I think I’ll commit for at least one week to ask other people’s perspective more and to state mine less.

     For several years, I have attempted to live up to this commitment. In the last eleven days, I have made a more conscious and concerted effort to ask first and speak second. Here’s what I have noticed:

• Even after years of “practice,” I still find this concept difficult to apply in everyday life. It takes thought. It takes effort. It takes work.
• When I focus on understanding other people’s perspectives before offering mine, I generally get a better response. I get less “push back” and frustration from them. They are more willing to listen to what I have to say.

     Even with a short-term, focused effort, I have still not used this concept in every interaction. I have gotten wrapped-up in myself on a few occasions. I have spoken first in others. Still, I have done a better job because of the commitment I made both to myself and to you.

     I commit to continue towards the goal of seeking first to understand and then to being understood. What about you? What will you continue doing towards the goal of better, stronger, more resilient relationships? What will you do to move towards resolving conflict and away from escalating conflict in your team or family?

     Guy Harris, The Recovering Engineer

     Stop Observe Listen and Deliver

     Thanks to my friend Jim Carty for giving me the feedback to improve my acronymn for maintaining self-control in conflict situations. Here’s my original acronymmn based on the word SOLD.

Stop – Stop everything. Do not say or do anything. Resist the urge to speak. Stop your internal dialogue that immediately labels the other person as “wrong.”

Observe – What is the other person saying with their body language? What is their tone? Are they angry or are they hurt?

Listen – Listen carefully to their words. What is their intended meaning? Does what they say have merit? What is their perception? Even if you disagree with their interpretation of events, you will need to understand it before you respond.

Deliver – Deliver your response. To resolve a conflict, they also need to know what you are thinking. Hopefully your conscious effort to listen to them before you speak will do two things: give you time to think clearly and show that you care about their concerns.

In looking at my acronmyn, Jim suggested that I add the letter “I” to form the word SOLID:

Stop – Stop everything. Do not say or do anything. Resist the urge to speak. Stop your internal dialogue that immediately labels the other person as “wrong.”

Observe – What is the other person saying with their body language? What is their tone? Are they angry or are they hurt?

Listen – Listen carefully to their words. What is their intended meaning? Does what they say have merit? What is their perception? Even if you disagree with their interpretation of events, you will need to understand it before you respond.

Interpret – Evaluate what you have learned from Stopping, Observing, and Listening. Make a thoughtful interpretation of their intended meaning. Give yourself the time to think about what you will say or do next.

Deliver – Deliver your response. To resolve a conflict, they also need to know what you are thinking. Hopefully your conscious effort to listen to them before you speak will do two things: give you time to think clearly and show that you care about their concerns.

     Thanks to Jim for the suggestion. I have learned many things by working with, listening to, and interacting with Jim. He is a great guy and a fantastic sales trainer. His input is just one more example of how all of us are better than one of us.

     So, remember this acronymn to give a SOLID response to stressful conflict situations.

     Guy Harris, The Recovering Engineer

Stop – Stop everything. Do not say or do anything. Resist the urge to speak. Stop your internal dialogue that immediately labels the other person as “wrong.”

Observe – What is the other person saying with their body language? What is their tone? Are they angry or are they hurt?

Listen – Listen carefully to their words. What is their intended meaning? Does what they say have merit? What is their perception? Even if you disagree with their interpretation of events, you will need to understand it before you respond.

Deliver – Deliver your response. To resolve a conflict, they also need to know what you are thinking. Hopefully your conscious effort to listen to them before you speak will do two things: give you time to think clearly and show that you care about their concerns.

     Rather than trying to contrive some artificial way of thinking, I even make use of a natural (you might say selfish) thought pattern to remember the acronym. At the end of the confrontation, I want the other party to be SOLD on my viewpoint.

     Interestingly enough, when I follow the first three steps, I may not need the fourth. In the process of Stopping, Observing, and Listening; I often learn something about the other person’s intended message that changes my perception from “this is a threat” to “this is a miscommunication.” Once my perception changes, I have the opportunity to move my thinking from my adrenal glands to my brain. 

     So for now, I encourage you to. . .

     Stop, Observe, Listen, and Deliver

     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