The conversation began to head south, and Don, a highly intelligent but volatile employee, loaded up another salvo, "And while I'm at it, do you remember that time I brought up the idea of multi-up packaging for our products and you summarily shot it down? Well that really teed me off, too. I've had it! I think I should start looking around for another place to work. This is ridiculous. You never listen to me!"
A wave of anxiety cascaded down through Elaine's body, but she tried to compose herself and sound coherent. "Now Don, you're getting emotional on me here," she said. "Let's try to talk about this rationally. Let's look at the facts. You do bring up good ideas, but sometimes you're too forceful about it. Let me tell youÖ"
Have you ever heard a similar response in a conversation: the "you're getting emotional" argument? Unfortunately, we in the business world pride ourselves a bit too much about being reasonable, rational beings. We feel that we can fix anything with reason and logic. We can, but unfortunately we're rarely given adequate tools to dissect or diagnose this type of problem.
One of the axioms of conflict resolution is that everyone has a need to be heard. I think we've all heard the phrase, "I just want my day in court." This is about being heard. If you do not allow someone to speak their mind, the energy in those thoughts and words remains bottled up inside and ultimately emerges later. It can emerge as illness, an explosion of pent-up anger over many issues, departure from the organization, violence or a host of other undesired actions.
A useful tool for these situations is the Mirroring Dialog from the Imago couples therapy. This tool uses three elements: mirroring words back to the sender; validating the thoughts, feelings and emotions; and empathizing. Although this tool may initially take a lot of time to use, the benefit is that it allows the person to feel that they have been heard and that their thoughts and feelings are valid and acknowledged. The more it is used, the quicker the process becomes, and conflict can transform to mutual respect and goal attainment.
Another handy tool is the Drama Triangle, developed by Stephen Karpman as a part of the transactional analysis (TA) approach to therapy. This model outlines three common roles individuals adopt: victim, persecutor, and rescuer. It often works that an individual is feeling victimized by someone else, the persecutor, and tries to move the persecutor over to the role of rescuer.
For example, in our opening story, Don could easily have said to Elaine that she's repressing him and his ideas, and that she needs to change to be more open and responsive. By painting a picture of repression, he is depicting himself as the victim and Elaine as the persecutor, and attempting to get her to change to rescue him from bondage.
If you can use this model to identify the emerging roles in a conflict, you will make it more rational, less personal and less confrontational, and provide a framework within which to break the issue down into parts that can be dealt with calmly and methodically. It provides a structure within which to resolve the conflict.
The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI) is a good tool to use individually or in groups to assess conflict styles. This short, 30-question instrument uses two dimensions, assertive-unassertive and cooperative-uncooperative, to classify the respondent's behavior in situations of conflict into one of five groups: collaborating, competing, compromising, avoiding or accommodating.
As individuals understand their conflict style, they can start to observe themselves in times of conflict. This is where renewal occurs. Imagine someone who has taken this assessment and it reflects that his primary conflict style is competitive. Now, if he is willing to make the effort and take the time, he will be able to observe his actions from the side, or what is sometimes called the witness state. This provides a vantage point from which to observe the behavior and reaction of all parties involved. As these dynamics are observed more frequently, instead of reacting automatically or unconsciously, and the individual becomes aware of the behavioral choices available.
Anger is an emotion that is often expressed during conflict. My experience has been that anger, at its heart, is caused by expectations or attachments. Don, in our story above, had an expectation that Elaine would listen to him and respect his ideas. When that did not occur, he became angry. If Elaine did not change and he remained angry, he would have become attached to his desire for respect and recognition.
And so, as you lead your team and conflicts occur, how will you choose to handle the conflict? Hopefully your awareness of these tools and ideas will allow you to approach conflict a bit differently and be able to resolve it to everyone's satisfaction.
Joel DiGirolamo heads the firm Turbocharged Leadership (www.turbochargedleadership.com), and has a BSEE, MBA, and an MS psychology degree. You can contact him at joel@jdigirolamo.com.