Hot Buttons: How to Resolve Conflict and Cool Everyone Down

When Was The Last Time Your Hot Button Was Pushed?

• Was it when someone at work ignored you or challenged your competence?
• Was it when your lover or spouse deeply hurt you with a mean comment?
• Was it when your best friend said or did something cruel -- and you had no idea why she felt such rage?
• Was it on the highway, when the guy in the next car gave you the finger?
• Was it when someone told you what to do -- for the millionth time?

And when was the last time you unwittingly pushed someone else's button? Did she explode? Did you lose a promotion, an opportunity, the trust of your child?

We live in sensitive times. Everyone's temper is quivering right at the surface, and it takes almost nothing to set off fury. When our buttons are pressed, many react by fighting back, but some of us just feel helpless and retreat from the conflict because we're sure we can't win the battle. We sense we're being manipulated or bullied, but we just can't deal with the anger in the air.

Well, now we can. Sybil Evans, a celebrated conflict resolution expert, widely known as the "Conflict Coach," has written Hot Buttons, an essential handbook with can't-fail techniques on how to get what we want without alienating people -- without pressing their buttons. Whether you're dealing with the office sadist, an unruly child, or the love of your life -- conflict can be a killer. But here's the irony: Conflict can also work for you, can be an energizing, inspiring, even sexy force if you know how to harness it. Hot Buttons shows you how.

Evans offers very specific tools to soothe angry lovers, smooth the rough edges of workplace tension, choose harmony instead of anger between family and friends, and also defuse road rage, cell phone rage, supermarket-line rage, gym rage, restaurant rage, and other banes of this volatile twenty-first century.

Her easy-to-follow Five-Step Formula is guaranteed to turn off hot buttons -- yours or someone else's. Loaded with self-test quizzes, written with humor and empathy, this wise and reassuring book can be the spur that finally changes your life.

When you know how to cool everyone down, when you can communicate so no one's buttons are pushed and everyone's needs are met, when you finally feel understood and respected, you have true power.

Seize the power. Turn off the hot buttons.

Sybil Evans is a nationally recognized specialist in conflict resolution and diversity issues. As president of the consulting firm Sybil Evans Associates, Evans is a widely sought after trainer and speaker, enriching the relationship skills of individuals and Fortune 500 companies, including Campbell's Soup, Avon, Lucent Technologies, and AT&T. The author of Resolving Conflict in a Diverse Workplace, she lives with her husband in New York.

Sherry Suib Cohen is the author of eighteen books, a contributing editor to McCall's, and an award-winning member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors. She lives with her husband in New York City.