How to Manage Tough Conflicts at Work

Conflict is part of all of our lives and life without conflicts might become boring. Yet most of us do not enjoy confrontations and have trouble dealing with conflicts at work. Some use position or power to dominance, some let frustration accumulate, and others simply resolve to vent and unload.

I had the honor attending a insightful Wharton webinar this week by Professor Richard Shell who is an award-winning scholar, teacher, and author at my alma mater Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. I have read all his three previous books and the seminar is based on his latest book: The conscience code: leading with your values. I have not had a chance to read the book yet but here are some take away messages I learned from the webinar.

There are four common kinds of conflicts in work places: conflicts due to personalities, interests, beliefs, or values. In order to effectively manage or resolve conflicts, it is important to first diagnose the kind of conflicts one is dealing with. Each type of conflict would require a different approach. The key asset for solving personality conflicts is your emotional IQ, or ability to read others emotion or opinions. Ability to read people’s body language is hard to begin with, but increased reliance on virtual interactions make it even more difficult. Interest conflicts on the other hand would require an investigative mindset. Using the framework for business negotiation, different parties often have different interests or priorities. Investigative approach would allow parties to move away from positions and focus on integrating interests through collaboration. Conflicts in beliefs can include disagreements in company mission, strategy, or approaches. Those conflicts typically are not settled by negotiation or compromise. Instead, persuasion is the skill to leverage. If you are in a power of position, you can leverage your power to change behavior in the near term while hoping behavior change would eventually led to change in beliefs. Finally, conflicts in fundamental values such as honesty, social justice are unconditional. The best approach is to encourage those conflicts by bringing them to the table and engaging the conversation. Try to understand people’s fundamental values and focus on getting things accomplished in a way which is consistent with their beliefs.

Finally, Professor Shell pointed out the importance of taking strategic approach for conflict resolution by preparation, rather than being reactive. Leverage others to gain perspectives, rather than work in isolation. I have enjoying all the previous books by Professor Shell, especially “The Art of Woo” because selling ideas is much more difficult than selling products. I look forward to reading his latest addition.

Coincidentally, I also personally attended a dinner event this week at the Asia Society honoring Dr Robert M Gates, one of the greatest American servants. During his long and distinguished career, he managed to avoid partisan squabbles while working in the administrations of eight different presidents including serving as the secretory of defense for both President George W Bush and President Baraka Obama.

He shared some of his perspective about the mistakes US made and lessons we learned in the Afghanistan conflict including the failure to look at from Afghanistan perspective and to collaborate with the Afghanistan society. We built the Afghanistan military based on the mode of US military and American supply chain, rather than a military which would be self sustainable after US pullout. While the Afghanistan population needed wells for clean water and health care facilities, we built schools without knowing if there would be teachers. It was a conflict at a much large and historical scale than conflicts at work, but I winder similar principle described by Professor Shell would have helped in deciding what aspects of the conflicts were due to conflicts of interest, belief or fundamental value, and deciding the appropriate solutions beyond just military force.

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