Resolving Conflict in the Workplace – It’s Not Too Late

Chances are, at some point in your career, you’ve worked with someone you wished would go away. Maybe the person repeatedly threw you under the bus, took credit for your work, or didn’t keep his commitments. And at some point, you wrote the person off, and have been merely tolerating him ever since.

Damaged relationships can be repaired, if you’re willing to do some work.

The first step in repairing a damaged relationship is to decide that you really want to do so. Managing conflict in the workplace isn’t easy. It will take effort and will likely be uncomfortable. So before you take action, decide if you really want to work on the relationship.

How to know if you should even try resolving conflict in the workplace: Ask yourself how much you need the relationship. This probably sounds political, and it is. If you work on projects together, need to give or receive information, or have to work together regularly, then it’s likely worth working on the relationship. If you don’t need to work together regularly, then perhaps don’t work on the relationship.

If you decide to attempt to strengthen a relationship, plan what you’re going to say. Never trust the first thing that comes out of your mouth during a difficult conversation.

Step one for resolving conflict in the workplace: Like any feedback conversation, start with the end in mind. Consider what you want to have happen as a result of the conversation.

Step two for resolving conflict in the workplace: Plan what you’re going to say by taking notes and practicing out loud. What you say in your head is usually not what comes out of your mouth.

Step three for resolving conflict in the workplace: Ask the person for time on his calendar. People don’t like surprises. You’ll have a better outcome if the person has blocked time to talk with you. Have the conversation in-person whenever possible. If you can’t speak in-person, talk on the phone. Do not attempt to fix your relationship via email. 1. Email is wimpy. 2. It will not work.

Tell the person, “Our relationship is strained. I don’t think I’m saying anything we’re not both aware of. I’d really like a good working relationship. Would you be willing to have coffee or lunch with me, and we can talk about what has happened and perhaps start in a new way?”

Step four for resolving conflict in the workplace: Ask for a meeting to work on the relationship up to three times. If, after the third time, the person hasn’t made time, stop asking. You can’t work with someone who won’t work with you. If the person doesn’t make time to meet, be polite, professional, and inclusive, but stop trying to nurture the relationship. Inclusive means: cc’ing him on necessary emails, inviting him to appropriate meetings, and providing necessary data.

Step five for resolving conflict in the workplace: If the person makes time to meet, speak candidly, be yourself, and be vulnerable. I don’t mean set yourself up to be killed. I do mean be authentic.

How to Manage Difficult Conversations:

1. Tell the person what you want.
2. Ask for feedback about how you’ve damaged the relationship.
3. Listen to what you hear, and resist the urge to defend yourself.
4. Ask for permission to tell him how he’s damaged the relationship.
5. Give small amounts of feedback, with a few specific examples.
6. Make agreements of what each of you will do differently in the future.
7. Thank the person for the conversation and schedule another meeting.

Step six for resolving conflict in the workplace: Build in follow-up. Most people have one conversation and expect things to be fixed, forever. Relationships don’t work that way. Agree to meet monthly, for the first few months, until you’ve rebuilt trust and learned how to communicate and work together. During the monthly meetings, give each other permission to give candid feedback about how you’re working together. I call these Relationship Inventory Meetings™.

During monthly Relationship Inventory Meetings™ ask:

• What’s working about how we work together?
• What’s not working?

• What working agreements did we keep?
• What working agreements did we break?

• Which working agreements are helpful?
• What working agreements need to change?

You might be thinking, “I don’t like this person. I don’t want to work with him. And I definitely don’t want to have these uncomfortable conversations.”

1. If the nature of your relationship is impacting your ability to do your job, your professional reputation, or your happiness, all of those consequences are far worse and more long-lasting than any conversation will be.

2. The conversations won’t be as bad as you think. No one will tell you anything you can’t handle, because for the most part, they’re afraid of your reaction and they know they’ll be next.

Conflict in the workplace and damaged relationships keep people up at night, reduce job satisfaction, and often motivate people to leave jobs. If you’re experiencing any of these things, all of them are worse than any conversation will be. The anticipation of the conversation is far worse than the conversation itself.

