This concept is something I picked up in one of the newsletters from Donald Miller. Email can be a dangerous way of communicating, things heat up easily. Emotions are misread. People that should be involved aren’t and the other persons in the conversations think this is on purpose: fire. Someone is trying to make a joke that does not land. You know which ones I mean.

You can make a difference by following this rule: always try to defuse the conversation. The easy route: show your frustration and let the thread explode. The hard route: understand the others, let them know you get it, maybe sleep on it a night, and think of a way to resolve the issues.

Pick the hard route.