Archive for the ‘Communication Skills’ Category

Recently, a group that I frequently work with decided to do some community outreach work. In the process, they put together a project to help families struggling with food costs.

As the project developed, one person started making implementation plans. Another person asked some questions that had not yet been answered. The questions didn’t get back to the original person quickly enough. And, the project almost ended in an open conflict within an organization built on the premise of helping and serving others.

Fortunately, the potential conflict quickly dissipated when the two key people involved got the opportunity to speak and clarify a few questions.

Both people had good intentions. Both people asked valid questions. Both people wanted to help. Neither person wanted a conflict.

In the midst of this event, the title of this post became clear for me. Confusion breeds conflict.

In many situations I have observed, what initially appeared to be a major conflict was actually just a miscommunication.

The next time you see a brewing conflict, start by working on communication issues. Look for areas of communication breakdown. In many cases, you will likely find that the conflict isn’t really a conflict. It’s just a misunderstanding.

Photo by e-magic.

For the past several months, I have been working with my friend and colleague Kevin Eikenberry on a number of projects. As part of my responsibility in working with Kevin, I serve as a coach on the monthly group coaching call for Silver Members of Kevin’s Remarkable Leadership Learning System.

While this post doesn’t specifically address resolving conflict, the ideas in it relate directly to the much broader topics of leadership and leadership development.

Last week, we had our monthly Group Coaching call, and we discussed Enabling Process Improvement. We had a great, lively, informative call. Here are some of the highlights of the call:

Keep it simple

In keeping with Kevin’s description of a “non-denominational” process improvement approach (Plan – Do – Check – Act) during his monthly teleseminar, we discussed the importance of focusing on the basics. Keep it simple, and keep going back to foundational principles so that you can get a “ground-up” approach to process improvement. This approach will make your life as a leader much easier.

Set constraints up front

If you know that certain approaches are “off-the-table” with regard to what is or is not acceptable in the context of your process improvement efforts, tell people up-front. Openly sharing what is not acceptable can help people to focus their efforts on what is.

Ask questions

Question, probe, and investigate early and often. The more you work to surface concerns and frustrations with the current situation, the better you can communicate the need to take action and the better you can define your desired outcomes.

Clearly define the problem

If we define the word problem as a “condition that you want to change,” then we have to agree on the problem statement before we can agree on the solution statement. Working to make the problem definition clear (the current condition that we want to change) will help you reduce resistance to change that might occur as you work to improve the process.

Make it safe to fail

We don’t want people to fail in ways that will destroy the company. We do want people to learn and grow in order to get better. Planning for the future. Taking reasonable steps to avoid failure. And then, allowing small failures to happen without negative consequences can create an environment that enables process improvement.

I’ve written about the power of apology in the past, and today I was reminded of the power of the words “I’m sorry” by a short article I read in the November 23 edition of BusinessWeek magazine.

As part of a larger article titled 10 Ways to Cut Health-Care Costs Right Now, I found item number 10 under the heading: Aplogize to the Patient.

This short piece quickly describes the financial impact of a program initiated by the Sorry Works! Coalition. Sorry Works! suggests that hospitals immediately inform patients and their families of medical errors, investigate the cause, change procedures if necessary, and offer a settlement if the heath-care provider is at fault.

In effect, they promote saying: “I’m sorry.”

According to the article, the University of Michigan Health System and the University of Illinois Medical Center in Chicago both reported significant (in the range of 40-50%) reduction in malpractice claims by applying the Sorry Works! program.

So, what’s the implication to workplace conflict resolution?

Just say, “I’m sorry.”

Very rarely have I ever been involved in a dispute with another person when they were totally at fault. In most situations, I have contributed to the situation in one way or another.

Rather than debate the what I did or didn’t say, what you did or didn’t say, what I did or didn’t intend, or what you did or didn’t intend points of the conflict, just say “I’m sorry.”

I’m sorry for what I said or did. That’s it. No justification. No rehashing of the events. No blaming.

Will this always work? No.

Will it usually work? Yes – the reduction in malpractice suits proves it.

“I’m sorry” flies in the face of our natural need to protect ourselves. It’s often difficult to say, and it works.

