DEALING WITH CONFLICT

Introduction

Last week I briefly dealt with handling criticism, which presents potential for conflict. I specifically say “potential” because, as we saw from that article, it only escalates into conflict if the addressee or receiver allows it to. If the communication is managed objectively it need not escalate but can be defused, immediately, and even quite productively!

Conflict is merely a way to communicate insistence on fulfillment or accommodation of conflicting needs and aspirations. Therefor conflict is actually just communication containing some unusually exacerbated emotion, like disappointment and resultant anger. Where the critic is voicing an opinion or advancing some form of advice for us to take or leave, the orator in a conflict situation is expecting or even insisting on a response and is often unambiguously looking for a verbal confrontation. As with criticism, the choice is exclusively ours: to succumb to the invitation and escalate the confrontational potential or to deescalate the situation and possibly turn it into a constructive interaction?

Matching the aggression is not going to get anyone anywhere and will only serve to escalate the situation. Despite a possible surge in adrenalin, brought on by the orator’s introduction, we need to maintain objectivity by remaining calm and applying The Four Pillars of Communication.

Resolution

From personal experience the orator is often irate and their introduction incoherent. We need to apply the First Pillar of Empathy immediately. We often forget that communication is a verbal manifestation of a need or a feeling, something that words struggle to describe for various reasons ranging from confusion to an inadequate vocabulary. Fact of the matter is: the words are trying to express something unseen, to give something incorporeal a substantive or corporeal form, which is never easy and always complicated when emotion is added!

The minute the orator realizes that we grasp where they are coming from, their emotion for starters, we tend to obtain an immediate deescalation e.g.: the person is shouting and the minute that I respond with, “I can see that you’re angry”, they don’t need to shout anymore, they have made their point, I have acknowledged it and we’re on the same page in that respect. Telling the person to calm down usually results in an escalation, why? Simply because we have not acknowledged the emotion that they are trying so very hard to communicate, in fact we’re apparently attempting to deny, discount or completely suppress it!

A conflict situation differs from usual communication in that the orator is absolutely focused on satisfaction or achieving a result and many emotions, options and variables are running through their minds simultaneously. “Things” can be said to be happening fast and not necessarily rationally or even sequentially. Therefor we need to apply the Second Pillar of Acceptance together with or even before Empathy. I might appear to be a calm and collected individual who would never barge into someone else’s office shouting. But I need to accept that people differ and instead of insisting on the decorum I would apply in similar circumstances, I need to accommodate this supposedly deviant behavior, if I have any hope of resolving the situation.

With the situation deescalated somewhat, by acknowledging the prevalent emotion and thus neutralizing it, we now need to move forward to resolution. But the introduction might have been incoherent and rather than risk a re-escalation by missing the point, one should use the Fourth Pillar of Reflection rather than proceeding on the basis of assumptions. Reflection is exactly what the word says: mirroring the person’s own words, not trying to describe the issue as you see it or in your own words.

In the introduction the person said angrily, “I think this new roster is downright stupid!” We acknowledged anger and deescalated the emotions but what exactly is meant by “stupid” would require guessing and on getting it wrong, result in a possible re-escalation? So we reflect: “The new roster is stupid?” Being emotionally charged the person probably won’t even realize that we have just used their own words, but they will feel that we get their point and proceed in explaining why they think the new roster is stupid, with rationality and logic slowly returning. They have progressed from the point of gaining attention, by whatever means, to the point of making their point or case, which obviously requires a rational and logical presentation in order to be successful?

Now it’s back to empathy, putting oneself in the orator’s shoes, applying acceptance that he/she necessarily differs from us and all other people, and drawing out the complete story. When we have sufficient information, have shown the person that we completely understand their initial emotions and the cause of their discontent we need to move on to actual resolution.

Having ascertained their problem with the new roster by applying reflection, empathy and having acceptance for their own peculiar circumstances, we now need to apply the Third Pillar of being Real. In other words we now need to find a real solution that works for us or the organization as well as the complainant, as far as is reasonably and practically possible. If the solution is impossible in practice and only arrived at to avoid the existing conflict, it will not work, e.g. SAA agreeing to wage and benefit increases for employees just weeks before going into business rescue, which requires substantial retrenchments!

Given that the complainant is now completely rational we can work through the issue, still applying The Four Pillars of Communication, to find a workable solution. By using this approach we ensure that they see our appreciation for their dilemma, whilst providing them with applicable perspective on ours. In any rational search for a resolution to conflict, opponents should arrive at a solution which accommodates them all as much as is practically possible and by way of a process in which it is completely obvious to all of the participants, that there literally is no other practical solution to the challenge or question.

At this point communication is spent and the complainant is necessarily required to take the solution or leave it.   

Conclusion

Any secular leader who believes that their office is a holy shrine, themselves to be demigods and consequently exempt from certain behavior or criticism, should seriously consider relinquishing their position and joining the ranks of the clergy in their preferred religion. Having more pressing issues to handle, than dealing with conflict, also tends to suggest an incapacity for leadership, but could also possibly be due to an overload of other duties or misplaced priorities, which should obviously be addressed. If we want to be leaders we need to lead in such a way that followers will follow, otherwise we are drivers and they a herd?

Most followers know there is an acceptable protocol applicable to the various situations they encounter on a daily basis and their acting contrary should always be seen as indirect communication of some form of dissatisfaction (simmering potential conflict) rather than some form of inherent delinquency.

As leaders we can never run from conflict and avoiding conflict is most certainly a recipe for merely postponing it at the risk of escalation in the meanwhile! Like with criticism, conflict need not be negative and can be quite positive, depending on how we manage it. Through dealing with conflict we might identify flaws in our thinking, that we overlooked, and we most definitely will obtain respect from followers if we are brave enough to face and resolve challenges, especially by way of effective conflict resolution.

THE FOUR PILLARS OF COMMUNICATION:

https://www.amazon.com/FOUR-PILLARS-COMMUNICATION-LEADERS-SUCCEED-ebook/dp/B07SLSGH15