Archive for the ‘Self mediation’ Category

I found this video today as I was looking around the web for new ideas and learning resources. At the moment, I don’t have much to say to add to this teacher’s comments.

I was really intrigued by her comment that young children are often better at finding creative solutions to conflicts than adults.

This is a quick video with some really powerful one-liners. I suggest you watch it and take note of this teacher’s keen insights into the essence of effective conflict resolution.

Here’s a summary of some key points (there are more good lessons in the video than I have noted):

• It’s important that we pay attention to the feelings expressed when discussing a problem because it’s the feelings that people can most often relate to and use to understand how their behavior impacts others.
• It strengthens relationships when we work together to meet both people’s needs.
• We think of solutions in a brainstorming way because solutions often generate new solutions.
• Conflict resolution skills apply to people of all ages.
• Younger children are often better at resolving conflicts than adults because they are more creative.

As I was reading through some other blogs this week, I found this post on Empathy, Apology and Forgiveness by Arnold Zeman at Dialogic Mediation Services.

Once again the power of apology surfaces in the context of resolving conflict. I really liked this post because it derives from research and not just from a single person’s opinions.

The full citation for both the underlying research and the chain of reporting is in the post at Dialogic Mediation services.

As Arnold Zeman reports in his post, the key learning point of the research is:

Empathy must be experienced by, and communicated by, both parties to the conflict, not simply one or the other. In other words, to be effective in resolving conflict, apology and forgiveness are best viewed as interactive processes, not simply one-sided speech events.

In the context of workplace conflict, here’s the bottom-line: for an apology to have any significant impact on the situation, you need to allow some processing time for both parties to realize (preferrably on their own) that they both contributed to the conflict.

I seldom see conflicts where one party is clearly wrong and the other party is totally “right.” I’m sure that it happens from time-to-time but not very frequently.

When you find yourself in a conflict, you should offer a well intentioned apology. You should also give the other person time to reflect on the situation before you “force” them to accept it. It seems that the reflection time is critical for the development of “mutual empathy.”

Thought for Thursday: Be willing to apologize for your contribution and then give people time to reflect.

Last week, my wife and my youngest daughter experienced a communication breakdown. In short, my daughter, at age 13, changed her plans without consulting my wife. This created a problem for two reasons:

1. My daughter moved to a different location than the previously agreed upon location for pick-up, and
2. My daughter’s schedule directly impacts my wife’s schedule.

Understandably, my wife felt frustrated and angry. Rather than address the issue while she was angry, she waited until we could speak about it on Saturday morning.

As we discussed the appropriate parental response, my wife’s frustration from the previous day came to the surface. For a brief moment, she considered “punishing” my daughter. As we spoke, I asked one question: “What is your objective? Do you want to punish her because you are angry or do you want to make sure this behavior does not happen again in the future?” (I’m not convinced that I phrased this question in the best way for her in the moment.)

She stopped briefly. Then she said: “When you put it that way, I suppose I want to make sure this does not happen again in the future.”

In that moment, my wife’s intended actions began to move towards appropriate and natural consequences for my daughter’s behavior and away from consequences that would likely communicate vengeance and anger.

My daughter did not intend to cause problems for her mother. She just did not think through all of the implications of her decision. She has some things to learn. My wife and I need to help her learn them.

My wife did not intend to harm my daughter, she wanted to protect her from making poor decisions in the future. In the emotion of the situation, she initially had a difficult time seeing past her anger.

I had the “emotional upper hand” in this situation. I was not emotionally involved in the events of the previous day. I could easily, in this case, make an objective, third-party observation. My wife lived the situation, and her emotions were directly involved. She had a more difficult time making the switch in thinking because of her emotional investment. She did it. It just was not easy for her to do.

After my wife shifted her thinking about the situation, we then discussed it  further. After a few minutes, we came to an agreement about how to handle the situation in a way that would improve our odds of achieving our real objective – teaching our daughter a life lesson that will serve her well beyond the time she lives with us.

Monday Momentum Message – Be clear about your real objective before you confront another person.

In many cases, workplace conflicts result from unmet expectations. You have one set of expectations. The people around you have a different set of expectations. No one has any malice or ill intention towards anyone else. They just expect a different set of behaviors, actions, and results.

When expectations go unmet, emotions tend to rise. When emotions rise, conflict tends to happen. With that thought in mind, I offer these three practical tips to reduce the risk of workplace conflicts that spriral out-of-control:

1. Clearly Defined Roles

This idea normally shows up in a list of requirements for a well structured performance management system. Today, I will give you another reason to take positive steps to ensure that the people around you clearly understand their role in relation to you.

By defined role, I mean that both parties (you and the other person) have a clear understanding of what both of you will do with regard to any task or project that you work on together. So, this could apply to a supervisor-team member relationship or to a relationship between two co-workers.

Take the time to clearly define your respective roles, and you minimize the possibility of destructive conflicts later.

2. Clearly Defined Timelines

Take the time to ensure that both of you agree to and understand the delivery dates and timelines for completion on any task.

