Conflict Management

Is it worth assessing the effect conflict has on our organization, and taking precious time away from our business priorities to address it? Should we be concerned about ensuring our associates possess the skills needed to resolve conflict between themselves and our customers, suppliers, the board, and business owners? Do we care?

If we’re talking finance, we get down to the finite details without batting an eye. We question, we analyze, and we adapt our approach to improve the bottom line. However, when we’re talking people, we don’t think we need to do this because “we all know what people skills are.” But, drilling down to the finite details of how we operate as people is what’s needed to afford positive and long-lasting change in behavior, which ultimately affects the bottom line.

We’re All Wired the Same

With respect to neuroscience, in broad terms, human beings are all wired the same, regardless of personalities and problems we encounter. Events and triggers challenge and hit us the wrong way—wrong, that is, by our judgment. Consequently, our sense of reason is hijacked, and we are on the road to conflict: A problem becomes a disagreement that turns into a contest, which escalates to a fight—or flight—that reaches intractability with no hope of resolution or turning back. Once you get to “fight or flight,” the situation is usually beyond mediation and requires a judgment, sometimes litigation, to end the conflict. But, here is the rub: This end to the conflict is not conflict resolution. Wounds from conflict run deep, and we store those memories in our brain. Unless we understand how to anticipate and process conflict, layer upon layer of hurt, resentment, frustration, and anger builds up over time, and we’re in so deep we can’t see it.

Sometimes we feel overwhelmed with the demands on us—sales quotas, price vs. profits, deadlines, results—and heaped on this are our personal life challenges. Given the stress stemming from these triggers and the heavy drain it has on our energy, creativity, and ability to problem-solve, is putting blinders on and running another analysis of the numbers really going to fix things? No. Until we acknowledge, address, and process the emotional obstacles and clear the conflict, we are stuck there, and nothing is going to get done effectively. Recognizing this is a first step to attaining social-emotional intelligence.

Effectively Resolving Conflict

So, how can we effectively resolve conflict? When it involves other people, first put yourself in their shoes. This is a form of empathy. Ask them what they are experiencing—what they are feeling, what they need emotionally. Conflict originates from unmet needs. Second, what are your feelings and needs? Share this openly and respectfully. Third, is it possible that your needs and theirs are the same? Is there a way you can resolve how you each perceive the situation? Although you may look at things differently, at the end of the day it is likely you have the same needs and goals—it’s just hard to grasp that when we habitually think our needs are more important than those of others.

As for inner conflict, the same steps follow. Give yourself empathy. Say it out loud—not the things you don’t think you do well, not the things you think you could have done better, but the things you have done well. Say out loud the things you are good at. Our verbal to auditory reasoning track is powerful, and we believe what we hear ourselves say. What we believe will eventually come true because it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. When we hear ourselves speak of others’ shortcomings, we focus only on that without hope of reconciliation. When we self-criticize, list our failures, and don’t believe it’s possible to succeed or find resolution, then that’s the way it will be. Even Shakespeare’s Hamlet was onto this more than four centuries ago: “For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

“Remember: We are all a work in progress. It’s not about perfection; it’s about learning and the chance for a new start every day.”

Next, look inwardly and ask yourself: Am I contributing to my inner conflict by replaying it in a damaging cycle? This ingrains our negative neural pathways and keeps us “stuck” in our “stuff.” In breaking that cycle, we are far less stressed, and it’s easier to let it go. Lastly, when we practice giving ourselves empathy and stop negative spiraling, remember: We all are a work in progress. It’s not about perfection; it’s about learning and the chance for a new start every day.

Why Bother?

So, why bother with addressing conflict and knowing how to manage resolution? Human beings are linear thinkers. No matter how much we push conflict aside or pretend it doesn’t matter, we cannot move forward effectively as individuals, as a team, as a department, region, division, or as a company and expect to achieve our goals until we identify, process, and resolve what bothers us. Once that is resolved, our energy and creativity are freed up enormously to collaborate more effectively, hear each other, and work successfully together.

It’s about process—not results. If we focus only on results instead of how we get there, results will elude us. Perhaps we think we get the results we want, but it may be at a greater cost of probable unretractable harm to our working relationships. But if we focus on the process—respecting each other’s differences, extending empathy, sharing our honesty, hearing ourselves saying what is positive and what is possible—the results will follow. They may not be the results we aimed for initially or even expected, but the results that emerge from effective conflict resolution are far more desirable and serve everyone and the bottom line well.

Dana Lessard Garnett is a family business adviser for Box Family Advisers LLC. She will be presenting a two-day workshop on conflict management at the 2016 AICC Spring Meeting, April 13–15 in Palm Desert, California.