentionally make her mad. I would repeat everything she said back to her in a mocking way. In de-escalation, repeating something back to the person proves that you're listening. What you're trying to do is summarize their issue. Don't defend your position just yet. You may be justified in doing so, but by starting with listening to theirs you may be able to find out what's really bothering them. Also, there are times when people hear their arguments repeated back to them, they realize how much of a mountain they're making out of a molehill. Many times they will defuse themselves.

4. Try to discover the real issue. In one of my worst parenting moments ever, I yelled at one of my children simply because my beloved Tennessee Vols football team had lost a game they should have won. My anger wasn't at my child, but at the football team. But my son caught the steam blast. Many times people will express anger when they're not angry with you at all. The important thing to know is what's the REAL problem? That's what you're trying to find out. Sometimes they don't know. I once experienced someone shaking his finger and yelling at me in a parking lot over some worship decisions that had been made. I just listened (although it was really hard) until he finally said, "This would never have happened back when Rev. _______ was pastor here!" And there it was. That was the real issue. This man wasn't as upset about the worship changes as he was about change itself. The pastor he referenced had served the church some 30 years ago - right about the time when the person yelling at me had been, well, a bit more known and a bit more powerful. The real issue was that he was sensing that the church he knew was changing faster than he was ready to accept. Once I knew that piece of information, I stopped taking his tirade personally and tried to steer the conversation to the positive changes that the church was making. It worked. He felt he had been heard, and we're still friends.

5. Try to learn what their triggers are. This takes time, but if you make the effort you will avoid stepping on a possible landmine. You and I are the sum total of all of our experiences. We have had great things happen to us, but we have also had terribly painful things happen. When a situation resembles a previous bad experience, we can react out of pain avoidance rather than being rational. By taking the time to learn people's story, you can more easily evade creating situations that take them back to a situation that can inspire anger.

So much of conflict resolution comes down to both sides doing a better job of simply listening and learning as much about people as possible. There will always be conflicts that arise, but sometimes it's not as antagonistic as it first appears. Perhaps the person who comes at you has just had a horrible day filled with bad news. Something had to let go and you were the closest target. Sometimes they're not mad at you, but at something you represent or symbolize.

These techniques deal mostly with being quick to back down. In most cases that's the most important step, but it can be taken to extremes. As I said earlier, you don't have to be abused, and you don't have to always passively take what someone is dishing out. In the next post, I'll look at some ways to be better prepared to defend yourself even before these issues arise.