Yesterday, I stopped at a fast-food restaurant to grab a sandwich. When I pulled into the parking lot, I noticed six or seven cars in the drive through line and no one standing in line inside the building. So, I parked my car, walked inside, purchased my sandwich, and returned to my car in about two or three minutes.

When I exited the building, four or five of the cars originally in line when I arrived were still in line and the line had grown to something like ten cars. And still, there was no one waiting in line inside the building.

This situation occured on a sunny day with the temperatures near 60 F – a beautiful day for November in central Indiana.

At first, I thought how silly the picture was of people waiting in their cars in line for ten or fifteen minutes when they could be in and out of the parking lot in three to five minutes by simply going inside. Then I made the connection to leadership, communication, and conflict resolution.

People have a tendency to do what seems to be easiest even when it will not produce the fastest or most efficient results.

For example, we sometimes avoid a conflict resolution discussion because it seems easier to ignore the situation in hopes that it will go away. Generally, the situations get worse rather than better when left alone. So, by avoiding a brief conversation now, we buy ourselves a week or a month of hurt feelings and reduced effectiveness. It seems easier in the moment, but it costs us in the end.

Or, we fail to confront poor performance with our employees, children, or friends because we don’t want to experience the pain of resolving the issue. As a result, we get more of the poor performance in the future until we get frustrated enough to “deal with it” (probably in a highly elevated emotional state) in a way that escalates the frustration rather than resolving it.

Conflict conversations, confrontations, and efforts at resolution are not always easy. Avoiding (or sometimes condemning) can seem easier in the moment. Taking a lesson from the drive through example:

Easy isn’t necessarily best.

Effort, work, and emotional investment to resolve a conflict while it is small can pay huge dividends in time savings and preserved relationships.

Recently, I was working through an issue with another person. They were distressed over the results of a process that affects both of us. I helped to create the process. I have authority to change the process if necessary. And I have knowledge of the system to troubleshoot and fix a fair number of problems.

As we were discussing the issue, they kept talking about their concern without giving me the details I needed to fix it for them. Since I was trying to fix the problem, I started to get a bit frustrated.

They talked.

I grew frustrated.

The talked some more.

I grew more frustrated.

The cycle continued until I said: “I get that you are concerned. I totally understand that you have a concern. Is it okay if we discuss how to solve the problem so that your concern can get resolved?”

They immediately said, “Yes, that would be great.” Their emotional level decreased. They focused on giving me the information I needed to fix the problem for them. And we had the situation resolved in less than 5 minutes from that point forward.

The other person is not a bad, difficult person. They are committed to their work. They want to do a good job, and they had a genuine concern. Because they had a concern, they became emotionally invested in the situation, and their emotional investment became a barrier to our communication. They needed me to understand that they had a concern.

Until I acknowledged their concern, they could not see past it to help me solve the problem. Their need to be heard and understood outweighed their ability to focus on the details of the problem.

The learning lesson in this is pretty simple. When you engage in a tense or emotionally charged conversation with another person, hearing, understanding, and acknowledging their emotion about the situation often creates the right environment for moving on to joint problem solving.

The converse is also often true. Failure to hear, understand, and acknowledge their emotion can create an insurmountable barrier to effective communication and joint problem solving.

This morning I have been catching up on reading some of my favorite blogs. As always, I saw really thought provoking content by Tammy Lenski, Victoria Pynchon, Kevin Eikenberry, and Kare Anderson.

The post that struck me the most was Common Courtesty Should Not Be An Oxymoron by Diane Levin.

I’m not sure why it struck me so strongly today, but it did. Maybe it’s because I’m not always so great at following-up with thank-yous myself. Maybe it was a selfish motivation to inspire others to thank me. At the moment, I can’t tell whether self-reflection or self-protection really triggered me today. I just know that Diane’s thoughts resonated strongly, and I want to add my two-cents to her comments by way of asking a few reflection questions for all of us to consider.

• Why haven’t I taken action to genuinely thank someone who has gone out of their way to help me?
• What is stopping me from acting with common courtesy?
• Is it really that hard to just say “thank-you?”

I’m asking myself these questions today. In the name of common courtesy, will you join me?

(BTW – In case I’ve failed to properly thank you for your contributions to the blogosphere and for your encouragement to me, I would like to say: “Thank-you Diane. I’ve learned alot from you.”)

