Stop Workplace Conflicts

September 9, 2010 By Maureen Moriarty

Workplaces today are stressful — tight deadlines, heavy workloads, high expectations of excellence combined with common realities of limited resources, inconsistent direction, team environments and interpersonal challenges. Conflict is inevitable.

While disruptions, creative differences and missed expectations are part of everyday work lives, it’s how conflict is dealt with that makes the difference between a healthy and dysfunctional workplace.

The pinch-crunch conflict model, developed by Jack Sherwood and John Glidewell, helps us understand the importance of resolving conflict while the issues are minor before they escalate into a full-blown feuds and battles. The model identifies the importance of sharing information and renegotiating expectations when pinches occur.

Too often, the reality is when we are “pinched” in the workplace, we fail to voice our concerns and choose to keep our thoughts and feelings to ourselves. We worry about rocking the boat or hurting others’ feelings or simply hope the behavior won’t continue.

In the meantime, the offending individual typically goes on offending, many times oblivious that their behavior has caused a problem.

Because the missed expectation has not been dealt with or communicated, the disappointing behavior continues and “pinches” accumulate. Frustration and resentment build, creating even more problems. Eventually these accumulated and unresolved pinches turn into “crunches,” full-blown, highly charged and potentially explosive situations resulting in managers asking, “How in the world did we get into this mess?”

Workplace crunches can end in explosive situations. Tensions, stakes and emotions have escalated. Unresolved crunches can result in lowered morale and performance, people giving up (resigned that the situation will never improve), hostile work environments and employee turnover.

It’s important to handle pinches before they turn into crunches. Waiting just makes them harder to resolve. If you find yourself in a workplace pinch, here are a few tips to consider:

Voice your concerns early, even over small disagreements, rather than waiting or avoiding addressing them.
Attempt to identify and address the real issue. Dig and be curious — you may have only the partial picture.
Focus on the problem behavior versus making it personal. Describe the behavior that you observed without your personal interpretations, judgments or assumptions.
Communicate your intentions, including the desire to improve your working relationship.
Negotiate expectations. Clarify and agree to each other’s role responsibilities.
Generate realistic options to meet established expectations.
Seek agreement on next steps.

Handling pinches effectively often results in increased trust, confidence and improved relationships. Workplace relationships and teams are strengthened when differences are dealt with successfully. Wise managers recognize that problems and conflict are a part of the workplace. They don’t assume that they won’t have any problems; they recognize it’s their job as a leader to deal with problems before they become disasters.

The challenge for managers is to create and maintain an environment that not only allows but encourages healthy conflict.

For this to be successful, they need to foster and support open dialogue and a process to allow pinches to be identified and resolved before turning into full-blown crunches.

THE PINCH

These are common workplace “pinches”:

Unrealistic workplace expectations
Confusion over roles
Different standards for performance or behavior
Feeling unappreciated or taken for granted
Communication misunderstandings

Invest in yourself by hiring me as your coach! I can help you learn, develop and grow your leadership and emotional intelligence abilities. I coach leaders all over the world via Skype. Call me: 360 682 5807 or email: mmoriarty@pathtochange.com

Your Conflict Style -Learned At Early Age

September 9, 2010 By Maureen Moriarty

Our ideas about how to influence and respond to authority are largely a result of what we learned as children through our family upbringing. As adults in the workplace, we tend to recreate and respond in the fashion we were taught in early childhood.

Recall a recent workplace conflict and the part you played — what did you do or say? Did you avoid, blame, yell or threaten, acquiesce, compromise or work out a win-win solution? Now compare this with the family “rules” around conflict you learned as a child. Most people can recognize that their workplace conflict pattern stems from their family of origin.

We bring these lessons and patterns with us into the workplace. The first group we ever belonged to was our family. Our parents were our first “bosses.” How we relate and respond to a workplace “boss” is largely habituated from our own parental experiences. Common struggles with workplace power and authority (asking for a raise or challenging your boss) are likely connected to early childhood “interpretations” and experiences with authority. For example, some grew up with the message that it was not OK to challenge authority, with strong parental messages like, “Do what I say,” or, “You can sit there all night until those peas are gone!” or, “Don’t argue with me!” As adults, they may be reticent to tell the boss bad news, ask for what they want, disagree or give challenging feedback. As children, they learned it wasn’t OK to challenge authority.

