Here’s Exactly What to do When Someone is Disrespectful to You, Says Communication Expert

We’ve all been there: Someone says something disrespectful to you at work, and you simply freeze up. During these moments, it can be hard to think of a good response right away. 

Minutes, hours, or days after the incident, you finally realize what you should have said, which can lead to even more frustration and regret. 

It doesn’t have to be this way. As a communication coach, here’s my best advice for how to prepare for and navigate moments like these.

1. Practice like an athlete 

In football, quarterbacks will train for something called “off-platform throws,” developing their skills to deliver the ball accurately from any angle. Speakers can do the same.

There’s an exercise I give my students to help them learn how to speak calmly with intention, especially when someone is hurtful or disrespectful to them.

These steps are meant to help you develop muscle memory of a tall, confident posture, to put you more at ease in unpredictable situations. 

• Visualize your head as a helium balloon and your feet as the heavy roots of a towering tree. Then visualize the balloon rising higher and the roots growing deeper. 
• Practice doing this five minutes a day. Then add speaking to the mix and take a page out of athletic training by using a ball.
• Stand within throwing distance of a wall. Practice maintaining that tall posture, then throw and catch the ball as you bounce it off the wall
• Let the unpredictability and variety of the ball speed and angle remind you to stay ready for everything. Continue to throw the ball and talk with intentional speed, pauses, and volume.

2. Pause and collect yourself 

Next, practice what I call transparency phrases. They are easy to remember and can help you be mentally ready when you’re caught off guard — so you don’t feel compelled to respond instantly or say something you might regret. 

A few examples:

• “I need some time to digest what you just said.”
• “Your comment really took me off guard. I have to think about that.”
• “I’m surprised by that. I’m going to sit with that for a second.”

Choose any one of these that you feel most comfortable saying, then stress test it with that exercise from the first step.

Grab a ball and throw it against a wall. As you catch it, practice keeping your posture tall and confident while claiming the time you need to consider your reply.

3. Get your power back 

When someone is rude to you, it’s natural to take it personally and want to respond the same way. That’s not how you take control of the situation. Instead, after your transparency phrase, the next thing you say should bring the conversation back to the task at hand. 

Take some of the emotion out of your response by having some work-focused terms at the ready. The mnemonic device I like to use is “P” words, to help you get your power back — think ones like “procedure,” “protocol,” “paradigm,” “plan,” and “position.”

• “If we return to the plan we’ve developed…”
• “Just to remind us of the protocol that we’re working with…”
• “Let’s take a step back and look at the process that brought us here…”

The minute someone uses an inappropriate and personal slight against you to assert dominance, they have made a decision to bully their way to their desired outcome. 

But if you anchor the discussion back to one of those work-focused terms, you can reassert your territory, demonstrate your ability to contribute to the conversation, and gracefully expose their approach as inappropriate and ineffective. 

Done together, these three habits can help you navigate the inevitable moments of disrespect we all face, with your composure intact.

Written by: Michael Chad Hoeppner, communication coach and  author, for CNBC.com