. . . on Conflict & Controversy

As an Executive Coach, my clients often ask me to share some ideas about various topics so they can learn what they should be paying attention to. Here are some of my thoughts on conflict and controversy.

When we started the IPSL programs back in 2017, we didn’t include this topic but slowly, after listening to so many conversations between our mentors and responding to questions from our participants, we understood that this was an important slice of the Political Acumen landscape. Conflict is inevitable in public service. It can lead to positive or negative results depending on how it is handled. Unresolved conflict costs money, time and causes pain.

What is conflict competence?

Conflict competence is the ability to develop and use cognitive, emotional, and behavioural skills that enhance the productive outcomes of conflict while reducing the likelihood of escalation or harm. The results of conflict competence include improved quality of relationships, creative solutions, and lasting agreements for addressing challenges and opportunities in the future. As with all competencies, people can learn ways to improve, change, and develop their conflict competence.

Prepare for conflict

Conflict can occur when opinions differ. When you see things differently from your boss or when your colleagues/staff see things differently from you – listen. Rather than only asking yourself, ‘how can I succeed in changing their minds, ’ ask, ‘what is it I could know, should know, or don’t know?’ Find out what you are missing. Practice changing your mind elegantly and with curiosity. Rigidity can be perceived as a weakness, and in extremely complex situations, flexibility is a greater asset. Many of my clients struggle to deal with conflict as it is generally not something we were taught in school, and it may also be true that our early family life didn’t provide many examples of healthy conflict management. This is definitely an area where awareness and practice are key to the development of this competency. Generally speaking, it seems to me that though there may be a tendency to ‘hope it blows’ over, it is best for a leader to investigate the first signs of smoke. Get curious about what may be happening and consider all the different points of view.

What does science tell us?

What if you find yourself in a conflict with a colleague? From a coaching point of view, the work here is on yourself. When you accept responsibility for your own experience, you can change it. The work of Lisa Feldman Barrett is very instructive in this regard. In her TED talk she speaks to the idea that you aren’t at the mercy of your emotions – in fact, based on her research, your brain creates them. They aren’t hard-wired at birth. They are made as the events of your life unfold. It's also important to know something about how the brain works. Thankfully, neuroscience is giving us a lot to work with. The current science says that the primary job of our brain is to coordinate the systems of the body for metabolic efficiency and that it is a predictive instrument. For example, when you hear a loud bang, it could be a car backfiring, a door slamming, a book falling or, depending on the events of your life, the sound of a gunshot. As a result, your brain begins to construct meaning and what might happen next.

So it follows that if you want your brain to predict something else, then you might begin to practice cultivating other options – in other words, add more data for your brain to scan. This way, you can avoid quickly becoming polarised when a conflict occurs.

What can you do?

In the early stages of a conflict, you may be able to mediate the situation yourself. As time passes and opinions harden, it may be best to call in an outside mediator. Thankfully this profession is well recognized these days, and most large organizations have a team who can help. Learn to manage conflict so that those who are party to it, including yourself, are safe from passive retribution, such as shunning, or some form of direct retribution, such as shaming. Root this behaviour out wherever you think it exists, even if you just have an inkling – listen to your gut. It can be malignant, and you can stop it.

Work with your coach

If you sense that your emotions might be hijacking your reactions to events or situations, you can work with your Coach to find new ways to prepare and respond. Dr Feldman Barrett suggests that once a set of predictions is launched, it is very hard to put the brakes on. If you can control your predictions, you can control your emotions, and one way to do that is by seeding the brain with new predictions before the heat of the moment. Try to cultivate different emotional responses and give some thought to whether your interpretation, based on body language, facial expressions, or your experience, tells the whole story. Your coach can help you learn more about yourself – through assessment tools and feedback. It’s possible to pinpoint things that trigger you and get ahead of them so that you are less likely to be the author of conflict.

Ingrid Bergmann is a Master Certified Executive Coach (MCC) and Co-Founder of Inside Public Sector Leadership programs. For more advice and tips on how to succeed in public service today, explore the IPSL programs www.publicsectorleadership.ca