1. The “fight” response often leads to the “power-play” approach – raised voice, aggressive body language, and emotional outbursts. Power-plays usually lead to hurt feelings and damaged relationships.
2. The “flight” response often leads to the “walk-away” approach – withdrawal, leaving the room, and avoidance. Walk-aways leave conflict unresolved and issues unaddressed.

Following a simple process to control these inappropriate responses can help you to effectively self-mediate many interpersonal conflicts.

The process goes like this:

1. Define the problem in behaviorally specific terms. Your anger (frustration, irritation, hurt feelings, etc.) is not the real problem. Frequent miscommunication, chronic misunderstandings, or your inability to work productively together may be how you define the problem. Carefully examine the situation and identify a non-accusatory, objective description of it. 
2. Deliver the invitation to meet. Resist the urge to get drawn-in to a conversation on-the-spot. You want to schedule a time for a conversation. You probably do not want to have the conversation immediately. You definitely do not want to have it “on-the-fly.”
3. Decide on a time and place for a discussion. Set aside 2 hours for an uninterrupted conversation. It may not take the full 2 hours. You just want to allow plenty of time to reach resolution.
4. Discuss the problem and how you will resolve it. During the discussion:
   • Resist the urge to leave too soon (walk-away) or to push too hard (power-play). Encourage the other party to do the same.
   • Notice and comment on anything positive the other person says. For example, make sure you verbally recognize when they: acknowledge your perspective, apologize for their actions, or take responsibility for their contribution.
   • Stick with it until you both agree on a course of action. You do not have to agree on every individual point, and you do not need to reach the point of liking each other. You just need an action plan for moving forward.
5. Document your action plan. In many cases, both of you may want to sign and keep a copy of your agreement.

This process works well under the following conditions:

• You are in a long-term, interdependent relationship with the other person.
• Both of you have the authority to take the actions to resolve the conflict.
• The conflict is big enough that you need to address it and small enough to not require formal resolution procedures – i.e. grievance procedures, litigation, etc.
• The risk of retaliation is low – i.e. they do not have a history of abusing their authority.
• You do not expect them to resort to physical violence.

Many of the conflict situations we face in life will meet these conditions. If the conflict you face meets these conditions, I encourage you to apply. . .

The 5 Ds to Mediate Your Own Conflicts.

Guy Harris, The Recovering Engineer

Here are seven steps or actions you can take to mend, improve and even nurture working elationships (or any relationship for that matter).

The Seven Steps

Decide. The first step is you must decide that you want to improve the relationship. The precursor to this step is recognition – recognizing that the relationship needs improving – but the heart of this is the decision that this relationship matters enough for you to make the effort required to improve it. Without this decision, nothing else matters.

Forgive or let it go. If you feel the other person has done something to cause the rift or break-down, you must either forgive them or let go of your issues with it. Without this step, the steps that follow may help some, but will be limited in their success.

Take ownership. Recognize your role in the relationship, and take ownership and responsibility for it. Yes, deciding and forgiving are accountability actions; but being clear that regardless of the situation you have played a role in the change to the relationship is critical to your success in repairing any damage. Otherwise you are only blaming the other person – which cripples your chance for improvement.

Make your intention clear. Once you have decided to take actions to improve the relationship, your behaviors will change. Take the time to explain your decision and your intention to improve the relationship. Let the other person know that both the situation and the person matter to you, and you want a better relationship. This cements your commitment and communicates your intention to the other person.

Assume positive intent. While I have long believed this concept in a variety of situations, a colleague recently expressed it this way and it makes the idea completely clear. Assume the other person was – and is – acting in good faith. Will you be wrong sometimes? Perhaps. But by starting from this assumption you will immediately change your perception and therefore your behaviors toward that person.

Listen more. We all know how important listening is and how good it makes us feel when we are truly being listened to. Grant that gift to the other person. Listen intently, carefully and actively. Not only will you understand them (and their perspective) better, but they will trust you more and the relationship will build from their perspective.

Make an effort. Deciding is one thing. Doing is quite another. If you want better relationships, you must make the effort – it will seldom, if ever, happen automatically.

Harvard negotiation gurus Deepak Malhotra and Max H. Bazerman suggest that negotiators too often confuse hidden interests and constraints with irrationality.  The mistakes and solutions when this is the case?  

• Mistake No. 1: They are Not Irrational; They Have Hidden Interests — find out what they are and you may well be able to resolve the dispute and settle the litigation without putting any more money on the table or making any further concessions;
• Mistake No. 2: They are Not Irrational; They Have Hidden Constraints — keep one ear to the ground for hidden constraints, explore them with the mediator, opposing counsel or the opposing party; often those constraints can be problem-solved away;
• Mistake No. 3: They are Not Irrational; They Are Uninformed — listen and respond; respond and listen.  You will find that EACH of you is uninformed about something that will likely make a genuine difference in the manner in which the litigation is resolved.

