I recently was a panelist at a corporate wellness event advising staff members how to navigate conflict at work. Together with some internal managers from that organisation, we presented recommendations that enable individuals to better understand their conflict style and be able to protect their mental health during conflict situations as they occur.
I commend those organisations that are willing to bring the topic of “conflict” out from the shadows, learn to better understand and practice what it means to become a healthy workplace, and give their employees the opportunity to explore how they might, individually, better deal with conflict in the workplace.
Workplace conflict can lead not only to wasted time within the work environment but also higher employee turnover, poor decision making, grievances complaints and legal processes, absenteeism and health issues, workplace violence, and organisations being labelled as toxic workplaces. It costs people personally and the organisation in terms of reputation and productivity.
Conflict in the workplace does not occur in a vacuum. Individuals bring their physiology and history of conflict into discussions at work, as well as their socialised approach to conflict. The environment, including line management, senior managers, task descriptions, attitudes to collaboration and differing points of view, as well as the culture of an organisation all play a role in conflict creation, and management.
In this article I am going to mostly focus on the individual’s role in workplace conflict and what we can do in the moment to lessen conflict. Whilst I might be commenting on what you can do to improve your experience of conflict this doesn’t mean that you are solely responsible to resolve conflict at work. Rather, by looking at conflict on a individual level I hope to enable each reader to explore their role, their reactions, and ultimately, their responsibility to respond in a way that helps them protect their mental health.
What components inform your individual conflict style?
The problem for many of us, as adults, in the workplace is that our techniques for dealing with conflict have been shaped from our experiences from childhood, not taught to us specifically as adults. Often, we learn how to deal with workplace conflict from experience. We have difficulty handing conflict, both in our personal and professional lives, because we are designed poorly to deal with perceived threats.
Inside the work environment we are under pressure to perform, maintain our jobs and reach KPIs, as well as, in a post COVID world, survive restructuring and reorganization as companies adapt to work practices and market forces.
Looking at the attached simplified view of workplace conflict we can explore the individual’s role in workplace conflict.
Most people have trouble with difficult conversations and hence avoid them. Perceiving conflict can make us feel unsafe, and as a consequence we revert to practices that help us soothe ourselves and feel safe again. Our fight or flight responses kick in leading to basic avoidance or battleground approaches.
Avoidance approaches: Sometimes this means avoidance of conflict, or looking for a white knight – a person to take over your fight for you, or protect you against the person you see yourself in conflict with.
Battleground approaches: Sometimes it means taking a more battlefields style response such as building alliances, ‘poisoning the well’ at work by bad mouthing the person you are in conflict with, taking absolution positions (demanding your way, or expecting complete admissions of wrongdoing), allocating a valiant warrior – a person to battle your perspective for you, or even exiting the organisation.
Good conflict management requires good emotional awareness, emotional regulation, and an ability to reflect accordingly, especially on the messages you are feeding yourself about what the conflict itself, and your conflict adversary, mean to you.
Your personal background, especially how you were raised can influence which conflict style you have become accustomed to using. In some with, a child may be taught to avoid conflict at all cost. Perhaps dealing with a parent who is quick to anger, may encourage some children to want to flee from conflict as a safety mechanism. Other people may be raised that if you don’t stand up for yourself and assert your point of view, you will be ignored or miss out on opportunities. Think about how your family of origin may have informed your conflict style.
Your emotional awareness and ability to regulate your emotions.
Being able to manage how you respond to escalating conflict in a situation is extremely important to help people come to satisfactory decisions within organisations. If during a conflict you are subject to an outburst of anger, or yourself start to insult or shout at others in the room, it becomes challenging to continue dialogue from a calm position. You cannot un-ring the bell of hostility, and sometimes you need a complete reset to get a meeting back onto a constructive agenda.
The following reflections and activities may help you manage a contentious meeting remaining aware of your emotional state, and helping you better regulate your emotional responses within challenging situations.
Before you meet with someone you are in conflict with thoughts to consider. Creating your own “personal pre-meeting”.
