Hot Buttons: How to Resolve Conflict and Cool Everyone Down

Do you find that you are getting more angry more often and more easily? This is an exploration of one of the most serious problems facing us in the new millennium: the increase in stress that leads to anger and rage. Sybil Evans, a leading conflict resolution counsellor, explains that unresolved conflict is not only harmful psychologically, but leads to serious health problems. She outlines a five-step process designed to help you manage conflict better and bring about an effective solution for everyone involved. The manual: explores the increase in tension in society today, including road rage, phone rage, even gym rage; explains why anger, both expressed and unexpressed, can lead to serious health problems including high blood pressure and a lowered immune system; helps you determine your conflict style - do you avoid conflict, are you a "peace at all costs" type, or are you an "exploder"?; discusses how to resolve anger and conflict within a relationship; and provides a five-step process that can be used at home, among friends and in the workplace.

Road rage. Air rage. Cell phone rage. And, yes, even Starbucks rage.

"We live in angry times," says Hot Buttons author Sybil Evans, and she should know. As one of America's leading experts on conflict resolution, Evans has worked with everyone from corporations the size of AT&T to the United States Tennis Association to couples on the brink of divorce. So what's the source of our growing hostility? Hot buttons.

"A hot button," Evans writes, "is an emotional trigger." Your hot buttons get pushed when people call you names, don't respond to you, take what belongs to you, challenge your competence, don't respect you, give you unsolicited advice, don't appreciate you, are condescending... and the list goes on. In Hot Buttons: How to Resolve Conflict and Cool Everyone Down, Evans and coauthor Sherry Suib Cohen claim that by recognizing what pushes your hot buttons--and by learning how not to push the hot buttons of others--conflicts can be avoided. Even more important is the ability to turn them off once they have been pushed. The book begins with a five-step formula for doing this: "watch the play," "confirm," "get more information," "assert your own interests and needs," and "find common ground for a solution." Once the authors have explained how to achieve each step, they cover just about every conceivable conflict under the sun and how to employ the five steps in each case. Added to the mix are a number of self-quizzes for identifying what sets you off and dozens of catchy quotes, termed "Hot-Button Hints," such as "When anger rises, think of the consequences" (Confucius).

One of the book's more interesting chapters deals with how hot buttons can be hazardous to your health. Other chapters include discussions of hot buttons and intimacy, the family, children, friendship, and the workplace. Evans's expertise is apparent throughout, though she does get repetitive, particularly when driving home her points with what seems like an endless supply of personal anecdotes from those she's worked with over the years. Still, among all the examples, readers will find fresh, creative ideas for quelling rages large and small. --Patrick Jennings