Meeting Another Person's Challenging Emotions
Service Focused Jobs are Hard
Before you think “this isn’t for me” let me stop you right there. You’re probably in a service job. Management, leadership, and those who culturally serve their organizations are all in service jobs. As a coach I serve. As a personal trainer my partner serves. If you support someone else you are serving.
And service jobs are hard.
It’s not just the long hours (though they are sometimes challenging).
It’s not just the physical demands (which vary greatly depending on circumstance).
It’s not the crummy pay (yeah, that doesn’t help either).
I think jobs of service are hard because you’re often dealing with other people’s challenging emotions.
When you’re working in a service profession and another person lashes out it can feel like it’s your fault.
To compound that, the work needs to get done… but that person is still in the challenging emotional state.
This is only being exacerbated by the acute challenges in the world right now.
You don’t need me to list them. Every article for 3 years has listed them.
Even those with security are emotionally on edge. Now is the time for each of us to learn a bit more how to hold space and process the challenging emotions many of us are facing.
For those in service roles the ability to support another person’s challenging emotions isn’t just a professional necessity - it’s a survival strategy! The overwhelm from another person’s emotional state leads to cynicism, frustration, and ultimately burnout.
That’s because underneath that emotional transaction is a foundational idea:
You cannot resolve a business need or a transactional exchange while challenging emotions have not been met.
If I boil it down to KPI’s - happy customers will repeat their business, and in situations where an unhappy customer doesn’t have another option they will become a drain on the emotional resources of that institution.
Being in a good place benefits us all.
To work through another person’s challenging emotions I meet them with RARE Responding:
This 4 part system has evolved from 20 years working in service roles, my education in positive psychology, and the mentoring and coaching I’ve done working with other lifestyle professionals who strive to serve their clients better (if you are such a professional you may be interested in the weekly newsletter you can sign up for here).
Rare stands for Recognize, Appreciate, Reassure, Execute and are the four pillars for how to handle any emotionally charged situation.
They’re intended to validate and humanize the person in front of you while also keeping the focus on resolving the transactional need that brought these two people here.
Recognize
One significant key to moving through a challenging emotion is the ability to own that it exists. This concept is a foundational key of the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy strategy “notice and name”
In the case of Recognize we build upon the work of Marshall Rosenburg and Nonviolent Communication. The keys here are:
Another person’s challenging emotions are not about you. They exist in the other person.
That challenging emotion is information for the person experiencing it.
The expression of that challenging emotion in some way wants to be validated and noticed.
For the person in service this is an opportunity to reflect back to the other person their challenging experience. To recognize their human experience in this moment.
This might sound like:
“I’m sorry to hear it’s been frustrating for you.”
“You seem upset. Can you tell me what’s going on?”
"I can understand being angry after you’ve been treated that way.”
It may even be as simple as “I can tell something is going on. Can we talk about it?”
The simple act of recognizing the emotion gives that person a moment to be seen. To feel. To be validated and share their experience.
Sometimes this takes vulnerability and a risk. The meeting where someone puts conflicts on the table. The moment in a romance when someone says “this isn’t working for us”. The barista who tries to connect with the customer who is always rude. In all these examples one person is being willing to be uncomfortable for the change to make things better.
Appreciate
When the other person opens up they are taking a risk. Being an emotionally available human is often a risk. They’ve likely also taken steps to resolve the transactional need on their own.
At the risk of going on a tangent, this is also a challenging time to be a person in the world trying to succeed. The person struggling has needs, hopes, dreams, desires, fears, and pain. That human experience and the attempt to keep going takes GUTS in our world.
Appreciate is a step about reflecting back effort. It’s an attempt to connect on effort over outcome.
Reflect back to this other person anything they have shared. Their humanity. As well as any steps they have already taken or tried to take to resolve the challenges on their own.
The flavor of this appreciation will scale to the scope of both the relationship and the challenge. It can be as simple as “Thank you for telling me. You did the right thing by coming in” in a simple service situation. It can be as complex as telling your lover that you see all they are going through, are so proud of their tenacity through struggle, and are grateful for their willingness to go to therapy.
The goal here is authentic positive reflection. Research in positive emotion shows us that when we are primed with a positive emotional experience, even a small and simple one, we are my friendly, open to feedback, and have greater problem solving skills.
In short: we’re more ready to tackle our problems when we have experienced something positive.
Reassure
Reassurance is essential to build the trust that leads to action. This step is highly variable depending on the relationship and the transactional needs involved.
If I’m talking with my partner I may reassure them “I love you. I’m in this with you. We can go to the dark places because I’m always going to be here”.
To may coaching client my reassurance may be “you’re not too much for me. You’re not dramatic or over the top. I have the bandwidth and can handle whatever you want to share. This is a safe space.”
In a customer service situation it may be “I can help you figure this out and if I can’t I can take ownership of this problem and find the person who does have the answers.”
The key here is trust.
You have humanized this person, held their emotions, and built good will. Now you are committing to the trust required to move forward towards resolution. This other person may be in a situation where they have lost trust, unable to accurately predict how this situation will go. If they’re already stressed that prediction, called prospection, may be whittled away. One of the most important concepts I’ve heard the last few years “if someone goes from 0 to 60 in a moment they were never at 0. They were at 59.” Your reassurance and ownership is a vital part of moving forward.
This is also an important moment to establish boundaries and reasonable expectations:
What you commit to needs to be true
This is a chance to own your own limitations and contribution to the situation
This is when you road map what’s going to happen next
Be mindful to commit to what you actually can control. You don’t want to promise “everything will be alright” when you know you can’t deliver. However, you could commit “I will do what I can do help however I can” and that can be true.
Execute
Whatever you promise this person throughout this situation, it’s time to DO.
I cannot tell you how many times in my 20 years of service experience the reason the client in front of me is furious is because someone in my role didn’t do what they said they would.
Here are a few very simple maxims to live by:
Don’t make promises you know you cannot keep
Commit to specific timelines and deliverables
Follow-up with regular touchpoints at an interval that will help them feel comfortable and supported
Roadmap out a process together
Clearly and honestly communicate expectations for both of you. Include what THEY need to do to give themselves ownership of their own role in the situation
Execute boils down to doing what you say you will. Have integrity and take ownership.
Final Thoughts
RARE has been serving me and others faithfully. It’s also emotional armor for those in the service role. If you accept that the emotional state of the person you’re working for/with is not your responsibility you are freed from internalizing the emotional challenges present in the interaction.
Years ago I got some pushback on the value of the technique. I was instructing a group of front desk employees who said “but I can just solve the issue. It doesn’t really matter if they’re still upset if I just take care of the problem”.
I disagree.
If I care strongly about the relationship (and believe me, I do) I want that emotional state to be at minimum seen, validated, and supported. Why? Because that person is going to come back. They’re going to talk about their experience (that goes double for if it’s a bad experience). That person is going to be part of my community. My world. The fabric of the culture and society I live it.
I want to live in a culture and society where those who are struggling are helped.
I want to help build that world.
And I want those I serve to know that.
I would love to hear your questions, thoughts, feedback, or stories where this technique has served you.