The People Bulletin

It may not be ranked in the top 20 phobias, but I’d bet that for many (if not most) people, conflict scores high in things to be avoided at all costs.

That’s certainly been our experience over the 20 years we’ve been running training programmes for companies: people steer clear of conflict if it’s at all humanly possible.  Steering clear creates all kinds of additional problems that go beyond the original conflict situation that triggered the avoidance in the first place. 

Escalation

Here’s a great example of what I mean.  Many years ago we were called in to work with a group of managers who had to conduct formal appraisals for the first time.  As we were assessing these managers’ skills it became clear that some of them allowed situations to escalate that could easily have been nipped in the bud if the fear of conflict hadn’t been so great.

In one instance, there was a manager who was getting hot under the collar because one of his team (let’s call her Lisa) was making too many personal phone calls.  A ‘normal’ manager might have addressed this situation by:

a) making a joke of it: “Hey Lisa, just need you to put on the brakes on those personal phone calls.”;
b) a quiet word to set some boundaries: “Lisa, it would be much better for the team if you limited the number of personal calls you make during working hours.”; or even
c) a more formal approach: “Lisa, I’m finding the number of personal calls you make during the day disruptive and I’m concerned it’s affecting your work.”

Actually, he could have done just about anything except what he did do. He kept a log of every time she made a personal call and after six months (six months!) took the log to HR and asked them to handle it.  What had started out as a simple word in Lisa’s ear became a far more serious issue where HR was brought in to give her a warning.  All because of his fear of conflict.

What are people afraid of?

What exactly are people so afraid of that they don’t manage conflict well so that everyone feels OK about it?  This is what people have told me, the other person might:

• cry;
• get furious;
• deny there’s a problem;
• storm out;
• quit;
• tell other people how horribly they’ve been treated;
• gossip;
• sulk;
• be desperately hurt; or
• feel demotivated.

Any and all of those things might happen, and any and all of them could also not happen.  What’s is happening in these situations is that the person who has to initiate the conflict imagines these worst case scenarios in their head and the more they imagine the worst, the more paralysed they become and then the excuses start flying.  Here are a few I’ve heard: 

• "it’ll blow over";
• "it’ll fix itself on its own";
• "of course they must realise what the problem is";
• "I don’t have to bring it to their attention";
• "someone else will notice and tell them";
• "I was thinking of suggesting they move to another department where they’ll get on better"; and
• "maybe they’ll leave so there’s no need to rock the boat".

Before I get into solutions, one other thing that often occurs is that the conflict avoider gets increasingly frustrated that none of the above actually happens so that one day they explode over the tiniest of incidents and crush the other person with their accumulated vitriol.  That doesn’t get anyone anywhere either.

Solutions

In order to manage conflict effectively you do have to own up to your own avoidance tactics because otherwise you’ll still be deluding yourself that conflict is something that doesn’t have to happen.  It does.  And the purpose of conflict in workplace situations?  To achieve a resolution.

Here are some things you can do to tackle and perhaps even initiate conflict in order to resolve difficulties:

• Deal with things as they arise. This seems so obvious, but I am staggered by the number of times people wait and wait to do something and then the good moment has passed and either the other person doesn’t remember the situation and/or festering has begun.  It also means that you have to give up the fantasy that the conflict will get fixed all by itself, without human intervention.
• Avoid blaming. Create dialogue and let the other person know the impact their behaviour has on you or the team or the company rather than tell them what they’ve done wrong.  Blaming perpetuates conflict, it doesn’t resolve it.
• Set clear boundaries and expectations. This will put paid to the notion that the other person ought to know they’re in the wrong and somehow be able to read your mind that you’re upset.  Giving them a ‘look’ or expecting them to know what bothers you is simply not on.  By setting boundaries you can be really specific about what would be helpful to make the relationship work better.
• Stop colluding and gossiping.  This goes hand in hand with evidence collecting, where the more people you find who agree with how awful the other person is, the more you can avoid doing anything about it.  Gossip also keeps alive disagreements and tensions.
• Get support.  You don’t have to manage all conflict on your own.  If you know a difficult conversation is on the cards you might look to someone else to be an objective mediator who can bring the two ‘sides’ together.
• Build bridges. Discord often arises because people have conflicting points of view.  A great skill is to be able to see a situation from the other person’s point of view and acknowledge where they are coming from.  Everyone likes to be recognised rather than have their opinions dismissed out of hand.  Giving credit where credit is due can go a long way to finding common ground.

It’s up to you.  We are great believers that if you can take charge of a situation with the aim of resolution, then conflict is indeed something to be relished and not avoided.  The more you practise, the better you will get at it.