Right Answer.
Wrong Moment.
The right answer in the wrong moment is the wrong answer.
That sentence is the entire article.
Everything else is evidence.
Communication is not only what is said.
It is also how it is said.
And whether it reaches the state the person in front of you is in.
Miss the third, and the first two do not matter.
To show why, let’s return to an example from the last talks.
A man who paid for four rooms in a hotel.
And whose situation escalated.
First, let me be clear.
This is not an excuse for the customer’s behavior.
The staff did everything correctly.
- They stayed calm.
- They communicated exactly the way the brand, the hotel, expects from them.
- They did everything right.
And the situation escalated anyway.
This example shows basically everything we need to prove one thing:
a given script that dictates
- how to talk,
- how to behave,
- how to feel,
does not solve a conflict the way we expect it to.
The man claimed he had paid for the rooms.
He was asked for another card.
This is where script meets reality.
Script meets an internal state
that cannot process information.
Now let’s look at it from the customer’s point of view.
Everything that follows is assumption, drawn from the video.
Not fact.
A reading.
Because a reading is exactly what was missing at that counter.
He booked four rooms.
There are four adults at the counter.
Either there are more people in this family than these four,
or each of those adults has their own room.
He is barefoot.
So he was probably already in his room.
The rest of the family was out, came back later, came to the counter, and was asked for another card.
They called him.
There are some problems with the rooms.
And he came straight out of his room.
Immediately.
To the counter.
Barefoot.
And escalated.
I have paid everything.
If it is the way I assume, then we have
- at least four adults, or more,
- travelling together,
- to another country,
- four hotel rooms,
- at least four flight tickets.
That indicates something special.
Then he is asked for another card, for whatever reason.
And he escalates.
That indicates he is not used to this kind of procedure.
Which indicates he is not used to this kind of price range.
A self-check-in hotel does not have this procedure.
That, too, indicates something special.
And if it is something special —
hotel rooms for four adults,
flights for four adults,
a vacation planned, prepared, booked —
and then he faces something like this
and escalates that hard,
it potentially indicates that this is extremely important to him.
A man running barefoot into the lobby of a hotel
proves that something very important is at stake for him.
And that he has no other way.
Or does not see another way
to solve the situation
in his way.
Barefoot is not a detail.
Barefoot is data.
Now place the script into that moment.
Something special.
A trip with the whole family.
Planned. Booked. Paid.
And then someone completely random —
a stranger —
tells this man:
“I understand your frustration. Please calm down.”
In a situation so important to him that he escalates this way,
he is told
- what to do,
- how to talk,
- how to behave,
- how to feel.
That is a wall.
And it increases his rage.
Again: this is not an apology for his behavior.
The staff did everything correctly.
But from his point of view —
maybe not used to this type of hotel,
not used to this price range —
the correct answer arrived in the wrong moment.
We do not know his reason for coming there with his whole family.
You may think he is unreasonable.
But look again.
This is also a man running barefoot
in a t-shirt that says
GREATEST DAD EVER.
That means he has attributes that made his family hand him that t-shirt.
Also an assumption.
The greatest dad ever.
On a trip with his whole family.
Running into that situation.
In the video, I assume it is his wife who tells him: “Shut up now.”
That indicates she knows him.
And still,
he is qualified — at least by his family —
as the greatest dad ever.
Both are true at the same time.
That is what a person looks like
when you stop reading the behavior
and start reading the state.
And if it is that important to him,
“I understand your frustration”
is something he immediately recognizes
as a lie.
Because no one there knows how important this is for him.
- Why he is there.
- Why his whole family is with him.
- Why four rooms.
No one asked.
So the sentence claims an understanding that does not exist.
And a nervous system in threat detects that instantly.
So what is the first move?
Receive what they say.
You do not need the skill to analyze every person and every situation.
You do not need to read a whole family from a t-shirt.
But you can listen to:
- keywords
- verbal expression
- facial expression
And if you have the feeling this could escalate:
Stop.
Stop the script.
Let the person know
you received what was said.
And that you are going to solve it.
Received.
Not “understood.”
Received is true.
Understood is a claim.
And this has nothing to do with accepting everything
clients, customers, people do in front of you.
There is also a hard stop procedure.
What to do when
- racism,
- blame,
- physical actions
and similar things happen.
Talking and communicating in a way a nervous system can understand
has nothing to do
with accepting everything.
Reaching a state is not submission.
It is precision.
And here is the objection every manager will raise:
This takes too long.
It does not.
Using the MAP Language for de-escalation does not extend the interaction you have with the person in front of you.
This example runs over minutes.
No one knows how long it had been going on before someone started recording.
No one knows how long it took in the end.
That is the real time cost.
Of the script.
If we communicate and reach the state the person is in,
the situation does not escalate.
And it takes no longer than the usual script.
Often less.
Because there is nothing to recover from.
The common scripts you may rely on
produce exactly the behaviors
and escalations
we see in that video.
Not despite being followed correctly.
Because they were followed correctly.
The staff gave the right answer.
The man was in the wrong moment to receive it.
And no script can tell the difference.
Only perception can.
Right answer.
Wrong moment.
Wrong answer.