He may know that you’re talking, but his brain is not always processing what you say. Consequently, saying the same thing over and over is not very likely to get results. Saying the same thing in different ways is a far better option.
For example, saying, “I don’t want to fight” over and over might not work because it’s simply received as noise. On the other hand, saying, “I don’t want to fight,” followed by, “That guy just called the cops,” and, “I am out of here” just might. Similarly, “This will violate my parole,” combined with “We don’t want to do this” has a better chance of reaching the other guy’s brain and making some impact.
For example, Kane once had a frantic call at the Pac-10 football stadium where he works as a security supervisor. One of his captains had confronted a group of drunken fans who had slipped into the student section during halftime. They may have been students, but they were clearly wearing hats and jerseys for the other team, a fierce cross-state rival. Since the home team was losing badly at the time, emotions were running rather hot, making the group a target of taunts, catcalls, and an occasional thrown object from the other students.
Jim, the captain, had tried to check their tickets in order to prove that they were in the wrong section, but they claimed to have lost them. He subsequently ordered them to leave, but they weren’t willing to go peacefully. By the time Kane arrived, a full-fledged shouting match was underway. It was a pretty tense situation, where a couple of the students looked ready to start swinging at the security guards and anyone else standing nearby. To make matters worse, a large group of local students was focused on the confrontation rather than on the game, heckling and shouting insults in an effort to provoke the other school’s fans into a fight.
Quickly grasping what had happened, Kane managed to separate the “leader” from his little pack of rowdies, taking him aside to have a talk with him. Kane started off by pointing toward the hometown fans and saying, “Look man, you’re going to get yourself hurt by sitting here. There are a lot more of them than there are of you. We can’t keep all those guys off you if you’re going to act like that. Why don’t you go back to your own section across the way and enjoy the rest of the game.”
He thought that appealing to the guy’s sense of self-preservation would prove successful but he wasn’t buying it so Kane changed tactics. “Look, your team’s winning right? Don’t you want to watch the end of the game? If you get thrown out now you’ll miss it.”
It is critical that you take steps to ensure that your message is heard, particularly when emotions are running hot. Just because you have said something once does not necessarily mean that it was understood. Repeating the same thing over and over again is far less effective than restating your message in a variety of different ways. Once again, fear of repercussions wasn’t getting the hoped-for response. The guy was drunk, full of himself, and hoping for something to prove, so Kane changed tactics once again.
“How old are you?” Kane asked. “Nineteen,” the student replied with a smirk. He started to say something more, but Kane cut him off. “You know that’s underage, right? When the cops get here, they’re not only going to throw you out for causing a disturbance, but they’re also going to arrest you for drinking. That’s going to look real great on your resume.”
This time the message got through. The kid wasn’t afraid of a fight with the hometown fans or even the security personnel, but he finally began to comprehend the downside of the situation he’d gotten himself into. While he thought he was tough enough to win any fight, he wasn’t too keen on going to jail or paying a hefty fine. Once he made up his mind to leave before the police arrived, it was pretty easy to convince his buddies to go along with him. By co-opting the leader, Kane got the rest of the group to follow.
It is critical that you take steps to ensure that your message is heard, particularly when emotions are running hot. Just because you have said something once does not necessarily mean that it was heard or understood. If it does not work, change tactics and try again.
Changing the Context Can De-Escalate a Bad Situation
Those who were called skillful leaders of old knew how to drive a wedge between the enemy’s front and rear; to prevent co-operation between his large and small divisions; to hinder the good troops from rescuing the bad the officers from rallying their men.
Always chase the enemy into bad footholds, obstacles at the side, and so on, using the virtues of the place to establish predominant positions from which to fight. You must research and train diligently in this.
An angry or aggressive person may simply want to vent his outrage. In many instances, you can do much good by calmly listening to him as he rants, all the while preparing yourself to act if attacked, of course. Interjecting a few choice words as necessary to help him see the situation in a new light can be very beneficial. Changing the context in this fashion can often de-escalate a bad situation by giving the other guy an out, some face-saving way of handling things that he was unable to see before.
Here’s an example: Kane stopped at an Arco station to get gas on his way home from work. Their price was roughly ten cents per gallon cheaper than anyone else in the area was so they were very crowded. Because the automated kiosks by the pumps were not working, he had to go into the store, wait in line to pre-pay, and then go back out to fill his tank. After doing so, he had to go back into the store to retrieve a couple of dollars in change.
As he approached the door, he could hear shouting coming from inside. Two women were arguing with the clerk. As he stood in line, he could not help but hear their dispute over the next several minutes. They claimed to have given the clerk twenty-two dollars to pre-pay and asserted that he put the money on the wrong pump. They said that they had received no gas and wanted him to either restart the pump or give them their money back. He first countered that they had not paid him. The argument continued with the women restating their claim and the clerk changing his response several times with such statements as they had told him the wrong pump number and that it was not his fault if someone else pumped gas on their dime. As the argument escalated, one of the women in line behind Kane went outside to call the police. Several others simply left without buying anything. Everyone was very uncomfortable.
The distraught women were dressed in quality but dirty coveralls, had some sort of ID badges that Kane could not read clipped to their waists, and were very buff. He imagined that they worked as mechanics, maintenance workers, or something similar and had just gotten off work. Neither was a small person. Kane is 5’ 10” tall and they were both around his height. The clerk was shorter and skinnier than either woman was. He had a heavy accent and was a little hard to understand, especially when he raised his voice. Eventually as one of the women called the clerk a liar for the umpteenth time, he retorted that she was a “fat, uppity bitch.” This, as you would probably expect, did not go over too well.
The insulted woman went stiff, then spun on her heel and headed toward the door while her friend continued to argue with the clerk. As she turned past Kane, he got a good look at her face that had jumped several notches up the threat index scale. The last time he had seen that “thousand-yard stare” was when a guy left a building, then returned a short time later with a gun.[7] Fearing something similar, he decided that he had better do something about it.
As she left, Kane noticed that she used her right hand to open the door and that she wore a watch on her left wrist so he assumed that she was right-handed. He followed her out as she stalked toward her car. She was not moving very fast so he easily caught up a dozen feet past the door. He figured that she was not armed (yet), so he took a position behind her left shoulder a couple feet back assuming that he would have the most reaction time that way if she did anything untoward.
Having positioned himself where he wanted to be, he calmly said, “You know they have half a dozen video cameras in there. Your transaction must be on tape.”