Most bosses (and businesses) would benefit greatly by hearing what’s really going on from people in their workplaces. Yet few get this kind of honest feedback. Bosses need to ask for feedback (and not shoot the messenger!) and work to establish trust with their people.

In terms of how we manage conflict, the truth is most of us go through life reacting unconsciously. To change how you manage conflict, you must first be aware of your patterns and tendencies.

In moments of anxiety, stress or fear, a highly automatic emotional reaction (triggered by the reptilian part of our brain) often overpowers rational thinking. Our brains release a hormone to signal danger (fight or flight). This served our ancestors well for survival in saber-tooth territory, but can be a hindrance in today’s workplace.

Additionally, our brains are “hard-wired” for how we react emotionally — our early childhood experiences determine how neural pathways are established. As adults, we react emotionally when something happens that causes these childhood neural pathways to “fire.” For example, if as a baby you experienced a parent as loud and frightening, you likely react with a conditioned fear response to a boss yelling. Perhaps you got the message as a child you were never “good enough;” then you may have intense reactions of sadness or anger when you hear disapproval in the workplace.

Have you ever been surprised at the intensity of someone’s reaction to something you said — “Whoa, where did that reaction come from?” The stronger the emotional reaction, the more likely their interpretation of the situation is coming from their past.

Most want to blame others for their reactions, as in, “You made me mad,” or, “He pushes my buttons.” The truth is, we push our own buttons. Nobody makes us feel anything.

Most of us react to words or behaviors of others that get under our skin. For the sake of future workplace relationships and your career, identify and learn to recognize your hot buttons.

The primary reason for career derailment is a lack of emotional intelligence. The good news: It is possible to rewire your brain’s neural firing patterns. The bad news: It isn’t easy. It takes great attention, support and practice to learn to rewire new behaviors.

TIPS TO HELP

Be aware of your emotional patterns.
Understand that we co-create what’s working and not working with others.
Identify what you are feeling (feelings inform you about the importance and meaning of a situation) and then choose your behavior. Recent brain-scan research indicates that naming your feeling when upset (either to yourself or out loud) can get you out of “lizard” mode and back into prefrontal cortex thinking mode (where your odds of successful resolution are greatly enhanced).
Get help — hire a coach or get training in conflict resolution and interpersonal practices.

Notice when you slip into your childhood emotional state, then choose to behave as a grownup.

Unhealthy Conflict Hurts Workers and Business

September 9, 2010 By Maureen Moriarty

Unresolved workplace conflict is stressful for participants, their bosses and everyone in close proximity. Yet conflict is a common workplace reality — as human beings we naturally have different values, points of view or ways of communicating.

Most of us don’t choose our co-workers (anymore than we choose our annoying relatives), yet success in today’s team environment requires us to find a way to resolve differences.

Let’s start by making the distinction between healthy and unhealthy conflict. Healthy debate on workplace teams often leads to better strategy and decisions and should be encouraged. Being accountable on a team may mean that others will challenge you to do a better job or follow through on a commitment — these are not reasons to head for the human resources department. Unhealthy conflict is very different — it interferes with people’s ability to do their work successfully and, in the extremes, involves harmful or abusive behaviors.

The challenge for most managers is knowing when and how to intervene. Avoiding it won’t solve anything. Unresolved conflict just festers and resurfaces. In extreme cases, managers need to draw a well-defined boundary and lay out consequences for unacceptable behaviors. Individuals who contribute to a hostile work environment must be dealt with swiftly and decisively. As the boss, it is your responsibility to establish an environment that enables your people to be successful. Any kind of negative escalating conflict that is disruptive to the work environment warrants an intervention.

Most successful interventions involve bringing the parties together with a mediator to discuss and commit to making the changes necessary to resolve the conflict.

Here are some intervention guidelines in resolving unhealthy conflict.

Start by establishing ground rules for acceptable behavior such as:

One person speak at a time. Speak for yourself and not for others. No personal attacks or put-downs.

