Hot Buttons: How to Resolve Conflict and Cool Everyone Down

Rating:
Summary: Hot Stuff from Hot Buttons!
Review: HOT BUTTONS is a pracrical guide for transforming the impact of negative emotional overload into positive behavioral and cognitive forces. The application of the techniques described in this book may be applied to a great number of situations regardless of wheather they occur in industry, within the family, at school or in traffic. The authors provide the reader/practioner with a variety of emotionally overloaded situation for analysis and techiques for resolving them. The techniques described are consistent with many theories about human behavior. The authors, Evans and Cohen,appear to base their approach to resolving conflict by "translating...words in a fresher way that gives the dialogue a new direction." To acquire this goal requires each to engage in the PROCESS OF LISTENING and respond in such a way as to convey that each has actually attempted to understand the other. I reccommend this volume to both the individual and the organization interested in improving productivity and personal balance through improving communication in human relationships.

Rating:
Summary: Hot Stuff from Hot Buttons!
Review: I was pleasantly surprised by the practical advice and examples provided in Hot Buttons. Sybil Evans has taken the difficult topic of conflict resolution and masterfully crafted a text that the everyday reader (that's me) can use right away. Thank you, Sybil, for making this topic more understandable and easier to manage. I've already recommended this book to several of my co-workers!

Rating:
Summary: Hot Buttons: How to Resolve Conflict and Cool Everyone Down
Review: Learning why people behave the way they do is complicated, particularly in conflict situations. Understanding why they do so is even more perplexing. HOT BUTTONS is a unique tool which takes us to that next plateau of understanding not only the 'why', but the 'how to' in dealing with the broad diversity of personal and worklife situations. It is this 'how to' that has been sorely absent. HOT BUTTONS guides us at assessing our interpersonal behaviors. It then offers, at a pace suitable to our individual life situations, a practical toolkit for both avoiding and managing potential conflict. HOT BUTTONS will be enjoyed by all...however, it is a MUST for managers of people and customer relationships.

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Summary: A MUST HAVE FOR WORKPLACE OR FAMILY
Review: Relationships with people we know and those we do not are becoming harder and harder to manage, as the pace and pressures of daily life increase. More and more often, something happens that enrages the people involved. This rage may come from a taxi driver, another driver, someone sitting next to you in a movie, a person standing in line, or a member of your family (blood relative or in-law). Often, you don't expect the rage. Suddenly, Vesuvius goes off (either in you, or in the other person). What do you do now? Where do you go from there?

In other situations, someone does something that causes you extreme annoyance, causing you to blow up. What should you do next? How can you avoid that happening routinely?

'This book is not meant to solve the cosmic problems, but it can teach you how to turn off the triggers to boiling points.' I found this book to be a very useful set of tactical tools for dealing with yourself and others to supplement the excellent concepts of self-improvement in Relationship Rescue. If you liked that book, you will like this one also.

'If someone misunderstands, insults, ignores, or irritates us, we feel hot surges of anger in varying degrees.' 'When someone pushes one of your hot buttons, it makes you a little crazy . . . You explode.' 'There's explosive anger and contemptuous anger, revengeful anger and embarrassed anger, repressed anger and expressed anger -- and they all look different.'

Where do hot buttons come from? 'Hot buttons are born from our earliest experiences in dealing with conflict.'

What's the answer? 'Attitude is a choice.'

Here's how the book is organized:

Chapter 1 -- What's a Hot Button?

Chapter 2 -- Hot Buttons Everywhere!

Chapter 3 -- How Buttons: Hazardous to Your Health!

Chapter 4 -- What Pushes Your Buttons?

Chapter 5 -- Hot Buttons and Intimacy

Chapter 6 -- Hot Buttons and the Family

Chapter 7 -- Hot Buttons and Children

Chapter 8 -- Hot Buttons and Friendship

Chapter 9 -- Hot Buttons and the Workplace

Chapter 10 -- The Magic of Your Mind

Resources

Many of the chapters contain quizzes to help you self-assess your tendencies. Almost all of the chapters contain case histories of conflicts that often arise, and use a five-step process to resolve these conflicts. Some of the chapters contain information about annoying public situations and suggest scripts and actions to handle them firmly and politely. Chapter 10 gives you ideas for expanding your ability to choose your reaction, such as various types of meditation, thought switching, breathing exercises, taking physical action, changing your activity or focus, and keeping a journal to study your reactions. The Resources section points you to other books that can help.