Be prepared to enter any emotionally charged conversation in a positive mindset ready to make a deal. Repeat to yourself, “I choose to be open to the ideas of others, stay positive and engaged in this meeting, and know that I bring value to this organisation”
Contemplate the meaning of any concession. It’s important to consider what does it mean to you if you have to concede in the meeting. Does this mean that you have lost? What does that mean in term of your sense of self, your perceived self-value? Imagine conceding territory as part of your prep, and practice self-affirmations that might make this feel okay if you find this threatening. I am not advising your to concede, but sometimes contemplating compromise on, and understanding what it means to you, might make you more comfortable accepting concession if you have to.
Think about your long-term goals. Take some perspective on the issue at hand, before you meet to discuss it, if you have time. Ask yourself, “In a year, will this issue be important to my career?”.
How to better support yourself during meetings where conflict is present.
If you are going to be attending a meeting where conflict may become a feature, you may want to start the meeting by setting respectful communication guidelines. Such guidelines are possibly set at a company level as guiding principles. For example, you might express, “Whilst people often have differences of opinion lets agree that insults, raised voices, insulting gestures, and threats can not be part of any dialogue we need to have when we discuss x,y,z”.
Whenever possible use active listening within your meeting. When you are discussing a topic with someone you view in an adversarial position, really try to listen to what they are saying rather than focusing on what you can say to out-smart them, or as a counter point. When we listen with curiously, we give our full attention we can demonstrate that we have heard what has been said, making our dialogue partners more open to our perspectives.
Validate what you hear. Listening is not just about hearing and repeating what your colleague says, it is about validating what has been said. Offering validation involves demonstrating that you understand other’s experiences. You might say something like, “I can see why you felt that way in that situation”, or “I think a lot of people would see that topic the way you do? When we model understanding we keep dialogue more positive.
Take the perspective of the team versus the problem. Rather than looking at the situation as me versus you, can you consider that you and your teammate are a team working to solve a problem together.
Remind yourself of the goal of any interaction is to achieve some activity which is meaningful for your company – you will always benefit from taking a private and honest approach to looking at the company’s goal versus your own needs or agenda.
When you are in the meeting, mind your language choices and personal filters.
Check your adjectives. We can review our use of judgmental terms and filters which may lead us to sound dismissive, or superior to our colleagues. Value everyone’s points of view as worthy. For example. During difficult discussion people describe their, and other’s perspectives using judgmental terms. Your proposed approach you might describe as “efficient, creative, client-focused”. Many of these terms are actually judgement rather than facts. You may find yourself describing your adversary’s proposal as “wasteful, incomplete” Many proposals can be correct, one does not need to take the absolute ‘Win’. Paradoxically sometimes value judgement terms come after the phrase, “No offence, but…”.
Block yourself from over using the term “you”. When we use the term “you” in discussions this can easily remind people of the divide between you. I see things this way, and You see them differently. You want this. You see it this way. Instead, you can ask questions. I would like to hear your perspective on this idea. This sounds more open and more inviting and less likely to be interpreted as attacking.
Avoid absolute terms – another form of judgmental language that can create a divide when talking is to avoid terms such as ‘never’, ‘always’, ‘nobody’, and ‘everything. When we use these terms, our objective is often to add to the value of our point of view, or to dismiss the value of another person’s point of view. However very few occurrences occur in such universal absolute terms and they can backfire making you look rigid and sanctimonious.
As a member of the meeting encourage yourself to be curious and generous to the other parties in a meeting. Remember people act and react to situations for a number of reasons you may not be aware of. They may be quick to negative commentary because they are tired from looking after a sick child, rather than they have an intention to upset you.
In addition to being curious about your conflict partner, check yourself if you are acting respectfully and kindly in your meeting. If you approach conflict in a battlefield mentality, you may be more interested in ‘scoring points’ rather than being kind when you talk.
During a meeting where conflict exists between individuals you might start to feel as if your emotions are building to problematic levels. We call this condition being “flooded”. If you are flooded by fear, anger, or anxiety, it will be advisable to take a pause so that you can calm your body.
In the meeting – Taking a pause if it is needed.
During such a pause you may like to take some time to ground yourself. Grounding activities allow you to calm your body, sometimes through breathing activities or through distraction activities. Please see the tagged article at the end of this blog, addressing emergency responses when you feel flooded by anxiety. The same activities can be helpful when you feel angry.
During the pause, in addition to grounding activities you can also practice emotionally soothing language to yourself. Imagine you are talking to yourself, full of self-compassion, and as you would speak to a small child. Remind yourself that you are okay and that conflict is also not a catastrophe. Different opinions are not only okay, they also present everyone with opportunities to learn.
