I learned pretty early that I wasn't good with conflict. Straight out of university, I worked as an engineer supporting a manufacturing facility that ran 24/7, staffed by highly experienced male technicians who didn't take well to being told to change how they worked by a 23-year-old woman with zero practical experience.
I worked hard to show my competence and willingness to work and build relationships and trust with the team. I built real friendships in that time and we also did make big efficiency and reliability improvements. But my heart would still sink on the mornings that I saw certain names on the clock-in cards when I arrived - knowing that the day was likely to involve at least one heated exchange in order to get my work done.
The strategies for dealing with conflict I learned in that time served me well - until they didn't. In retrospect, I can see I learned to balance the competing demands of multiple stakeholders (Make things better! Don't do or say anything that wounds my fragile ego! Get better! Don't bother me!) by bending myself into whatever shape I could to accommodate others. I'd have the difficult conversations I needed to, but soften them by spending the day doing everything I could to appease the other person. With the clarity of distance, I can see my strategy was to suppress my own needs completely, in the hope that everyone would like me enough not to get mad at me. It was exhausting and not at all efficient.
I lasted about 3 years in that job before moving on. Nowadays I would probably acknowledge I was burnt out - but at the time I just saw it as evidence that I wasn't cut out to deal with conflict. So I adopted a new approach - to avoid conflict at all costs.
I moved to a far less demanding job, kept my head down and enjoyed the peace of a quieter life. Except - deep down, I really wasn't ok. With hindsight, I can see this strategy was essentially an extension of my original flawed approach. Suppressing my own needs to meet the needs of others. The powerful part of me that is fired up by making things better, that believes in fairness and respect and contribution was slowly being suffocated.
It responded by exploding.
I vividly remember yelling at my stupid, insecure boss who tried to give me a poor performance rating because my work had been recognised by a senior colleague when he wasn’t. Or the time I shouted in the open plan office at a colleague who was too weak to stand up to an ill-informed executive and instead tried to push extra work onto my team who were already buckling under pressure. "Are you kidding? No, we absolutely cannot take on any more right now!" I yelled, slamming my hand on the desk. "If you can't tell him that, I will!"
I know I sound judgemental - I didn't say it was a good strategy.
As an aside, the consequences of these explosions turned out in every case not to be so bad - in truth, I was sharing things that needed to be said and there was a kind of reluctant acceptance of that I think. Plus, people were so shocked by the contrast of the amenable and easygoing colleague they were used to with this emotional and angry doppelganger that I don't think they knew how to respond, other than by trying to calm me down and retreating to lick their wounds.
However, this 100% wasn't how I wanted to show up in the world. I knew I needed to find a way to carve out space for my whole authentic self to exist at work, without the drama.
I moved companies and with that, worked in an entirely different environment. I was surrounded by a supportive and capable team - in an organisation with a very different culture (I definitely wouldn't have got away with shouting in the office here - but to be fair, neither would I have felt the need to).
In this environment I found the space to reflect on my relationship with conflict. A colleague talked about how he welcomed pushback and disagreement. That when he came across people who felt passionately about the opposite side of a subject it was a sign that there was more for each of them to learn. When he was aware disagreement existed on the best way to approach a problem, he felt a responsibility to bring it into the light and see what value might be there. I began to regularly see better solutions emerging from initial disagreement and it made me stop and think. Is conflict just a mismanaged form of potentially productive disagreement?
In the examples where I had felt so uncomfortable earlier in my career I had assigned selfish motivations to others - but had I taken responsibility for my part, to both understand the other side and proactively assert my own point of view? Had I allowed space for better solutions to emerge?
In the book 'Think Again', Adam Grant writes about the power of disagreement in teams, but crucially highlights the importance of aligned values to ensure productive disagreement can exist.
"In building a team, there are some dimensions where fit is important and others where misfit adds value. Research suggests that we want people with dissimilar traits and backgrounds but similar principles. Diversity of personality and experience brings fresh ideas for rethinking and complementary skills for new ways of doing. Shared values promote commitment and collaboration."
This tallies with my experience - in the situations where I struggled with conflict, I was assigning a motivation to the other person that conflicted directly with a value that was important to me. I labelled each of us with roles (victim, villain, hero) and let my emotions tell me who was on the right side of the binary argument I had created in my mind.
According to the conflict model developed by the Canadian International Institute of Applied Negotiation (CIIAN), one of the most important predictors of a situation escalating to conflict rather than being diffused is uncertainty. This makes sense - when there is ambiguity, there is space for our brains to make assumptions and jump to conclusions about the worst-case scenario. And when the uncertainty is around intent, or values, this effect is amplified - because we feel strong emotions when our values are violated. This can be helpful, emotions give us useful information about a boundary being crossed - but it is worth pausing to check if that is what's really happening - or if we are responding to a story in our mind.
Naming your intention, finding shared values and stating your desire to achieve outcomes you both care about can reduce uncertainty sufficiently for a conversation to move into a space of productive disagreement and away from conflict.
My relationship with conflict has changed over the years. I don't avoid it - I now know that we sometimes have fundamental disagreements with others about how the world works, and this can be a good thing. It allows us to engage in debate and explore perspectives that may not have been visible before. I recognise that when I feel a strong emotion about something, it is a sign there is something important I need to share.
Here are some more thoughts about steering towards productive disagreement and away from conflict:
Data is good - but if you try to use it as a hammer to make someone agree with you, you're missing the point. Use it to explain your thinking, point out the conclusions you reach, and be curious about other perspectives or interpretations.
Language matters. Phrases like "help me understand..." Or "that's interesting, I see it another way.." can encourage debate rather than argument. But in truth, what you say matters less than why you are saying it. If your intention truly is to understand and upgrade your thinking, that will be clear even if the words are clumsy.
It's also important to recognize that power dynamics can significantly impact how conflict plays out in the workplace. As a young female engineer, I was often in a position of less power compared to the experienced male technicians or other all-male teams I worked with. This power imbalance made it even more challenging to assert my perspective and be heard. Leaders have a crucial role to play in ensuring that all voices are valued and that those with less perceived power feel safe to speak up.
So what can you actually do to move from conflict to productive disagreement? Here are a few actionable strategies:
Check your assumptions. When you feel yourself getting triggered by a disagreement, pause and ask yourself what story you're telling about the other person's intentions. Is there another possible interpretation?
Name your intention. Be explicit about your desire to understand the other perspective and find a mutually beneficial solution. This can help reduce uncertainty and build trust.
Look for common ground. Even in the midst of disagreement, there are often shared values or goals. Highlighting these can help create a foundation for collaboration.
Be curious. Approach the conversation with a genuine desire to learn. Ask questions, listen actively, and be open to having your mind changed.
Find the courage to speak up. If you're in a position of less power, it can be scary to voice a dissenting opinion. But know that your perspective is valuable and that you have a right to be heard. Consider enlisting allies or finding safer spaces to practice asserting yourself.
Of course, these strategies won't work in every situation. There may be times when, despite your best efforts, the other party is unwilling or unable to engage in good-faith debate. In these cases, it's important to protect your own well-being and consider whether the environment is one in which you can thrive.
And a final note - we can't consider conflict without also thinking about power and privilege. Whilst complexity exists around situations and we can debate the merits or otherwise of different approaches; disrespectful, aggressive, threatening or abusive behaviour is never ok. Leaders have an important responsibility to ensure that workplaces are safe and if you are in a situation where those behaviours are tolerated, I encourage you to think hard about what it's costing you to stay.
Remember, you can be one hundred per cent responsible for fifty per cent of the relationship - the rest is on them.
Comentários