Recently, I participated in a meeting for an organization where I serve as one of the leaders. During the meeting, one person made a statement of opinion. Then another member countered with their opinion. Pretty soon, the two of them were engaged in a heated discussion. Both of them were arguing there positions relative to the other persons.

As I sat and listened to this interchange, it occured to me that the first person did not thouroughly understand the perspective of the second person. Because of the misunderstanding, he launched into a long explanation of his perspective and how the other person should adjust theirs.

Person number two realized that person number one misunderstood his point, and he attempted to clarify it.

Sadly, person number one was emotionally invested at this point, and he literally could not hear or understand the other person’s perspective. As a result, the heated exchange continued far longer than it should have.

If person number one had asked one simple question to begin the dialogue, I believe things would have turned out quite differently. If he had stated his understanding of the other person’s perspective and then asked if he understood correctly, I think the whole conversation would have proceeded in calmer, less emotionally charged direction.

Rather than launching into a monologue about how the other person viewed things wrong, he could have started this way: “If I understood correctly, your concern is _____. Is that correct?”

This simple statement of understanding followed by a question to allow for clarification could have prevented the whole ugly interchange.

As the scenario played out in our meeting, the elevation of emotion over a misunderstanding blocked the first person’s ability to hear the second person’s attempts to clarify.

Here’s the learning point, we don’t always understand what people intend to communicate just because we heard the words they used. Acknowledging that our understanding could be flawed, creates the emotional space for clarification that will head off many unnecessary conflicts.

I don’t propose that this approach will stop every conflict. I do suggest it will help eliminate many miscommunications that could easily escalate to conflict.

As you go through this week and interact with others, I encourage you to question your understanding. When you feel your emotions rise in response to what someone says, remember to ask for clarification. You just might have heard it wrong.

Image courtesy www.sxc.hu.

Just in case you would like to have some fun with another person in your next disagreement, here are some tips for quickly escalating a minor miscommunication to a full-blown conflict.

1) Tell them what they’re feeling

When you want to get a strong emotional response from somone, just tell them what they are feeling. For example, you could say “don’t get angry with me.” This comment is just about guaranteed to get an angry response even if they were not already angry.

You might also try something like this, “why are you so defensive?” I love that one. It almost always puts the other person on the defensive so that their emotions elevate to the point that we can really get into a good argument.

2) Tell them why they did what they did (or said what they said)

This is a sure fire way to get under someone’s skin and escalate a conflict. When you tell another person their motivation for their words and actions, you can easily spin them up. Little comments like “you just said that because you’re jealous” or “you did that because you want to get even with me” are great for making a conflict worse.

If you’re determined to fan their emotional flames, mix in some amateur psychoanalysis. You could say something like “you are so OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder)” or “you must have relationship issues or something.”

3) Raise your voice

If you’re ready for a good knock-down-drag-out confrontation, raise your voice. This technique is great for getting their emotional juices flowing. Add a little finger-pointing and leaning forward to the recipe, and you just might push them over the edge. It’s great fun!

4) Focus on the past

As you start to get into a good conflict, focus on something that they have no power to change: the past. Refuse to discuss actions for future behaviors or ways of interacting. Insist that they deconstruct and defend their past words and actions.

You don’t have to look too far in the past for this technique to be effective. You can work with what they just said. If you push hard, you can spend a good 10 or 15 minutes telling them:

Since they cannot change what has already happened, you can lock them into a conflict with no way out.

Raise your voice while you focus on the past, and you can have even more fun with them.

5) Walk away

Just as you get the other person really frustrated and upset, turn and walk away.

If you add some sort of sarcastic comment like “you’re always so difficult” or “I’m not going to talk with you about this anymore,” you can plant the seeds of a conflict that goes on for days. This is a fantastic tactic for keeping the conflict ball in the air for an extended period of time.

Hopefully, you see the tongue-in-cheek message in this post. I don’t actually advocate any of these behaviors, and I work every day to keep them out of my communication practices. However, I am human, and sometimes one or two of them will creep in on me.

Take a look at yourself. Do any of these behaviors ever show up in your conflict communication style?

If you want to learn the skills of effective workplace conflict resolution, I suggest that you work to do just the opposite of these five conflict escalation practices.

Photo by jsaneb on flickr.