How to handle conflicts at work

Before I get to instructions there are two important things to keep in mind:

1. we're all just humans with our born and gained issues which we're learning to control our whole lives;
2. there's a lot of additional theory, facts, data, schools behind my ways, and opinions but I'll keep it out to keep it crisp.

The intro. We all live in our own unique world.

People like to think that if we're from one group then we have some kind of aligned thinking and similar opinion about things. That's half-true. We all still have our previous work experience and new experiences outside of work. These experiences build our understanding of the world, or more like build the world we live in. In addition to that, there is a nervous system and temperament (and a few more things, depending on a theory) which is not meant to be changed. To have a happy life, we should not fight it.

The expectation. Theory of roles.

In a professional and mature environment, the expectation is rather simple - there are different jobs to do (the roles), and people fulfill them. Good if they have the required skills, but if the role is described well enough, then pretty much any human can learn it. All roles exist to work with objects (the task, customer, money, infra, code, idea, you name it), it's often described in the role's duties.

If more than one role has something to do with the object, then there should be a description what are each role's responsibilities (often called RACI) toward that object - everything simple and straightforward. Still, if some role needs support, there will be some other role (often a manager) that has this role as an object to care for. Roles are objects which care for other objects.

The reality. Humans tend to overcomplicate and have emotions.

The cause of most issues at work is communication. When someone tries to argue with that on a concrete issue, after 5 why's it's clear that in the end, it was because of something lacking in communication. Human is the most successful in communication but we never communicate enough, nor we should. We need to accept that things will go wrong. Why do they go wrong?

Because there are more layers to any simple communication (going from left to right):

• Let's say I got an idea related to the object;
• There is my perception of my own idea - how relevant it is, how important. There are my skills and more importantly my way of communicating it.
• My interface is the role I'm fulfilling, hopefully, it officially has the object in its list of responsibilities. But let's be honest, all responsibilities or inventory of a fast-moving creative world is just impossible to keep updated.
• ?So I put my message on the object and start expecting results. Someone on the other side has a job to pick it up and process, some other role.
• Well, first of all, it's very realistic that my idea doesn't fit any other role descriptions no one is picking up. We got a conflict.
• If some role tries to pick it up, firstly it will be processed with the existing framework of that role, probably more roles get involved in the process, it takes time. An opportunity for a conflict.
• The human starts with the prism of perception, someone else's translator from text and pictures into the brain system. One word "please" written in a bad manner can immediately make someone feel intimidated, put up defenses and read my whole idea as a judgment of someone else's ideas.
• ?And finally, it hits some other human's brain and the processing and work on the response have begun. Well, at this point probably my idea already seems like an absolutely different idea and in someone else's eyes, I should get fired.
• Then it travels back in the same way, over the same elements and the issue may start escalating. Back and forward. Back and forward. We can assign some safety gates in the role, but at the end of the day, the best element to stop it from escalating is the human.?

The consequences. Accepting the conflict.

We can improve (and we should) our roles descriptions and frameworks continuously but the issues will keep happening. Accept it. Conflict can also be a good thing. We learn from them. I believe everyone has got that weird email from someone, where the sentence ends with an exclamation mark and you sit thinking - "what does that mean???" There's popular advice to close the laptop when in the evening some inner devil pushes you to respond to something like that. But this will affect your sleep, it's not worth it. Also, what if it's in the middle of the day and I must rush to some meeting? It will affect my performance at the next meeting, I will keep thinking about it. There's no cure really, the best I can propose is to accept that probably something has happened, hopefully, it's nothing serious, and I will deal will that later. At such moments the phrase "work is just work" may help a little. Let's put our passion into good deeds instead, in that next meeting for example. It's all about the attitude and self-control, or more like self-care.

The resolution. Work through conflicts together.

When two heads can't get it done, get one more head. But the mediator is not always required. Two skilled people usually should be able to resolve any conflicts by themselves if they want it and work for it. Also, getting the mediator in may feel a bit weird, and let's not forget that also the mediator has a role, a prism of perception and opinion.

First of all, it's important to get close as much as possible, if an in-person meeting at the same side of a desk is not possible, at least have the video on during the call. What will not work is written communication. So, one human must schedule a meeting, that is hard to automate. I hope you got that done.

1. You're in the meeting, now what? What's important is to set the right context, the stage. Having a general talk "oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't want to offend you, I hope you can forgive me, I will try to do better" is good but it's not leading to the resolution, is it? Instead, together write down what has happened, what has been said or written. It's important to keep the scope small, focusing on one "insulting" sentence is enough. Keep it one-way - there is the sender and receiver of the message.?
2. The receiver should give a bit of insight into what was going on in the head when receiving that. As a mediator I would say something like "yes, I understand you, but how did you feel about it? What was going on in your head?". DO NOT JUDGE! Write it down.
3. The sender explains what was actually meant by the message. In 99% of cases, it's going to be a bit different than the initial context. If it feels a bit short, add more explanation to it. Let the receiver process that, and ask questions. Write it down.
4. The receiver should give his/her own version of how to say it differently. Even if the words don't change much, there is a learning process ongoing. The sender may help a little if needed. Appreciate that, write it down.?
5. Test the solution - how the receiver would have taken the new version of the same message?
6. If the solution still feels somewhat offending or leading to a conflict, do another round. If you have the time of course. If not, also fine, we did our best for the time we got.
7. The contract. It's important for both sides to agree that further on they will adjust themselves to how messages are sent and how those are perceived. As we say in Latvian "viena pagale nedeg". Write it down.

I can't stress enough how important it is to write it all down. That's the only way how to check that all sides are getting the same message. Also, people can read it later to remind themselves what was learned, how others may perceive things, etc.

The outro. It's just the first step.

Many at this point probably are thinking "doh, this is some bs, how can I get anything resolved by just discussing one sentence!!!", indeed, it may not be enough. Feel free to continue the meeting with a discussion about the object, the thing that started this all. Since the conflict has been resolved, emotional blocks are removed or at least managed, now it should be much easier to find a common opinion or at least to agree to disagree and follow.