“Setting an example is not the main means of influencing others; it is the only means.” ~Albert Einstein

It’s not always apparent to the leaders referred to me for conflict management coaching that their way of managing and engaging in interpersonal disputes is having an adverse influence on workplace unrest and tensions. They are often not aware as well, how staff in their organization contribute to this by modelling the leader’s way of interacting and creating their own tumult and deconstructive impact on the workplace. Referrals for leaders to shift their ways of being in conflict arise as a consequence of  this and  the systemic growth of conflict resulting in financial losses due to attrition, legal claims about harassment and bullying, the need for a range of costly interventions, and a poor reputation leading to clients choosing other services.

On the other hand, I am increasingly finding that leaders are self-identifying their challenges and seeking coaching – that is, coming to coaching of their own accord when, or even before, conflict problems are evident. Some are being proactive for the organization as a whole. They accept that conflict is inevitable and look to plan ways that conflict may be ‘normalized’. This might include developing integrated systems and processes to prevent unnecessary conflict and to manage necessary conflict. Leaders also pay attention to their own contribution, and accept that their influence is a critical component of the dynamics needed to build a culture of conflict competence.

The same leaders it appears, from my experience, are more apt to face their own symptoms that are keeping them from being conflict competent. For instance, they may be find their tempers are escalating and they are interacting in ways that shut people down or exacerbate the tensions; they might have been told their way of communicating is problematic – sharp, patronizing, critical and so on; they may be continually demonstrating defensive behaviour; they may refuse to listen and hear what is going on around them and so on. When leaders admit they have a responsibility to improve their way of managing conflict they stand a good chance of stopping the message they have previously sent that says ‘you are allowed to act like this too!’

This week’s Conflict Mastery Quest(ions) blog invites leaders and others, of course, to consider how you influence others by the way you engage in conflict – considering the ways you know you need improvement as to not negatively influence others.

• How might you describe the way conflict is managed in your organization?
• What works best now about how people in the organization generally manage conflict? What isn’t working?
• What conflict behaviours do you currently have that work well?
• What conflict behaviours do you yourself engage in that you know are counterproductive? From where do you learn and develop those particular behaviours?
• How does it feel for you when you are demonstrating those unproductive behaviours?
• What sort of fall-out have you experienced or observed by or among others as a consequence of interacting in the ways you described as counterproductive?
• If you have observed others interact in similar ways as you described about yourself, what is your impression of them?
• How might you describe the traits you would like to develop or strengthen – to be able to  set an example of conflict competence – and which will positively  influence others to model?
• Please consider one of those competencies at this time. Since you have a choice about how you interact, what do you think you need to do to consciously shift your way of communicating to develop that? How will that influence others when that becomes a trait of yours?
• What does it feel like to consider you are ‘at choice’ about how you manage conflict and with practice are able to strength your conflict competence?
• What else occurs to you as you consider these questions?
• What insights do you have?

(Popular- from the archives)

A meme with this saying on it came up one day on my Instagram feed and I was struck by my reaction to how this message was conveyed – so vividly. It isn’t a new message to those of us who work in the field of conflict management and other disciplines who work with people in emotional pain about the internal and external conflicts they bring to us that have their roots from childhood experiences. And it won’t be a new message to those who have experienced traumas in their personal or professional lives.  And it won’t be a new message to those of us who reflect on repeated behaviours that do not serve us well ourselves, and we realize we are repeating unhealthy patterns that have become part of how we cope with conflict.

It is common for many of us to carry around unresolved hurts from broken family or personal and professional  relationships, childhood or adult trauma, unreconciled issues from our upbringing and so on, if we have not had help to do the work of healing. The experiences that stay with us – that we continue to hold onto and play out – are ones that show up in a range of ways that can be destructive and impede our ability to maintain healthy relationships with some people. We may react to and treat these people from this negative frame of reference though the same dynamics do not necessarily apply.

To do the work properly it usually requires psychotherapeutic interventions. And by seeking help we are better able to gain perspective and find ways to move forward without repeating the same patterns. One of those patterns may be to find fault with the person in front of us in certain situations when in fact, the challenges we are facing stem from past relationships and experiences that remain unresolved, unhealed, painful.

This week’s Conflict Mastery Quest(ions) blog focuses on an interpersonal dispute in which you are or have engaged – one in which you think or know your reaction was not specific to the other person and the dynamic between you. Rather, your way of defending yourself and reacting reflected old wounds that remain unhealed. To do so I suggest you bring to mind a recent interpersonal dispute in which you know you bled on the person who didn’t cut you. NOTE: This blog and its questions are not a psychotherapeutic intervention by any means. It is a way to develop some insights you may not already have.

