Gifts of De-Escalation: Ending perpetual states of urgency in corporate spaces.

• Author: Burich, Woodrie
• Position: BALANCED BOUNDARIES

Recently, I was reflecting on one of my favorite mentors. She was a rockstar consultant with a brilliant mind and excellent communication skills. She was consistently thrown into challenging and high-conflict situations because of her track record for figuring out the core issue and her ability to bring frustrated people back to the table to resolve it. If you needed something done, throw Jane* at it. She was the ultimate fixer.

She taught me a skill early in my career that I've never forgotten: she was an expert at classifying the urgent from the non-urgent.

I remember in my early twenties, rushing down a long hallway to gain her attention. I was so focused on getting her advice that I often would track her down and take the few minutes she had between meetings to walk hallways with her. In this particular moment, she stopped. Paused. Took a breath. And then stated something to me very gently and very calmly: "This is not urgent. We are not curing cancer. No one is dying in this moment. Remember that. Now, what exactly do you need?"

This was a gift. It was a great lesson early in my career.

Now the interesting thing about Jane is that she was also a mom. A single mom. She was a rockstar in both her personal and professional life. I was lucky enough to get to witness her in both roles. We became friends over the years, as is often the case after working many long hours in corporate spaces.

I bring this up because, now that I'm a parent myself, I realize the role of parenting often requires us to attend to multiple matters of seemingly urgent issues all the time. Spilled milk. Broken toys. Ripped knees in faded jeans. Tears, frustrations, confusion--all of which require patience and compassionate understanding.

A few weeks ago, I was connecting with my distraught daughter. I took a moment, channeled my inner Jane, and I paused.

I looked at her and realized she was rushing and bringing an unnecessary sense of urgency to the moment. And as a young child often does, she simply needed to pause, take a breath, and be reminded that she was OK. This moment was OK. And we had everything we needed in that moment to meet her needs.

I de-escalated the urgency.

This was a gift for her. You could watch her whole demeanor shift. My daughter took a breath. She smiled. And then we went to work together, tackling the difficult thing that no longer seemed so overwhelming.

There is a gift in de-escalating a moment, decoupling the urgent from the non-urgent.

As...