Allow each an opportunity to share their stories so each understands the other’s experience. There are two sides to every story — none of us views the same event, interaction or situation in exactly the same way. Encourage both parties to identify what is theirs to “own” in the conflict (i.e., How did they contribute to the situation?)
Clarify job descriptions, roles and behavior expectations. Often the source of workplace conflict is overlapping or misunderstood roles or “turf.” Establish single-point (one-person) accountability for responsibilities, tasks and results. A common denominator for most workplace conflict is disagreement around “shared” expectations — some version of, “That is your responsibility, not mine,” or, “If you would only do your job!” This typical turf war is often the result of a gap between what one participant believes should be and what he or she perceives is being delivered (or not) by the other. Bosses often need to clarify turf and responsibilities to help close that gap. Get participants clear on whose responsibility is what by when.
Ask participants to identify what specific actions they would like from the other to resolve the disagreement. For example: “I would like responsibility for all client communication,” or, “I want Joe to submit his report to me by 5 p.m. each Friday.” A tip: Help them identify what they want more of, less of, stopped or started.
Create accountability for a plan to move forward. Participants should walk away with shared (preferably written) agreement about who will be responsible for what in the future. Plan to meet again to check on how things are working.

If you aren’t comfortable attempting this kind of mediation or if the conflict has gone on a long time and/or the stakes and emotions are high, it may be time to bring in someone like me as outside help — someone with conflict resolution expertise who can serve as an objective third party and with nothing vested in the outcome of the conflict. Outside experts are often successful where internal resources fail (human resources people are not often seen as being impartial) to bring real or sustained changes.

Expert facilitators, like me, can help:

Identify and clarify the “real” issues.
Regulate the conflict with a process that brings order and safety to participants.
Interrupt a frequently escalating cycle.
Help participants develop new and effective behaviors for handling differences moving forward.

Conflict Avoidance is Bad Management

September 9, 2010 By Maureen Moriarty

Conflict is a natural element of high-performing workplace teams. When conflict is managed well, it can be a highly effective means of identifying and resolving tough workplace challenges, often resulting in improved relationships and solutions. Avoiding conflict, discouraging it or allowing chronic unhealthy conflict to remain unresolved can be disastrous to organizational health. There are human and financial costs to conflict avoidance.

Organizations lose countless dollars each year to unresolved conflict in lost productivity, performance, employee turnover and absenteeism. Lost opportunity costs include the improvement or solution that might have resulted from creative collaboration (versus black holes that emerge when employees refuse to deal with each other). Morale also is affected — not only between participants but among people around them. People who are embroiled in conflict often are under great stress. Many report not sleeping well and being unable to focus at work.

Other costs to unresolved conflict:

Miscommunication resulting from confusion or refusal to cooperate,
Quality problems.
Missed deadlines or delays.
Increased stress among employees
Reduced creative collaboration and team problem solving.
Disruption to work flow.
Decreased customer satisfaction.
Distrust.
Split camps
Gossip.

As a manager or leader, if you are avoiding conflict, you aren’t alone. The majority of my clients are in the conflict-avoidance camp. Managing conflict effectively is daunting for even the most seasoned leaders. Unfortunately, for many managers, their answer is to avoid it, even if it means that the challenge or situation is allowed to fester at the expense of the organization.

In today’s team environment, healthy debate and difference is vital. It’s a necessary element of discovery and generating creative solutions to complex problems. Unfortunately the debate process can be uncomfortable for many people. We all have different comfort levels with conflict. Some easily get emotionally reactive, others quietly stew and others bow to the bullies — or those with internal political clout — in the room. Most of us learned how to fight fairly (or not) from our parents. A lucky few had great parental role models for conflict resolution and have the skills to foster collaboration and win-win scenarios. Most of us have to learn new strategies to convert workplace conflict into positive outcomes.

Personal experiences and learned behaviors establish our primary response toward conflict. To work through conflict effectively, start by identifying feelings. The potential for unprofessional reactions to workplace conflict results when we allow our emotions to rule us versus letting our emotions inform us. Being aware of your feelings is a good thing; emotions help us determine the importance of a situation. The danger is when individuals allow their extreme emotional reactions to drive their behavior. Being aware of one’s natural reactive tendency and being able to deploy self-soothing strategies can go a long way toward reducing emotional reactivity.

Teaching employees practical tools for dealing effectively with conflict, disagreement and difference is smart business. Many managers have never learned effective conflict-resolution tools and find great benefit from skill development and training in this area.

