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As people become more volatile around us, our brains’ natural response is to
also become more reactive. Coaching provides a perfect opportunity to step out
of this cycle of escalation, but it’s a difficult emotional puzzle; here’s a map
of the process with three emotional intelligence tips for coaches.


COACHING DOWN THE ESCALATOR: 3 EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE TIPS FOR COACHES TO REDUCE
VOLATILITY & DE-ESCALATE CONFLICT IN A POLARIZED WORLD
🌱

by Joshua Freedman, MCC

 

Does it seem the world is less safe and stable than even a few years ago? Do you
feel a growing ‘wobble’ of uncertainty fueling polarization? Perhaps it seems
‘everything’ is a source of conflict – and that a small disagreement can quickly
escalate out of hand. You’re not imagining it:

Next month you’ll see that, alarmingly, the 2024 State of the Heart research
report will show that world is continuing on a path toward increased volatility.
Download the 2023 report here, and you’ll get the 2024 report as soon as it’s
available.

One of invaluable competencies in the Six Seconds Emotional Intelligence Model
is called Navigate Emotions. It’s the capacity to proactively engage emotions –
and it’s the antidote to volatility. Global research from a randomized sampling
from hundreds of thousands of people in over 140 countries, the world is getting
worse at this skill.

This means on average, we are less able to handle challenging feelings. We’re
more likely to move into a reactive start, more quickly. This means that we, as
coaches, and our clients, are more likely to escalate, more quickly.

The Reaction Cycle helps clarify this dynamic, and offers opportunities for
coaches and clients to exit the cycle – and shift toward balance. 




THE NEUROSCIENCE OF REACTIVITY: MIND-BODY CONNECTION

To understand what I mean by “escalate,” I turn to pioneering stress science
from Dr. Herbert Benson, who I was fortunate enough to interview at our EQ
conference at Harvard. 

A pioneer in mind-body health, Dr. Benson was a strong, early advocate that
emotions are a key component of health. He studied the effects of stress on
heart health, and founded the Mind/Body Medical Institute at Harvard Medical
School. Benson described two states:

 * The stress response is an escalating reaction where we move into increasing
   levels of volatility.
 * The relaxation response is a calming path where we reduce volatility.

These are marked by physiological changes such as cortisol levels, heart rate
and heart regularity, blood flow, and, ultimately, heart attacks.

You can use this free online tool to visualize React vs Respond. In coaching, I
use it when clients are seeking to understand what pushes them into each
category.



This article is from the 🌱 Emotional Intelligence Coach Newsletter

Click here & choose the newsletters that will help you practice and grow
emotional intelligence


THE REACTION ROADMAP: A COACHING TOOL FOR DE ESCALATION 

In the Emotional Intelligence Practitioner Certification – which is part of the
EQ Coach Certification – we utilize a model that I developed called the Reaction
Roadmap. It’s a way of understanding the process of reaction, and how reactivity
fuels reactivity. 

In our video, Why Am I So Angry All the Time, the most popular video on Six
Seconds’ channel, I explain the three stages of a reaction.



Each stage of the reaction fuels the next stage:

Set-up is where we are creating the pre-conditions for the reaction, such as not
sleeping enough. This leads us to interpret a new stimulus as a trigger.

Interpretation is where we assess the trigger as a threat. Distress means we
perceive a problem to be bigger than our resources. This leads us to move into
reaction and start the escalation.

Escalation is the neurobiological process where the cascade of emotion-chemicals
floods our bodies & brains, which then leads to being “even more set up” for
further reactivity.




THREE COACHING QUESTIONS TO SHIFT FROM REACT TO RESPOND

While there’s a great deal to unpack around the factors that drive us to go up
the reaction escalator, today we’ll focus on moving back down toward a state of
balance. Just as each of the three steps above can fuel greater reactivity, each
step is also an opportunity.


SET UP: PREVENTION

It’s easy to notice we’re “in reaction” after we’ve gone through the cycle a
bunch of times and we’re in a full on come-apart moment. What if we could notice
for ourselves, and help our coaching clients notice, much earlier?

The ‘set up’ phase is where we put ourselves into a condition that increases the
likelihood of a stress reaction. For example: not sleeping enough, eating
poorly, unhealthy routines & relationships, doom scrolling. So the obvious
answer is: Don’t do that. If only it were so easy!

The opportunity in this phase is early detection. Can we become better at
noticing subtle clues that we’re setting ourselves up? These could be emotional,
physical, mental or other signals, such as:

Physical: Shallow breathing

Emotional: Impatient with small obstacles

Mental: Over thinking about a relatively small issue

When we get better at noticing the clues early, it’s easier for us to then shift
out of the set-up so we can handle incoming stressors more gracefully. This is
ideal, because it lets us skip the whole mess of the reaction.

In coaching, after you’ve contracted with the client to explore their stress
reaction, you can ask if they’d like to try making a timeline of the minutes,
hours or days before the reaction.