This observation points to the tendencies of negotiators. That’s a key point, Malhotra and Bazerman reference the behaviors of people referred to as negotiators. Generally speaking, negotiators enter situations where they have the opportunity to research the other person’s position and to plan a strategy for the negotiation. While I have not read this particular work, I imagine that many of the situations considered as they wrote it involved a good number of experienced negotiators - attorneys, mediators, and business owners with training and/or experience that should help them overcome the natural tendencies the authors reference.

Negotiators with the time to research and prepare a strategy struggle to overcome the tendency to draw false conclusions about the other party’s rationality, ethics, or intentions. So, what hope does the average work team member with little or no training in negotiation and mediation skills and forced to respond to rapidly changing situations have to overcome this natural human tendency? If they insist on assessing other team members intentions when conflict arises, not much. If they focus on the specific behaviors they see in the other person, pretty good.

For the sake of clarity, I’ll define the difference between a behavior and an interpretation by quoting from another article I wrote:

• Rude, inconsiderate, disrespectful, arrogant, obnoxious, flighty, unfocused, smart aleck, and pushy are interpretations.
• Interrupting, rolling eyes, speaking loudly (or softly), shrugging shoulders, looking away, walking away, and tone of voice are specific behaviors. 

When you force yourself to focus on specific behaviors rather than on your interpretation of the other person’s intention, you stand much better odds of remaining in control of your emotions to find a reasonable resolution to most workplace conflicts.

 Guy Harris, The Recovering Engineer

• Our emotional response to conflict is generally driven by our perception of the situation (Is this a threat or not?, Are they challenging me or not?, etc.)
• Since we have gaps in our perception, our perception may not reflect what really happened (what the other person said, did, intended, etc.)
• When we make quick judgments about other people’s intentions, we probably act on only partial, and quite possibly faulty, information. (As a mentor of mine told me: “There are three sides to every story: your side, my side and the truth.”)
• These quick judgments will probably lead to the two most common conflict strategies: avoidance and attack.
• In a workplace context, I usually see both avoidance and attack strategies that break the dialogue. I could comment at length on this one point. To keep it brief I’ll give one example for both:
  • Avoidance leads to distancing behaviors that keep us away from the other party. This one’s pretty obvious.
  • Attack leads to aggressive behaviors that damage the relationship: gossip, seeking allies, poison emails, etc.
• Broken dialogue virtually ensures that the two parties will not sit together for a face-to-face discussion about resolving the conflict.
• Failure to speak face-to-face almost guarantees that persuasion will not happen in either direction.
• Both parties get further entrenched in their positions. They begin to believe and act on their initial faulty perceptions even more strongly.
• The conflict gets worse with almost no hope of amicable resolution.

   That’s a pretty gloomy picture of conflict resolution. It seems to indicate that we are hardwired for failure in this area of life and relationships. Fortunately, I see a “low leverage solution” (to quote Peter Senge from The Fifth Discipline) that offers some hope: an attitude of curiosity. I wrote about this concept in my last post, and I see it as a way to break the negative spiral that conflicts can take. 

   I don’t work in the legal system. I don’t resolve marital disputes or contractual issues. I work with teams. Teams cannot afford to stay locked in conflict without resolution. Teams are by definition interdependent. To achieve maximum results, they must work together. Working together means that team members must trust each other. To trust each other we must fight the tendency to quickly condemn people during conflict. We must remain curious and willing to talk.

   I’ve grown in this area over the last few years. Now, I’m challenging myself to focus on and actively foster an attitude of curiosity about what the people I work with do and say. I want to recognize that my perception may be faulty, and that other people may not have intended what I perceived them to intend. I want to pursue face-to-face discussions whenever possible so that we can achieve excellence in everything we do. I encourage you to do the same.

    Guy Harris, The Recovering Engineer

     An attitude of judgment says:

• “They’re trying to take advantage of me!”
• “Why are they doing that to me?”
• “They always get angry.”
• “They never listen to me.”
• “I can’t trust them.”

     An attitude of curiosity says:

• “I wonder what they want from this situation. I should ask them to clarify their intentions.”
• “I wonder what I did to trigger that response?”
• “Are they angry or are they passionate about this topic? I should ask them so that I understand better.”
• “I wonder if they don’t feel like I heard them? Maybe they are interrupting me because I didn’t communicate my understanding of their perspective properly.”
• “I wonder what they see that I don’t see? Maybe I don’t understand why they said (or did) what they said (or did).”

   Your attitude towards another person affects your tone, your word choice, and your body language. An attitude of judgement will probably communicate “I am a threat” to the other person. If they perceive you as a threat, they will seldom respond well. An attitude of curiosity communicates “I want to understand” to the other person. When people sense your desire to understand them, they seldom behave in ways that escalate the conflict. 

   I am not suggesting that people can always be trusted or that they never have harmful intentions. If you find someone like that, I recommend staying as far away from them as possible. The perspective that I am advocating applies to close relationships at work and at home. Very rarely do these people want to harm you. You may see things differently, you may have different desires, and you may want to see different outcomes. These differences do not necessarily imply bad intent. I suggest that you start your interactions and conversations about these differences with the “I wonder…” approach rather than the “I already know…” approach.

Guy Harris, The Recovering Engineer