Anger is a gift

“Anger is a gift.”–-Zach de la Rocha, Rage Against the Machine

There will be times in your career when someone is irate about a situation and raging at you, the embodiment of the uncaring machine, so I think it appropriate to explore the possibility presented in the quote from the lead singer of Rage Against the Machine.

It seldom feels good, in the moment, to be the recipient of blunt words or scathing commentary about unfair systems, incompetent people who ought to be fired, etc. But I’ve found over the years that refining this skill leaves you a lot calmer at the end of the day.

Aristotle said: “Anyone can become angry – that is easy, but to be angry with the right person at the right time, and for the right purpose and in the right way – that is not within everyone’s power and that is not easy. “

I did my best to keep this in mind last weekend.  It was Welcome Week, and students were arriving on campus in a steady stream all weekend long. For most, Arrival at Penn State is almost a non-event. We have a knack for planning arrival, and wide group of people from Residence Life to Parking and the ID Office meet several times a semester to debrief on the previous arrival, and move on to planning the next.

This attention to detail helps smooth out the arrival experience for most, but at a school this large (approximately 14,000 of our 42,000 students at main campus live in the halls) There are going to be problems. Most are easy to resolve, but this doesn’t always happen.

Some people just aren’t good at being appropriately angry. As such, any bad situation really isn’t  about you, it’s about them. And while going over how a problem happened is interesting, it is not always relevant to solving the problems.  So I take the abuse, and focus instead on finding a solution and ignoring the anger. This approach keeps me sane and helps move the situation toward resolution.

Some key take-aways I have learned from dealing with angry people are:

1. When someone is brutally honest about how they feel, at least it’s honest. Concentrate on that. Acknowledge that. And say to yourself, as much as possible “This is not about me, it’s about the problem in front of me. It will only be about me if I don’t try to find a solution.”
2. Once you are aware of a problem, you can brainstorm solutions, rather than dwelling on how the problem happened in the first place.
3. Anger creates a sense of urgency to move forward and come up with at least a temporary solution. (Nobody likes it when people are mad at them.)
4. Even when a permanent solution can’t be found, having an even keel throughout a situation is essential. Responding to anger in ways that are calm shows you your mettle and helps you save your energy for another day and time.

So, in the end, anger can bring honesty into a conversation, encourage creative thinking, build a sense of urgency around solving a problem, and show you “what you are made of.”  So anger is not a problem. Don’t return it to sender. Open it up, take a good look, and see what you can learn from it. Anger is a gift.