Thank you for your reply and advice!

after we talked about her son, I told her that I’d like to talk about the phone interaction. She became a little defensive and asked, “why??!!” I went on to tell her what I had observed and how it affected me so that when we had the opportunity to interact in the future she would have a better understanding of how we could work most effectively together.

Many times I’m using STATE skills to provide the other person information about me rather than using them to try to persuade or convince them they were wrong. And when she understood the type of reaction she was triggering in me and what the likely outcome would be if she chose to continue in that line of behavior, she made a choice not to engage in that way in the future.

I’ve found it to be a very useful approach.

One of the underlying principles of dialogue is initiation and reciprocation: how you initiate determines in large effect how others will reciprocate. Initiate with manipulation, aggression, guilt, and others are likely to respond in kind. initiate with candor and respect and at least you’ll feel better about yourself, and they often respond in kind.

I remember being at an airport at one point and witnessing a customer bop one of the airline employees on the head with the handle of his umbrella because he was frustrated. She refused him service, and asked him to leave. But not before she took a step back and let him know that his actions were inappropriate.

I wondered how she would have responded if it had been a verbal bop on the head–not an outright thrashing, but enough of a barb to be inappropriate. and thought that simple act of creating some physical space (don’t know if that was intentional or instinctual on her part) can be useful in making it easier to walk away if necessary or disengage.

I’ve also seen some customer service agents point out natural consequences in this type of situation. “I’m someone who can help you out, and my interest goes way down when I hear you talking with me in this manner” type of thing. I thought it worked well to hold up a mirror of sorts so the other person could see the impact they were having on the person trying to help.

Excellent and helpful first article. Thank you for the follow-up on that interaction. This could be a topic for a follow-up article. I would love to hear what you brought up and how you discussed the previous interaction after you talked about her son. That could be helpful for many of us as well.