Guy,

Thank you for a spot-on post about how emotions are contagious. Remember the sage advice we all heard at some point ... "Leave your feelings at the door when you come to work."  The latest brain science research tells us this is not only bad advice, it's impossible.  We cannot leave our "human at the door" when we come to work.

If we understand the strengths and limitations of our human brain, we can choose to either react (and fuel dissonance) or respond (and build resonance).

Using the power of acknowledgment, as you described in your conversation, you simply simply acknowledged his emotion which resulted in his feeling trust.  Effectively, you pushed in the clutch and took the gearshift out of high gear (conflict, dissonance) and wiggled it a bit to be sure you were in neutral, then thoughtfully selected the gear he needed you to be in.  It was only then you could go in a solution-finding direction.  Simple, not always easy.

How many opportunities do we have each day to choose to respond and acknowledge an emotion (your own or another person's) or to react and fuel the fire?