There are many useful approaches to dealing with workplace conflict that can be taught — through training, skilled intervention and mentoring and coaching.

But what if you are dealing with a truly difficult situation or are stuck in a conflict you just can’t seem to resolve?

First, acknowledge the conflict honestly. Just how damaging is the conflict? Identify costs, both realized and opportunity costs. Remember as the boss, you get what you tolerate. How far are you willing to let this go? For effective conflict resolution, the boss will need to play a critical role in establishing organizational expectations, including behavioral boundaries and consequences of meeting (or not meeting) those expectations.

Effective leaders create an environment that allows open and constructive exploration of conflict issues and avoid the “he said, she said” tendency. While some leaders have exceptional skill in managing through highly conflicted scenarios, others do not. In this case bringing in outside help can bring much-needed relief and resolution.

We all need help and support from time to time. Just like you call in a plumber for a stopped-up drain — there are specialist resources and conflict facilitators that will help in highly charged conflict scenarios.

Never Tolerate Workplace Bullies

September 9, 2010 By Maureen Moriarty

OFFICE RAGE is on the rise. In increasingly high-stress workplaces with heavy workloads, long hours, tight resources, exhausted and angry co-workers and demanding customers, more people are losing it and behaving badly. One New York City survey found that 42 percent of respondents admitted there was yelling and verbal abuse in their workplace; 23 percent said they had been “driven to tears.”

Granted, we’re human and from time to time we lose control of our emotions, but there are no excuses when it comes to bullying behavior and abuse.

Sadly, 49 percent of American workers report having been affected by workplace bullying, either as a target themselves or having witnessed abusive behavior against a co-worker, according to the Workplace Bullying Institute’s 2007 survey. The cost is high: Victims suffer mental and physical effects and companies pay in high turnover, litigation costs, low morale and workers compensation.

As defined by the Workplace Bullying Institute, bullying is “repeated, health-harming mistreatment of one or more persons (the targets) by one or more perpetrators that takes one or more of the following forms: verbal abuse, offensive conduct/behaviors (including nonverbal) which are threatening, humiliating and/or intimidating, or work interference (sabotage) which prevents work from getting done.” The key words: repeated, health-harming mistreatment.

Workplace bullies should never be tolerated. There are laws protecting workers from intimidation or from a hostile or offensive work environment. Workplace bullying often involves abuse or misuse of power (the vast majority of bullies are bosses), often creating a feeling of helplessness in victims.

Just because a boss is tough or has high performance expectations doesn’t make him or her a bully. Bullies, by definition, are abusive.

Examples include:

Falsely accusing and punishing for “errors” not actually made.
Being treated differently than the rest of your work group.
Public humiliation.
Demonstration of hostility, which can include nonverbal intimidation (glaring, clenched fists and threatening posture).
Exhibited uncontrollable mood swings in front of the group.
Demeaning comments.

If you’re a victim of workplace bullying:

Recognize bullying for what it is and get help. Document incidents, dates and what was said or done. When someone is intimidating or abusing you, leave the situation immediately, then go to human resources. If HR doesn’t take immediate action and resolve the issue, contact your employee assistance program or talk with an attorney. Leave if you don’t feel safe.

If you’re the problem:

Get help. Anger management therapy or a coach specializing in emotional intelligence can help you gain insight into what triggers your bad behavior and learn new ways of coping in stressful workplace situations.

Recognize your own signs of an impending emotional hijack. These may include a sudden rapid heart rate, sweaty palms or shallow breathing (or the urge to throw something or hit someone). Once you are emotionally reactive and flooding occurs with cortisol and adrenaline coursing through your body, it’s almost impossible to resolve a problem or conflict rationally. The best thing to do is remove yourself from the situation. Leave the office and don’t return until you have calmed down.

What companies should do:

It’s the responsibility of senior leaders to create a safe and healthy work environment. This means protecting workers against harassment and bullying. Communicate and enforce a zero-tolerance bullying policy and clearly define behaviors that won’t be tolerated.

Offer harassment training to workers.

Get help for those who have a history or demonstrate signs of significant emotional intelligence challenges. This may include coaching, therapy or anger management. Coaching only works for those individuals who admit they have a problem and are willing to do the hard work associated with genuine personal reflection and the willingness to learn new behaviors.