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Dealing with High-Conflict People: Use the B.I.F.F. Method to Handle Hostile Communications Online, with Bill Eddy, Lawyer, Therapist and Author, 5 Types of People Who Can Ruin Your Life
Today we have a big problem with hostile communications, much of it in writing – emails, on Facebook, et cetera. So we developed a method called BIFF, Brief, Informative, Friendly and Firm. And writing emails we really have trained people in writing emails this way. By keeping them brief, informative, friendly and firm we don’t respond to hostility with hostility. We don’t respond to rudeness with rudeness. We don’t respond to misinformation with opinions and emotions, et cetera. So if someone let’s say writes you a really hostile email then you’re going to first of all feel kicked in the gut. I have to respond. You don’t always have to even respond, especially to an individual. But if they’ve written that to other people and to you and they’re criticizing you, you become their target of blame. Then I recommend that you should respond but with the BIFF format. So if they have a page saying how terrible you are, you might respond with a paragraph. And that keeps it brief.
Informative means some straight information. Maybe they’ve distorted some information and you want to say you may not realize it but this is the information. And give just the accurate statement. Avoid giving opinions, emotions, defenses. None of that is going to have a beneficial impact. You want to stay logic focused rather than emotional about it. That’ helps calm the conversation. Friendly. Have a friendly greeting. Thank you for writing me, telling me your concerns. At the end, you know, have a good weekend or something I appreciate. And then firm means end the conversation so that you’re not feeding more conflict. Now that could just be, you know, the have a nice weekend and it’s the end of the conversation. Sometimes you might need a response like if you still need that report given this information please let me know by Thursday at 5:00 and I’ll get it to you next week. Something like that. So please let me know yes or no by a specific time and day. So that would be a BIFF response – brief, informative, friendly and firm. And they really work. People feel good writing BIFF responses.