Depressurizing Emotion: How to Calm a Hostile Written Conversation Using BIFF

Just joining us? We're in a series on depressurization methods. You can see all the posts so far right here, and I've got a whole playlist of supplementary (and brief) YouTube videos on these kinds of ideas right here.

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Life in our communication-laden, emotionally unhealthy, morally disengaged times makes it almost inevitable: a person you know or work with sends a hostile text or email. In their words, you read attacks on your character and personhood. You're belittled and humiliated. You feel pain: misunderstood, afraid, attacked, inadequate.

In such circumstances, what can we do?

We educators are especially bound to run into hostile communications from time to time. With so many students, parents, colleagues, and bosses in our daily sphere, even the best of us are bound to find ourselves in conflict from time to time. As I often say when talking about credibility, offending someone while working as an educator is a near mathematical certainty. It's not if, but when. So when a hostile message does come in, my aim is repair — after all, winning battles like these is almost always a net loss. I don't want to win. I want to teach as best I can, perform as best I can, and all the while enjoy the process by loving the people with whom I'm privileged to work.

But all of that doesn't really say what to do when the hostile communication is sitting in front of me on a screen, emitting its siren call for self-defense or justification. So, what to do?

This is where I've recently found Bill Eddy's BIFF template quite helpful. While I do have some caveats with Eddy's BIFF: Quick Responses to High-Conflict People, Their Personal Attacks, Hostile Email and Social Media Meltdowns — see those at the end — I really appreciate this mnemonic about Brief, Informative, Friendly, and Firm communications.

So, here's Eddy's advice regarding how to respond to hostile communications:

• Keep it Brief. The more words, the more chances we create for communication to fail and the hostility cycle to deepen. If the parent is angry about a grading practice, no need to enumerate your philosophy on grading.
• Keep it Informative. Only answer what is required. Report facts, not emotions. Try to keep values out if it. Avoid blame. Focusing on information is like starving a fire of kindling or oxygen.
• Keep it Friendly. Simple words like “take care” at the end, “Dear” at the start — or even a simple smiley face after a sentence — can make a meaningful difference by expressing warmth rather than coldness or hostility.
• Keep it Firm. The idea here is to have a clear indication of the matter's resolution, e.g., “I've got two slots this week where I can talk on the phone. If I don't hear from you, I'll assume the issue is settled.” Even if your entire character has been assaulted in a message, focus on the inciting problem (e.g., a misspelling of a child's name in a recent newsletter) and its resolution rather than the defense of your character. As the old, great teacher John Wooden sometimes said, your character is what you actually are while your reputation is what you appear to be. Attend to your character — which you're doing by defusing a hostile conversation before it ignites — and your reputation will take care of itself in due time.

So that's BIFF. Here are a few other gems I appreciated from Eddy's work:

• Avoid advice. Typically a hostile communication isn't coming from someone who wants to hear your take on a problem they are having.
• Avoid admonishment. Don't talk to the person like they are a child. “You shouldn't talk to people this way.” “Name-calling is no way to treat a person, no matter how you feel.” No matter how true the admonishment is, it will fail to do more than perpetuate the rationality-inhibiting pain that has led to the hostility in the first place.

And now the caveats. With all due respect to Mr. Eddy's work, I do get concerned about the idea of labeling someone a “High Conflict Person.” The idea that some people are High Conflict People and that they are the problem goes a bit too far for me. I think it's possible to read a hostile communication impersonally, respond to it well, and also take to heart where we might be able to improve in the future. I can't think of a single conflict in my life where I didn't contribute at least one percent to the conflict's genesis. Intentional or not, conflicts take two.

The tweak I'd make to Eddy's approach would be to depersonalize hostile communications while also loving the person who is sending the communications, e.g., advice like training yourself “this is not about me,” or “this person's personality is the issue” seems like advice that leaves personal growth untouched on the table.

Now, in circumstances of abuse, gaslighting, etc. — forget my caveats completely. We'll perform poorly, even in the inner work of morally engaging with a hostile other, when under too much pressure, and I'd be a fool to suggest that the threat or danger a hostile person makes you feel is something I know exactly how you should handle.

All of this is meant as simply food for thought.

Best to you, colleague,

DSJR

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Thanks to Bill Eddy and his team for the helpful website, where I found this video helpful. And thanks too to the creator of this BIFF PDF.