Cracking The CONFRONTATION Code

“You can’t change what you refuse to confront” – Unknown. Most of us do not confront, to avoid the uncomfortable situation, however, it is a healthy channel for you to stand up for your beliefs and values.

Confrontation is about facing the situation face to face. It’s about the ability to be silent and to listen attentively, it deals with high emotional states. It’s an attribute of interpersonal skill that makes situations work with mutual consensus. And yes, it’s a skill! One earns it through experience with a goal of restoration of trust between parties.

Leading at speed of growth is not only about moving fast with technology, but it’s also about connecting with people for developing mutual trust in working relationship. A lot of times, most important conversations with teams or peers, do not happen as it should be, because of an assumption that message is underline or with a convenient belief that “people will do when I say”.

For any leader, confrontation is a critical skill and it must be concisely be practiced. It can start with a simple statement “I don’t have experience in this, can you help me learn” and ranging up to a complex situation of dealing with the cold war inside in your teams.

So, how does one practice confrontation? Here are simple tips that you may want to consider starting with:

Preparation: Confrontation requires thorough preparation, from facts and feelings perspective. Only you know yourself better, so you should understand what triggers your ‘anger’ emotion and how you would like to handle it. Ensure that you go on a short walk from your desk before the confrontation, walking helps you to relax your thoughts and lowers heartbeat and helps you feel prepared for the conversation

Welcome and Greet: Greet individual/teams with whom you would like to confront with an open mind, help them relax, it will also be helpful to use humor yet at times to make the situation lite. You should know and be sensitive that they would have rehearsed their arguments. So, help them calm down.

Set the context: Context setting is the most crucial phase in dealing with confrontation, set the context with the goal of restoration of relationship and not embarrassment.

Allow conversations: This is the most difficult part, as this is the phase where you need to be ‘silent’. Dealing with silence is very challenging, especially for people in positions/authority. Please make a conscious effort to be silent and allow conversations to happen.

Use ‘I’ statements often: Saying, “In my opinion…”, “As I believe….” helps parties to feel that you are involved, and you have an opinion to share on the situation and not to judge who is right.

Conclude: Ask questions as what’s next, what according to you is the right way, how do you want it to be done? By this time, parties mostly would want to conclude in a win-win situation, if not, as a leader take a decision that is right in the interest of organization growth and people.

Confrontations can be good, great and unsatisfactory and sometimes even awful. However, constructive action is the best way to avoid cold wars between individual /teams.

It’s common to have different and varied opinions at the workplace, Leaders play a critical role in creating a culture of openness by practicing confrontation. Demonstrate your willingness to do open discussion and is open for feedback. Get the clarity of what you want to confront about, be calm and don’t argue, listen carefully and be confident.

Remember – “The goal of confrontation should be to help, not to humiliate” – John C. Maxwell.