A pause can be 10 minutes or longer. Taking a pause to allow meeting participants to calm down, should not be utilised as a method to avoid reconvening to continue an important discussion. If a mediator is involved in the meeting, they may want to remind people about the respectful communication rules of the organisation.
Learning more about your conflict style and how you can better manage conflict situations in the future.
Perspective – take a moment to think about if the current conflict will still affect you in a year. This helps us take a higher level of resolving the topic. Will this decision matter in a year?
Look for the meaning in your own need to win or avoid the conflict. Conflicts at work are similar to conflicts between romantic partners – the stated issue is often not the real issue that underlies the conflict. It is important to explore the meaning you attach to the event or issue. For example, would “losing” a conflict diminish your need to be recognised as a subject matter expert? If you feel this way, you might like to ask yourself how is your internal and external value as a subject matter expert built and does this conflict really matter in building a stronger sense of yourself?
As yourself what is your narrative? When we look for meaning in a situation you can help create some perspective by asking yourself, “What is the story I am telling myself in this situation” This type of internal reflection allows us to better understand what our beliefs about other people’s motivation and the perceived value of winning and losing in a situation. We benefit from exploring what is a fact, and what is a personal interpretation in a situation.
Reflect about your role in your relationship with your adversary. We can sometimes demonize the person that we are in conflict with. People resist you because they think you don’t care about them, not because they don’t care of you. How have you demonized your adversary? Do you really know what motivates them, or have you made assumptions about them?
Who can help you?
All parties involved in a conflict at work pay a major role when conflict at work is not well managed – including the organisation. People in conflict are not more or less valuable than each other, but in practice some organisations may give more resources and better support those who are seen to be a key contributor to the bottom line of the company. This is sometimes a feature of conflicts we see involving compliance representatives versus sales people in financial organisations.
Within an organisation you may look to discuss conflict management with your line manager, or your HR partner. Sometimes people do not feel safe engaging with those roles, and we has managers of organisations need to better create circumstances to help employees manage conflict, After all, differences of opinion are a healthy component of a productive workplace.
Sometimes you need to look outside of your organisation to enable your better navigate workplace conflict. A good counsellor is a person you can consider as a confidential resource who is completely on your side.
Should you stay, or should you go?
Deciding if an organisation is a good or poor fit for you is completely your decision. When individuals come to counselling to talk about their experience of conflict at work, we will help by asking a series of reflective questions that help those individuals stand aside from the problem, so that the decision may be easier to make. There is significant value in working with an objective person outside of your organisation who is qualified to help you prioritize and protect your mental health. IN addition to aiding your to frame the should I go, or should I stay” question, they can also help you brainstorm the other career ideas, and coping mechanisms.
You can discuss with people around you, or a counsellor or coach in order to fully review your perspective on the situation. Some of the question your might discuss include:
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- Who am I responsible to?
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- What am I responsible for?
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- Ask yourself – how is my conflict style working in this situation?
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- Ask yourself – Can the situation change?
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- Ask yourself – Can I change myself in the situation?
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- Think ahead – what would be the consequence of you staying silent? Or speaking up?
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- Look around – how have similar situations in the organisation been treated in the past?
Then, write it down and make a plan – shall you stay, or should you go? Below are some items you might like to consider.
Workplaces want to attract the top talent. The 2022 Women in the workplace report by the consultancy group McKinsey suggests that senior women want to work for organisations which represent healthy workplaces practices, and that demonstrate their commitment to these values beyond superficial communications. Building positive methods of conflict management is part of this.
If you are confused by conflict at work, consider discussing your situation with a counsellor. The team at Red Door are all experienced and qualified are all qualified to deal with this topic with their individual clients.
About the author: Angela Watkins is a counsellor and psychologist working out of RED DOOR counselling in Hong Kong. Angela has been voted the best therapist in Hong Kong. For appointment with Angela, and other Red Door counsellors contact us at Angelaw@reddoor.hk or SMS/ Whatsapp +852-93785428
https://reddoorhongkong.wordpress.com/2022/03/07/anxiety-attacks-emergency-responses/
Genny, J., Patterson, K., McMillan, R., Switzler, A. S., and Gregory, E. (2023) Crucial conversations. 3rd Ed.
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