Loud and Angry

My favorite blogger, Seth Godin, posted the following as one of nine ideas that need a blog post:  "Loud and angry doesn't make you right.  It just means that you are loud and angry."  Admit it, don't you sometimes fantasize that you're Howard Beale in the movie Network, and you "get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' ?"  In your fantasy (I know it's in mine), everyone stops what they're doing, looks at you, and says "You're right about X.  How could we not have seen it before?"  The problem is that Network is a motion picture, and your fantasy is simply that.  In real life, everyone looks at you like you've lost your mind completely, or they shake their heads at what a jerk you're acting.  Being loud and angry never makes others think that you're right; it only makes them shake their heads.  That being the case, why do it?  
Believe me, we see more than our share of loud and angry here in the Trenches.  Of those we've seen, they fall into two categories:  those who simply can't control themselves; and those who delude themselves into thinking it's effective.  I don't think we need to go into those who can't help themselves in more detail than we have in prior posts.  Time in the Trenches is emotional and overwhelming.  For all but a few, it is completely foreign territory with no known rules.  Sometimes the pressure gets to clients and they let off steam, or they become frustrated and yell.  We don't take it personally, and we sort of ignore it because we see it for what it is - emotion with no place else to go.  
Of more concern to us here in the Trenches are those who think being loud and angry is an effective tool.  For most of them, it has not gotten them what they wanted most of the time.  The problem is that some of the time, it has.  For these folks, that sometimes is all it takes to reinforce the behavior.  Most people would recognize that something that works less than ten percent of the time isn't really worth repeating, but not these people.  For them, that small return validates the anger.  They fail to see that they probably got what they wanted, not because they were right, but because others were either afraid of their behavior or just wanted them to go away, and it was easier or safer to give in than to argue with someone who was being loud and angry.  These loud and angry people are the definition of high conflict people.  They are the folks with whom you can't reason, who cannot be convinced, even in the face of overwhelming evidence, that loud and angry is not an effective persuasive technique.  Here in the Trenches, these are often the people who cannot settle the case in litigation, and who need a judge to make the decision for them.  Believe it or not, in collaborative practice, very often these same individuals can settle the case, not because they cease being loud and angry, but because they are supported and coached to resolve a particular dispute in a way that is not loud and angry.  Does it change their behavior forever?  No.  These loud and angry people will always be loud and angry, because they cannot be convinced that that it is not effective, but if we can help them act differently even once, we can make a difference for them and their family.  Here in the Trenches.