How to Calm Down your Non-Technical stakeholders in under 5 minutes

Do it without being a pushover

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Clients, senior leaders, or even your own team will inevitably look at you with a pained face of confusion at one point.

Following their confusion and, self-righteous rage might emerge, directed at you.

It's not fair, but it happens. I've been there - on the other side of the screen or table, where my spirit is beaten down. But in truth, I did nothing wrong. All of the requirements were met, and the program I am showing is behaving as expected.

The impulse is to defend yourself first - don't.

Let's review how you can calm your non-technical stakeholders in just a few minutes and then stand your ground!

Trust me, the words you say will be forgotten faster than Perl 6 became popular.

We've Done this before, Believe it or Not

I once knew a stakeholder who always had a complaint. The first time I interacted with him, his complaints were directed at me; my first inclination was to defend myself. After all, how dare he insult my baby! He nitpicked things about the sort order on a graph, the shade of blue, the spacing above the text, etc.

Research indicates that anger elevates physiological arousal and disrupts neural activity in regions critical for cognitive processing, impairing the brain's ability to make rational decisions. In his fit of rage, his feedback was not rational.

But here's the thing - defensiveness just fueled the fire. This first go-around with his complaint fest could have gone better. I got advice from a colleague who had health issues with this before with him to let him talk but not commit to the changes.

Next time, I let him talk and then took time to filter through what made sense to change or not. I did not commit to changing anything while on the call with him; I just acknowledged I was rotating. This is truthful.

You see, I recognized this was how we were. It was not personal. No end product was going to satisfy him. Nothing was perfect. But I could at least make the conversation less obnoxious.

Source: https://academic.oup.com/scan/article/11/1/150/2375178

Just think of me as your Project Therapist

I witnessed on a call not too long ago when a senior leader began speaking his thoughts on the direction of a project and some critical choices to be made. Most sat in silence, but one architect kept interrupting and attempting to find a solution.

This made the senior leader lose track and then pivot into new rabbit holes or, at times, be defensive. You see, his talking was not due to decisions being set in stone but rather an exercise in thinking out loud. This is like a project therapy session. The architect was a rude therapist who kept interrupting their patient.

Let someone finish their thought. You need it to have the full context. This interruption might come back to bite you. Whether their out-loud thoughts are logical, you must get to the root of their feelings before taking rational action. This will determine how you later present the logical action that was taken.

Listening is a key part of better relationship management. It shows empathy, which is a win for building trust with your stakeholders.

We're speaking the same language - promise!

Picture this: an irate business leader frantically clicking around an Excel workbook and repetitively mumbling, "This makes no sense."

This happened early in my career when I sat in a conference room, frozen in my tracks, not just from the chilly AC.

I had handed over the Excel workbook with my findings and a How To tab in the front, assuming she had read it. I let her dig in, which was a type of demo. I had made the assumption that since she was slightly more technical, she would "get it," but she did not.

There was frustration on both sides. From her, she truly did not understand what she was doing. I felt I could not get a word in edge-wise to tell her, "Don't do that - it is not designed to do that!"

A key component of emotional intelligence and social awareness is knowing when to say something. In this case, I needed to let her calm down before I could say anything.

For the future, I knew I would need to give more direction upfront, like a demo of the ins and outs of the workbook I was presenting. We did speak the same language, but this particular use case was unknown to her. Without that understanding of the use case, the emotion of frustration would take over, and this would be a fruitless meeting.

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Cool Heads = Open Ears

After your stakeholders have finished word-vomiting their frustration at you and there is a brief moment of silence, this is your opportunity to jump in with a cool head and open your ears on the other side.

You see, people will not listen to you, no matter how logical or factual, if they are pissed off. Frustration does not have to last long. Generally, it can be quieted in under 5 minutes if you let them talk. Suppose you are trying to connect with logic while in this state, which will frustrate them more and lengthen the already miserable conversation.

You can kick off the cool-headed conversation with phrases like:

"I hear you" - acknowledges their feelings, and they feel heard.

"I understand," - you acknowledge, but this does not mean you agree.

"I have notated your concerns and will review them" means you listened and will look into it.

"I will look into that and get back to you tomorrow." - this gives a time frame for when you will get back to them, which is soothing.

Facilitate the calm by listening and then acknowledging.

That's it.

It usually takes under 5 minutes.

It sounds easy, but I challenge you to practice it next time you are faced with a rowdy non-technical stakeholder. It will feel a little uneasy for you at first. You may feel like you are being a pushover, but I assure you, you are not. I know I like to lead with facts and rational statements. You can't do that in this situation. Let the emotions flow first, then get down to business.

I believe in you. You can do this!

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✅ What I’ve been Analyzing this week (reading, watching, listening, etc.)

📖 I’ve continue reading Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

📺I watched this Insta reel on how to calm your nervous system

✍️I commented on a Substack post by Ami Putman about how networking does not need to be a nightmare and added my experience

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