How You Can Learn to Welcome Workplace Conflicts

Let’s face it, nobody who is mentally healthy enjoys workplace conflict. Conflicts are disruptions. The minor ones hold the hazard of hurt feelings. The major ones can destroy relationships. Wreck reputations and careers. Even bring entire companies to their knees. Who wants that? I sure don’t.

When adult survivors of a damaged past (ASDPs) experience workplace conflicts, there are whole new layers of existential dread brought into the mix – or mix-up. Depending on what your particular damaged past featured (A raging parent so out of control you feared for your life? A long history of being the family scapegoat and being unjustly punished? Growing up among family members who consistently misunderstood and/or undervalued you? Being constantly neglected because other pressing family concerns were more urgent?), you developed coping mechanisms to help you survive to become the adult you are today.??And whether you are fully aware of it or not, you brought those coping techniques into your professional life and you are probably using them at work.?

Me???I brought people pleasing and perfectionism into my career. They were habits that I picked up as a little girl, hoping to be the Very Best Little Girl Ever to prevent my father from losing his temper and chasing me, my little sister Nancy and our dog Dodger under a bed. There we would cower for hours while our father raged downstairs. Somewhere along the line I developed the belief that it was my perfect behavior that could keep my family safe night after night. Irrational, I know. But tell that to a little girl who was desperately trying to figure out a way to keep peace and safety in the home. Like it was her job.?

So you can imagine how frightening workplace conflicts were to me as I spent decade after decade trying to prevent other people’s displeasure or anger. When someone was mad at me, or even just disappointed in me, there was a part of me that deep down believed I was going to die. So, of course, I did everything I could to prevent conflict. I wasn’t aware that those extreme actions to please threatened my health, peace of mind, even family balance and family relationships.?

What does a workplace conflict represent to you??

Depending on your own childhood experiences, it could feel like an outsized, massive, monster threat to your very existence. Even though you might not actually assign those words to your experience, when you sit down and really think it through, that’s what it boils down to. If you grew up like I did, in a childhood fraught with hair-trigger anxiety, at the whims of someone much larger and more powerful than I, who can blame you for doing everything you can to avoid those feelings and threats.

The ironic thing is that this maladaptive way of protecting yourself is actually threatening your present and your future. You’re under the constant physical and emotional stress of worry. Your constant efforts to please and appease are actually confusing to your colleagues, so your effectiveness at work is compromised. You’re not getting the respect you deserve to do the great job you’re capable of doing. And you’re dragging all that anxiety home with you at night. Which not only harms your health but it also hurts your family.

And, in your drive to protect yourself by using unconscious outdated childhood techniques to avoid conflict, you might not have learned conscious, healthy, adult approaches to standing up for yourself. You end up repeating the same cycle of appeasement and avoidance again and again, setting yourself up for being the scapegoat at work. Again and again.?

Here’s a “what if” question for you:??What if you learned to embraced workplace conflicts, taking them head-on, welcoming each one as a fresh opportunity to grow, heal, and even, yes,?flourish???In Chapter 5 of my book,?Healing at Work: A Guide to Using Career Conflicts to Overcome Your Past and Build the Future You Deserve, I introduce the idea that the workplace can actually be a lab for emotional healing (see the first comment for instructions on how to get a free copy of Chapter 5). Inside that chapter I talk about positive psychology father Martin Seligman’s concept of PERMA as the recipe for positively flourishing in life.??The more I studied PERMA, the more I realized that it is a marvelous tool for approaching a potential workplace conflict with confidence – even active welcoming – as the chance to heal, protect your career and establish your value as a professional in your company.

Healing at Work?goes into detail on PERMA, but here’s a quick overview of how PERMA sets the stage for turning almost any workplace conflict into an opportunity to grow and heal:

Positive emotion:??This might be the hardest thing to achieve when you’re anticipating a conflict.??Remember that you have this job because of all the candidates/applicants for the position, they picked?you. So you are entering the conflict arena already qualified for standing your ground and defending your position. You might also draw positive emotion from the fact that you deeply care about the cause or mission that is at stake, and so, probably, does your opponent. You might even personally care for your opponent. There is something good in this conflict. Discover it and use that as the generator of your energy and commitment.

Engagement:?As I said above, you care about something in this conflict. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a conflict. Your team? The mission at stake or at risk? All the time and commitment you’ve already invested in the mission? The ultimate cause of the enterprise? Where do you fit in? What are you willing to fight for? That’s where you engage, drawing from the gravitas of your full-fledged adultness, not your fearful inner child.?

Relationships:?One of the most fearful aspects of a workplace conflict is the fact that you might lose a valued relationship. But, in fact, when you stand up for yourself, set your boundaries, calmly lay out your position, without making it personal, your relationships stand to improve. Your colleagues get a sharper sense of who you are and what you hold to be non-negotiable. Now they know exactly who it is they’re dealing with. They may or may not be happy with you at the moment. But the long-run impact will be healthier relationships of mutual respect.?

Meaning:?Most conflicts are really about an issue much deeper and more powerful than the presenting issue. The experience of the conflict and how you handle it carries with it far more meaning than simply what the outcome of the issue will be. Did you stand up for what was right, even though the risk was overwhelming? Did you stay consistent with your values and serve them in the proper order of importance?

And finally?Achievement:

You did it! Whether you did it masterfully or not is almost beside the point. (Sure, we want these things to go perfectly with no one being offended or holding a grudge against you. But don’t expect perfection, especially when just starting out.) You looked fear and threat in the eye. You kept your cool (well, maybe not so much, but it was more than the last time. So that’s still something to celebrate). You spoke your peace. You defended your position. You might have even changed a mind or two. Maybe you lost a relationship, but you also discovered the extent of how that person could be trusted, so that’s still an accomplishment. Bottom line: You stood your ground. You stood up for yourself. You did it kindly, respectfully, calmly, and professionally.?

Now the chips will have to fall where they may. But the long-shot upside is this: People know who you are, what your boundaries are, and that respectful interaction is what will be tolerated from here on out.

Wouldn’t you love to go back in time and defend the child you once were in this way? That’s the least that child deserved, right?

You can move forward in life, stepping off that Unconscious Wounded Career Path and onto what I call a Conscious Healing Career Path. And the next time the prospects of another conflict begin to frown in your direction, you don’t have to cower. You can say, “Welcome! I’ve been waiting for you!”

And do it again.