1. Decide if you want to strengthen the relationship.
2. Plan the conversation.
3. Ask for time to meet.
4. Have the conversation. Speak honestly, but responsibly.
5. Plan to have another conversation before ending this conversation.
6. Congratulate yourself for being courageous and picking happiness over anxiety and frustration. Suffering is optional.

Repair Your Professional Reputation – It’s Not Too Late

Changing a damaged reputation is challenging. My number one piece of advice: Be very overt about the changes you’re making.

Here are eight steps to discover and repair your professional reputation:

Step one to repair your professional reputation: Make a list of people who observe your performance and who can impact your career. If you’re not sure who these people are, ask your boss and peers. They know.

Step two to repair your professional reputation: Ask for specific, candid feedback at least twice a year, and tell people why you’re asking for the information.

Asking, “How am I doing?” is not specific. Instead, say something like, “I want to learn more about my reputation in the office and want to eliminate my blind spots. I’d be grateful for any input you can provide on my reputation and what people say about me when I’m not there.” Then schedule a specific time in the near future to discuss the feedback, so you don’t catch people off guard. You’ll get better feedback when people have had a chance to observe your behavior and think about what they’d like to say.

Step three to repair your professional reputation: Listen to the feedback and no matter how hard the feedback is to hear, say, “Thank you for telling me that.” Don’t defend yourself. Instead, leave the conversation, think about what the person has said, and then go back to him a few days later with questions, if you need to.

Step four to repair your professional reputation: If the feedback you receive doesn’t feel accurate, tell others who you trust about the feedback and ask them to provide input.

Step five to repair your professional reputation: Sit with the feedback before taking action. Let yourself be emotional. You might feel angry, sad, or betrayed. All of those are normal responses to feedback.

Step six to repair your professional reputation: Take action. Make changes that feedback providers suggested.

Step seven to repair your professional reputation: Tell people who provided input and who are impacted by your behavior about the changes you’ve made. You could say, “I recently received feedback that I’m not careful enough and that my work often has errors. I’m really working on this. Will you pay attention to the accuracy of what you receive from me and let me know if you see changes? I’d really appreciate your input.”

Step seven is very important and something people rarely do. Don’t assume people will notice the changes you’ve made. Instead, assume they won’t. Without being told what to look for, the decisions people have already made about you will supersede changes you’ve made. It takes a lot of effort to see people differently. Validating what we already know and think about someone is much easier and more likely than noticing changes.

Step eight to repair your professional reputation: Continue to ask for feedback. Receiving feedback is not a one-time-event. It’s an ongoing process. Don’t ask for feedback weekly, rather check in once a quarter, tell people the changes you’ve made, and ask for specific input.

You can change your reputation, if you want to. Doing so will require courage, openness, and effort on your part. Work on one or two things at a time, not ten. And then reward yourself for the changes you’ve made with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, because too often we’re hard on ourselves and forget to celebrate wins.

Manage Up to Give Feedback

Most employees are afraid of getting fired. As a result, employees are often afraid of the most senior people in organizations, simply because of their titles. The better the title, the scarier people are. And if employees are scared of organizational leaders, they’re not going to be inclined to give those leaders negative feedback. The most senior people in an organization get the least information of anyone.

No one likes to be told that he is wrong. Negative feedback tells the person he did something wrong. But there is more than one way to give feedback. Asking questions can be equally as effective as giving direct feedback.

If you want to give a senior person negative feedback, but you’re afraid of the consequences, manage up by asking more and saying less..

Here are some ways to manage up by asking questions:

Rather than saying, “I disagree, I think you’re wrong, or this is a mistake,” consider managing up by asking questions like:

• We’ve chosen to invest a lot in this software. I wasn’t here when the software was chosen. What’s the history of this initiative?
• What were the criteria for selection?
• How do you think it’s going?
• What are you concerned about?
• What are you satisfied with?
• What else have we tried?
• What are your thoughts about…?
• What if we tried…?