In my past life as an engineer, I worked on plant start-up projects of all sizes. The ones that went well had well prepared project completion milestone documents. The ones that went poorly, did not have the same level of preplanning that created the milestone documents. In other words, the ones that went well had a way to make sure that everyone on the project knew what was due and when it was due. The ones that went poorly did not.

These projects were usually pretty complicated with regard to the number of people and tasks that had to be coordinated to complete the project on time. So, they needed elaborate flowcharts, Gantt charts, and Critical Path diagrams to keep them on track. I am not suggesting anything this complicated for a one-on-one situation. I am suggesting that we learn from these projects, and that we apply the principles to our personal lives.

When I was a young engineer, I thought the planning and document preparation was all about scheduling the tasks. Now I realize that planning and scheduling on large engineering projects is about scheduling the tasks AND about creating clear lines of communication. I now realize, that the people part (communication) is actually the bigger reason behind the time invested in the planning process.

I do not want to go overboard with the idea and suggest that you need a Gantt chart for everything you do with other people. I do suggest that you take the principle of clear communication to avoid conflict and apply it to checking and double-checking with other people to ensure clear, mutual understanding about expected timelines and delivery dates.

3. Open Lines of Communication

In my work with clients, I see that miscommunication leads to a large number of workplace conflicts. When you recognize miscommunication as the source of many conflicts, you can take proactive steps to prevent conflicts by investing your efforts into clear communication practices.

Take the time to make sure you have created a safe environment for people to approach you. Go out of your way to create opportunities to connect with the people around you. If you will work diligently in this area, you will make the previous two ideas easier to accomplish. As a result, you will significantly reduce both the number of conflicts that occur and the time it takes to resolve them when they happen.

I wrote this post mainly from the perspective of application in a workplace scenario. I hope it is clear that these ideas, applied in slightly different ways, also apply to other areas of life.

     I am standing at a “laptop bar” in the Orlando Airport, and I am working quickly to post this thought before my plane boards for Indianapolis. I may have actually written this before. I’m in a hurry. I don’t really have time to check my archive. So, at the risk of repeating myself, I’m posting this thought because it is so important.

     When you communicate with another person, avoid the trap of assuming that you understand them or that they understand you. Push for absolute clarity. To do that, I recommend that you master the use of two questions:

1. When you want to ensure that you understand correctly, ask the following question – “Can I repeat back to you what I heard yoou say so that I can make sure I understood correctly?”
2. When you want to ensure that you have been understood,  ask this – “Just to make sure that I communicated clearly, could you repeat back to me what you heard me say?”

     You can ask these questions in many different ways if you remember this key point: whatever words you use, make sure that you take responsibility for any misunderstanding or miscommunication.

     Asking the right question allows you to engage in dialogue (rather than mutual monologue) with the other person so that you minimize the chance of a miscommunication. Taking responsibility for any miscommunication reduces the risk that they will be offended by the question.

     Guy Harris, The Recovering Engineer

Moved to Business Relationship Rx. 

Conflicts with supervisors or people in positions of authority seem to come up frequently in my work. People often ask me how to confront their supervisor or manager to address frustrations and irritations.

I start by recommending caution. Confronting someone who has the positional authority to retaliate against you presents some very real political risks. That being said, here’s one approach I have found that often works well, and it significantly reduces the risk of retaliation:

Use an apologetic attitude.

The apologetic attitude starts when you Deliver the invitation to meet and it continues throughout your discussion of the conflict. In practice, it goes something like this as you Deliver the invitation:

• “Apparently I have done something to create some frustration for you. I’m not sure what it is, and I would like to speak with you to resolve this frustration.” or
• “I think I might have done something to irritate you. I think I know what it might be, but I’m not completely sure. I would like to speak with you to get things smoothed out between us.”

Notice that the person in the subordinate position takes responsibility for the supervisor’s frustration and irritation in these situations.

The people who come to me with the question of how to address this type of situation often really do not know what has caused the frustration, irritation, or disconnect with their supervisor. That is why I recommend this type of approach. It creates the space for an open discussion without putting the other person on the defensive. This is a practical application of using the power of apology.

I have noticed that people usually have a very difficult time remaining angry with you when you are apologizing. When you use this approach, you listen to their frustration first and then you share your concerns. This apolgize and listen approach improves the odds that the other person will eventually be willing to listen to what you have say.

The approach will not work in every situation or with every person. It is often better than a more direct approach that runs the risk of triggering a negative or retaliatory response.

Guy Harris, The Recovering Engineer

Conflict conversations often go wrong when the two parties disengage too soon. As Daniel Dana, author of Conflict Resolution, says; people often don’t “argue” long enough because of a hard-wired behavioral approach commonly known as the “fight-or-flight” response. This natural response can serve us well as a protection from physical harm, but it seldom helps during the normal interpersonal conflicts we experience at home and at work. Our natural response tends to create two behaviors that short-circuit effective conflict conversations: