So, when you say upset I’m assuming, like, angry, frustrated, loud, animated. Hopefully, if you’ve prepared appropriately you’ve set the ground rules at the beginning of the meeting. You’ve said something like, “Look, this is an uncomfortable meeting for me. I expect it’s an uncomfortable meeting for you. I’m going to treat you with great respect, and I’m going to expect that you treat me respectfully.”

So, if you get to the point where somebody isn’t treating you respectfully, you can say, “Well, wait a minute. Now, we agreed at the beginning that there was a certain way this was going to go, and I’ll give you some time to yourself to collect yourself and I’ll step out. And then you just come knock on the door and let me know when you’re ready to talk some more.” If you need to, remove yourself from the situation. Even just say, “I can’t talk to you anymore because you aren’t in a place where we can have effective communication or I’m feeling that we’re not that way.”

Give them the chance to reel it back in, and for those folks who you have signs that they might be a problem, I think you need to do a violence assessment beforehand. Do you need to have a security guard around? Do you need to sit so you’re closest to the door so they can’t keep you in a room that you don’t want to be in? Things like that.