Resolving Workplace Conflict

These conflicts generally occur because a basic need isn’t being met. These needs include:

• Safety – Personal, psychological – being able to be one’s authentic self.
• Autonomy – Feeling like you have some agency or control in the way that you work.  Feeling like your input is valued.
• Identity – human, social, and work identity – Do you feel like you are competent at what you do.  Do you feel recognized for that competency?
• Connected – Feeling connected to people, making progress, and moving forward in a positive way.
• Feeling stimulated – Being challenged in a positive way.

Often times when there is conflict, it is because one or more of those needs is not being met.  Or, there is conflict because someone feels like these basic needs are being threatened. 

The key is to find out what is being threatened or not met and how to make things better.

2. Resolving Conflict

Finding the reasoning behind why there is conflict is the first step.  The second step is resolving the conflict.  This may be the most challenging.  But the good news is, it can be done!

Wellnesss Check-ins – Doing regular one-on-one check-ins focusing on employee experience. If you are leading these check-ins, it is important that you don’t use this time for critical performance reviews.  These check-ins are strictly to check in for a sense of employee well-being.  Consider using these questions to help guide you:

• What do you need from me as a leader? 
• What can I do to help you?
• What could the organization be doing better? 
• How do you want to grow within the company?
• Is the company supporting you in this? 

Addressing Behaviors – You may not be in a position of leadership, but you still need to address conflict because it can affect your performance i.e. dealing with a micromanager.  During the Soulcast Media | Live, Jeremy shared how you can approach such a situation.

• Conversation – The power of conversation cannot be underestimated. The person who is exhibiting behavior you don’t appreciate isn’t able to fix it if they don’t know what is bothering you.
• Timeliness – You may need a day or two to process how you are feeling about a specific incident.  However, you should try to be as timely as possible when speaking about a situation that made you uncomfortable or unhappy.
• Separate the behavior –  When you talk about the situation, it is important that you separate the behavior from the person.  Leave any judgments aside – and focus solely on the behavior.
• Be specific – As you talk about the behavior, you will want to be specific. For example – let’s say you have a manager who reviews every single slide of a presentation deck.  You can say something like,  “When you review every single part of my presentation, it makes me feel like I’m not being trusted or that you don’t trust me. It makes me feel like I’m not competent to do the work. I don’t know if that’s what you think, but that’s how it feels. Do you trust me to do the work?” When you approach it this way, you are allowing others to explain why they behave in that way.
• Collaborate – After you’ve shared the specific behavior that bothered you, you can then figure out how you can work together collaboratively to resolve how you are feeling.  In this way, you both can work so that your manager understands how you feel and you can understand why your manager may look over your deck with such detail. 

Solution building is collaborative. 

3. De-escalating 

During the Soulcast Media | Live, Jeremy was asked a question about how to de-escalate a situation.  And while no one expects a large outburst, it can occur.  If this ever happens, Jeremy offered a few strategies to help de-escalate a sensitive conflict.

Code of Civility– It is important that you have a code of civility within a group or organization.  Collaborate together to create one if this is something that’s lacking. Make sure everyone in the company understands what is acceptable behavior in tricky situations and what isn’t.  This will help prevent a conflict from getting out of control.

Listen – Oftentimes people yell because they don’t feel they are being heard.  If someone is yelling, it is your job to make sure that you are listening to them, despite how heated you may be too.  That means you will want to let them know their concerns are important to you. Framing it like – that is really concerning or I want that for you too.  Saying those words will help you become the agent or partner to the person who is feeling frustrated or angry. Engaging in reflective listening is also important.  This means repeating what they’ve said so they feel like they’re being heard.

Be Generous – Be the first to give in.  If you value this relationship and you want to resolve the conflict, sometimes you have to be the one to make a concession. This doesn’t mean you are backing down. You are just giving air to the situation.

Tone Of Voice – Your tone of voice can have a large impact on how you are communicating. When trying to de-escalate the situation, embody the tone of voice of a caretaker – in other words, empathize with them and don’t talk in a demanding tone.

Body Language – You can also use your body language to help de-escalate a situation. Don’t square off with someone as in standing face to face because that can feel very oppositional. Slightly turning, not away from the person but very so slightly so that you’re both somewhat facing the same direction is ideal. It helps show that you’re on the same team and in this together. Sitting is also less oppositional than standing. Keeping yourself open is also important.  Try not to close your fists, point your fingers, or cross your arms.  Keep your hands open. 

During the Soulcast Media | Live, Jessica shared that self-regulation and self-awareness are keys to de-escalation.