Asking questions gets the person involved in a discussion, during which you can eventually express your point of view. When you ask questions, you say very little, and definitely don’t call the person’s decision-making into question.

 Human beings are wired for survival. Receiving negative feedback kicks the need to defend oneself into gear, hence why people become defensive when they receive negative feedback. Negative feedback calls survival into question. If you don’t want people to become defensive, don’t require them to defend themselves. A discussion, during which you ask questions, is much less threatening than overtly disagreeing with someone’s point of view.

Asking questions takes more time and more patience than giving direct feedback. But it also takes less courage, and the quality of your relationship doesn’t have to be as good. You need a pretty good relationship to give direct feedback. If you don’t have that relationship, manage up by asking questions instead of being so direct.

If you do choose to ask questions, watch your tone. If you can safely add the words “you dummy” to a question, you aren’t really asking a question, you’re giving feedback, which is likely to evoke the defensive response you’re seeking to avoid.

It’s important to be able to express your point-of-view at work. Staying in a job or organization in which you can’t speak up, doesn’t feel great and doesn’t leverage the best of what you have to offer. But if you’re concerned about giving direct feedback, manage up by asking questions.  Say less. Ask more.

Conflict Resolution in the Workplace – Speak Up!

Keeping with the theme of happiness and well-being during this holiday season, I’m hoping you’ll steer clear of the people and things that don’t make you feel good.

If you have a friend who talks only about herself, even after you’ve repeatedly given her this feedback, perhaps stop hanging out with her.

If you have a habit that you know isn’t in your best interest, perhaps break it.

The suggestions above are hard to do, but even harder is navigating relationships with people you can’t avoid. These are the people who when they show up on your caller ID, you often think, “not today,” and let the call go to voicemail.

Here are eight techniques for managing challenging relationships and conflict resolution in the workplace:

Conflict Resolution in the Workplace Technique #1: Know that there are difficult people in every organization. You can leave your job to get away from the person who makes you crazy. But I promise you, he will be waiting for you at the next organization in a different body.

Conflict Resolution in the Workplace Technique #2: Don’t ignore challenging relationships and expect things to get better without your intervention. They won’t. Deal with strained relationships head on.

Conflict Resolution in the Workplace Technique #3: Work on relationships in person or over the phone, not via email.

Conflict Resolution in the Workplace Technique #4: The time to fix a relationship is when there’s nothing wrong. Have hard conversations when things in your relationship are calm and you’re not upset, otherwise the conversations are likely to quickly escalate.

Conflict Resolution in the Workplace Technique #5: Give people the benefit of the doubt. People are doing the best they can. If people knew another way to do something, they would do it that way.

Conflict Resolution in the Workplace Technique #6: Let the other person save face. The more critical we are, the more the other person will feel compelled to defend himself. It’s almost impossible to have a useful conversation with someone who is in defense mode.

Conflict Resolution in the Workplace Technique #7: Ask for what you want. Rather than telling people everything they do wrong, make requests. That could sound something like, “Would you be willing to talk with me directly when my team is frustrating your team? I’ll do everything I can to make things right.” Or, “If you need something from me that you’re not getting, will you give me a call? I’d rather hear about challenges directly from you than from someone else.”

Conflict Resolution in the Workplace Technique #8: Be vulnerable. If you want a better relationship with someone, tell her. If a relationship is strained or broken, chances are, the other person knows. You could say something like, “I think we both know this relationship is strained. I want you to know that I’d really like a good working relationship with you. If you’d like to get together for lunch or coffee and talk about what has gone on, I’d really like that. Perhaps we can start in a new way.”

If you don’t want to be that direct, perhaps considering saying something like, “I just want you to know that I really want a good working relationship with you. What can I do to ensure you and your department get what you need from me? What’s one change I can make that would make the biggest difference for you?”

Damaged and strained relationships won’t get better without your intervention. Ask for what you want. Be positive, be yourself, and be honest. And if the person doesn’t play ball with you, you’ll know that you’ve done what you can.