Coaching Down the Escalator: 3 Emotional Intelligence Tips for Coaches to Reduce Volatility & De-escalate Conflict in a Polarized World
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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?

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.

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.