Workplace Anger Management

Studies show that up to 42% of employee time at work is spent engaging in or trying to resolve conflict (Anger Management Institute), taking up 20% of leadership time and resulting in 370 million lost days annually in the United Kingdom alone. 

The screen-focused world, in its haste along the superhighway, has become used to extremes of efficiency, but with that comes impatience. 

This impatience is especially apparent when it comes to technology. We now expect that web pages load in a quarter of a second, but two seconds in 2009 seemed just fine, as did four seconds in 2006. In 2012, videos that didn’t load in two seconds had little hope of going viral. Email, ineffectively written in haste, is one of the biggest triggers of conflict at work. 

We need to slow down. 

When we are living our life at 100 mph, we go into autopilot mode. In this mode our subconscious is in charge of our actions, and therefore we tend to be efficient yet reactive. Our caveman brain will constantly be on the lookout for the next sabre-toothed tiger and will be alerting us to it through fight, flight and freeze responses. Our bodies respond to visuals in thirty-three milliseconds -- far faster than we can consciously comprehend -- so we are subconsciously driven. If we see things we don’t like, our reactions are instant, instinctive and animalistic. 

As Dan Gardner explains in his book The Science of Fear: 

“When it comes to the evolution of psychology, we should imagine the development of the human brain by equating the past 2 million years of human development to a 201-page book. Of that book, 200 pages would cover the entire time our species spent being nomadic hunter-gatherers in the Stone Age. The last page would cover our time as an agrarian society. The last paragraphs on the final page would cover the last two centuries of the world we now live in.” 

We are cavemen. We cannot avoid it and nor should we try but we can deal with it in groovy ways. 

1. Notice when you get a visceral, angry response and stop whatever you are doing. Sit straight, smile and take a deep breath and take notice of what’s happening. You need to regain conscious control, so it’s best to stand up and walk a little. Our cavemen brains will be telling us something is dangerous. Unless you are in ISIS territory, it usually isn’t. See what the fear is and what is really true.

2. If in doubt, go somewhere else; by moving your body, your initial reaction will dissipate. 

3. Phone a friend; talking to a friend will help by giving you a new perspective. 

4. Go out into a park and shout at the trees until you feel better. 

5. Remember it’s not about you, you are just reacting, so don’t go to a bar and hit the drink. An angry drunk ain’t a fun one.