The book's core concept is to develop cooperative collaborations that generate win-win solutions that everyone wants to implement. These are built from a five-step process:

(1) Watch what's going on like you are part of an audience to a play so you experince 'detachment and objectivity.' This helps calm you down.

(2) Confirm the validity of the other person's point of view to them in order to help calm them down and positively engage their attention.

(3) After the other person's anger is sufficiently diffused, ask questions neutrally and respectfully to get more information.

(4) Assert your own interests and needs in terms of the other person's perspective and story. The other person now listens to you because you first listened to them.

(5) Find common ground for a solution. Brainstorm possible solutions, then deal with both of your issues to find the optimum ways to build a win-win direction that works well.

You can use many of the negotiation books to get ideas for how to enhance step five, such as Getting to Yes and Beyond Winning.

I liked many things about this book. First, it is multidimensional. You get ideas for lots of different kinds of situations and relationships. I could not think of very many circumstances that were not addressed somewhere in the book. Second, the advice is solid. Third, the many case histories help you get a feeling for how to use the master process recommended here. Fourth, you also find out how anger hurts your health, and these harmful patterns are formed. That knowledge will give you an incentive to change that you will need. Fifth, the book has a humane tone and orientation to it. Sixth, the self-assessment helps you internalize which lessons are most important for you to focus on.

I am reluctant to quibble with the book at all, but I could not resist one. The scripts often end up with a bit more of a zinger than is needed to get the other person's attention or to solve the problem. You can handle the described situation with more consideration, understanding, and respect. If you do, things will work out even better for you. Most of the time, the person is not intending to annoy you. If you act nicely towards them, they will act nicer towards you in reciprocation because you did so and because you gave them the benefit of the doubt in acting as if they are really a thoughtful, considerate person.

After you read the book, my suggestion is that you write down the hot buttons that cause you to lose it. Then go to the people who normally bear the brunt of this (such as your spouse and family), apologize, and explain what is going on. Tell them you want to change, and ask for their help. Suggest better ways for them to handle you, and ask for suggestions about how you can annoy them less. The improvement in your emotional environment should be palpable. Have a wonderful time after that!

Live long and prosper in the absence of hot buttons!!

Rating:
Summary: An appropriate book for our times.
Review: Sybil Evans does a good job with some very real and very frustrating situations. Her task of helping us deal with Anger is a large one, and after reading this book, I give her a thumbs up. The Anger Management techniques are good, and a lot of the book is about learning to recognize our own "hot buttons" or "pet peeves" as I call them. I think Ms. Evans should have thrown in a few more helpful tips, I felt the book did come up a little short, but it is a good book and well intentioned. I think the phrase I will remember most from this self help book is "when anger rises, think of the consequences." (Confucious). That has just got to be the most difficult, but most helpful advice I have ever heard! Thank you Sybil Evans for some good pointers and some self awareness you gave me. This book is not a problem solver. I think the theme is "alternatives, not answers." Self help junkies around the world should find it useful.

Rating:
Summary: An appropriate book for our times.
Review: Sybil Evans does a good job with some very real and very frustrating situations. Her task of helping us deal with Anger is a large one, and after reading this book, I give her a thumbs up. The Anger Management techniques are good, and a lot of the book is about learning to recognize our own "hot buttons" or "pet peeves" as I call them. I think Ms. Evans should have thrown in a few more helpful tips, I felt the book did come up a little short, but it is a good book and well intentioned. I think the phrase I will remember most from this self help book is "when anger rises, think of the consequences." (Confucious). That has just got to be the most difficult, but most helpful advice I have ever heard! Thank you Sybil Evans for some good pointers and some self awareness you gave me. This book is not a problem solver. I think the theme is "alternatives, not answers." Self help junkies around the world should find it useful.

Rating:
Summary: Hot Buttons is a must read for all!!
Review: This book is uniquely insightful and has already been beneficial to my life. It has empowered me to do a better job with negociating both my personal and professional life.