Invite them to use their imagination to go back in time and tell you what it was
like for them: What were some emotions, physical sensations, thoughts you were
having before the reaction?

What about a few hours before that?

And before that?

Then, explore: In your timeline, what clues can you find that were setting up
for this reaction? How might you use some of those clues as signals to help you
do something different next time?


INTERPRETATION: REHEARSAL

The interpretation stage of the process is often very fast – it takes as little
as 1/4th of a second for your brain to begin interpreting a stimulus as a
threat, and then another 1/4-second for your body to begin the cascade of
reactions we call the stress response.

Given the speed, it’s tough to intervene at that very moment. However, we can
prepare and practice so we can use that 1/4-second more effectively. As a coach,
you probably already do this with your clients: It’s about considering alternate
interpretations.

After contracting to discuss this reaction, the first and hardest part is to
clarify the original interpretation. You might start with an overview, eg,
“Since you’ve said you want to explore this reaction, might it be helpful to
walk through what happend step-by-step?” 

At some point in explaining what happened, your client is likely to use a phrase
that indicates an interpretation of the situation, such as, “I knew” or “it
seemed like” or “you could tell that…” For example: “When she said I wasn’t
doing a good job, I knew she was really mad at me.”

Notice the interpretation and ask for clarification: “I think I heard you say
there was a moment when you knew she was mad. Could you tell me a little more
about how you came to that conclusion?” Later, you might ask: “Were there any
assumptions you were making as you came to that conclusion?”

Remember, the client might be absolutely correct in their interpretation, and
yet, it might still be an interpretation. 

If the client is willing and able to acknowledge they were making an
interpretation of the situation, you can go to the next phase of exploring
alternative interpretations. For example, asking: “Sometimes it’s helpful to
consider several different possible interpretations of the situations, would you
like to try that?”

Finally, you can go to experimentation: “Is there one of these alternative
interpretations you’d like to try out next time?” If yes, “Would you like to
practice that right now?” If yes, invite your client to imagine being in a
similar situation, and talk through their new way of interpreting.


ESCALATION: PAUSE

If we’re going to continue in the reaction cycle, we escalate the initial
reaction. While sometimes that’s intentional, usually it happens unconsciously.
We produce more and more of a particular neurohormone. In turn, these signal
other cells to multiply the effect into a cascade of neurobiological escalation.

Remember that each of these emotion chemicals lasts for up to around six
seconds… so a six second pause can disrupt the cascade and create a space to
move out of the reaction cycle.

In coaching, you can practice this pause with your client. Invite them to plan
ahead to how they’ll take their pause (ideally activating high-order thinking
for six seconds). Then they can practice by triggering a little bit of stress
reaction by remembering an incident, and then trying out the pause. Like any new
practice, it takes awhile to make it automatic and smooth, so it’s more
effective to practice on small reactions rather than waiting for big messy
moments.

If you try these tips yourself, or in coaching, please come back and drop a
comment to share your advice with all of us.

And, if you have questions you’d like me to explore in a future 🌱 EQ Coaching
newsletter and/or video, please post in the comments, or feel free to reach out
to me via our contact form.

… and don’t forget to Click here to subscribe to the EQ Coach Newsletter.

Whether you’re a professional coach, or contemplating earning certification as a
professional emotional intelligence coach*, or you’re someone who uses coaching
techniques to support others: of course these questions apply to us first.

* Did you know? In addition to top-level accreditation from the International
Coaching Federation, the EQ Coach Certification is one of a handful of coaching
certifications in North America that also provides master’s level credit? You’ll
earn almost ⅓ of your MBA or MA in this program.

 

For more on EQ and Coaching 🌱, I recommend:

Gaining emotional insight in coaching



> Honing Intuition as Coaches: Emotional Intelligence from the Tao te Ching



Neuroscience ‘tricks’ for change

> 3 Neuroscience Tips to Coach Like a Vacation – Coaching with Emotional
> Intelligence





Coaching for Purpose



> Glimmers of Purpose: 3 Emotional Intelligence Tips for Coaching on Purpose in
> a Short-Term World



 * Author
 * Recent Posts

Follow me
Joshua Freedman
CEO at Six Seconds
Joshua is a cofounder and ceo of the Six Seconds Emotional Intelligence Network.
He is a Master Certified Coach (ICF), and the second of his 5 books is the
international best-seller, At the Heart of Leadership. He's passionate about the
spark that ignites at intersection of compassion and purpose.
Follow me
Latest posts by Joshua Freedman (see all)
 * Coaching Down the Escalator: 3 Emotional Intelligence Tips forCoaches to
   Reduce Volatility & De-escalate Conflict in a Polarized World - March 6, 2024
 * Dr. Daniel Goleman Explains the History of Emotional Intelligence - February
   29, 2024
 * The Upside of Uncertainty: Neuroscience for Coaching - January 30, 2024


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