When you own a small business dependent on local customers, responding to negative behavior equally challenges your personal ethics and your livelihood.
The same goes for a manager or employee unsure if their employer will back them up when the customer decides to file a complaint with alternative facts about the encounter, which they will.
This is a good time to remember that while TONGUE FU!® can be about zingers, one-uppers, or “winning” an argument in Bullying situations, it’s really about de-escalating and maintaining your personal power.
It IS about “winning” in the sense of planting seeds, setting boundaries, and giving pushback.
It’s about getting people to think about what they’re saying, maybe even what they’re believing.
And never underestimate the watchers. You’re planting seeds there too.
A powerful tool is simply letting the verbal predator know you are not in agreement. You’re not their “friend and ally” in this situation.
It’s a light touch and yet very effective.
Someone sent me a personal message with this scenario:
A small business owner has a line of customers at the register. Two customers are speaking Spanish to each other. Another customer “complained” to the owner while at the register that the customers were speaking Spanish, like it was a bad thing.
The owner responded, “Yes. They probably are more comfortable speaking Spanish to each other.”
The woman was confused and repeated herself.
The owner continued the transaction without responding.
The question presented to me was how could the owner have better responded?
I’d say the owner acted like a rockstar.
The owner demonstrated a disinterest in the “problem” and was clearly not an “ally” in the complaint, confusing the upset customer.
Confusion in itself is a powerful tool because now the confused person has to analyze why he/she was all alone in the upsetness.
The person has to engage in thinking.
While it might not cause the verbal predator to change his/her mindset or beliefs, it will cause him/her to consider whether everyone is a “friendly” to freely share such beliefs with.
That’s called seed planting.
While we’d all like to be Joan of Arc and burn #Hatriots down, we also have to consider our own safety and livelihood.
When you understand it’s not about changing people’s minds or being “right” all the time, we can then find common ground, plant seeds, cause people to be a little more thoughtful of who/when to make such comments, or simply set up our own boundaries.
You can find more tools, and some entertainment, in my new book “Campaign Chronicles,” available on Amazon, or get a signed copy.