• What is the recent interpersonal dispute about?
• In what ways did this situation raise old issues for you?
• What specifically are those issues (if you didn’t name them in response to the above question)?
• In what ways did you bleed on the other person that is related to the old wound? How did the person respond?
• How did past unresolved thoughts about the person in your old situation impact how you thought about the person in the more current dispute?
• What unresolved feelings about the other person also leaked into this more current dispute as to how you perceive the other person?
• What behaviours, reactions etc. do you know, with some confidence, that you are repeating?
• What don’t you understand as yet about how and why you are repeating a pattern that doesn’t work for you? What do you understand with some certainty about the repeated pattern?
• What do you think needs to be healed?
• How will you go about the healing process?
• What else occurs to you as you consider these questions?
• What insights do you have now that you didn’t have before you answered these questions?

Miles Davis once said, “If you understood everything I said, you’d be me.” That quote stuck with me and I have repeated this phrase and variations of it when talking about interpersonal conflict, and how we often react to misunderstandings because we missed what the other person meant or where they were coming from. You, like I, have undoubtedly encountered many situations when that occurs. In fact, it is easy to misinterpret what others say, if we don’t have a context, a relationship built on trust, cultural similarities or understandings, openness, or the same senses of humour or appreciation for the other’s. Further, disparate values and beliefs, biases, mindsets, life experiences, and many other variables have an impact on our understanding of one another – what they say, what they do, how they interact, and so on. Essentially, we are not them and they are not us – so how can we understand everything they say or do?

It is often the case that we assume we know what people are saying and why – and react accordingly. We use our lens, our values, our expectations, our hopes, and other frames to interpret what we are hearing or seeing. If we know the other person well many of our perceptions are validated by the history we have with them, though we may not be absolutely clear on everything. That said, our assumptions are often within the realm of possibility if we have a close relationship. In these cases, when we disagree or adversely experience what they are saying or doing, we are more apt to engage the other person in a conversation – to gain a better understanding of their words or actions. When we don’t know people well or the relationship is breaking down, lack of connection and incorrect attributions preclude building trust and developing a relationship in which it feels safe to raise questions and discuss what is going on. In either case, the continuing unknown can result in growing tension and ongoing dissension, in developing more and more adverse assumptions, in questioning our judgement, in faltering trust in the other person – and even ourselves.

This week’s Conflict Mastery Quest(ions) blog suggests you consider a conflict situation – an argument that evolved because it was clear you and the other person did not understand one another – or, at least, one of you didn’t get what the other was meaning.

• What misunderstanding happened that resulted in an argument?
• As far as you can tell, what did you specifically misunderstand about the other person? The situation? The interaction between you?
• For what reasons might the other person have said or done that which has caused you upset?
• What words might you use besides upset?
• What would you prefer the other person had said or did instead, in this circumstance?
• What did the other person seem to misunderstand about you? The situation, The interaction between you?
• What seemed to be causing that person upset – such as, how might they have interpreted what you said or did?
• What other words might the other person use to describe their experience in that conflict with you – from what you can tell?
• What do you need from the other person to be able to move on? What might the other want or need from you to move on?
• What are you most curious about right now?
• What else occurs to you as you consider these questions?
• What insights do you have?

(Popular- from the archives)

Recently, a colleague asked whether I think my clients want to resolve or solve things when they come for conflict management coaching. I found that a very interesting question and pondered about the differences and how they show up. And then, I thought more about what I would say in response to the question. I would say that most of my clients want both solution and resolution but, mostly resolution.

The main difference between solve and resolve, according to one source, is that solve usually refers to the process of finding a correct answer to the problem. Resolve refers to bringing the problem to an end or conclusion. There is no set answer for resolving a problem, but there is for solving a problem. This is an important distinction to consider especially when two people dispute about their differing views about what they want to have happen – solve, resolve or both. I am thinking it’s worth exploring with my clients what is most important to them and why.

As I thought about this further I realize when we are involved in an interpersonal dispute it isn’t necessarily straightforward to distinguish whether both of us want to revolve things or solve the issues or both. It may be that one of us wants to solve things and the other to resolve them – whether or not the issues are solved. That is, for some, the best case scenario might be that the problem ends and being solved isn’t as important as the dissension ending (even though the issues remain unresolved). For instance, we could agree to disagree, or conclude there isn’t a mutually satisfactory solution. We might decide the problem isn’t serious enough to warrant continuing debate and hard feelings that appear to be irreconcilable. We may decide to relent to the solution the other person wants and figure out a way to have some inner reconciliation to be able to move on and so on.

This week’s Conflict Mastery Quest(ions) blog invites you to consider an interpersonal dispute – one about which you are aware one of you  wants resolution and the other wants solution.

• What is the dispute about?
• What are the main issues in dispute?
• What do you want as an outcome?
• What is preferable for you – to solve or resolve or to both solve and resolve this dispute?
• Why do you want to solve it or why do you want to resolve it? Or, why do you want to both solve and resolve the dispute?If you want the issues solved and resolved what would a good resolution be in your view?
• What might the other person say the main issues in dispute are from their perspective?
• Which do you suppose that person is aiming for – to solve or resolve things? Or, solve and resolve? Why do you say that (your answer here)?
• What might the other person view as a way to resolve things?
• Where are the two of you farthest part when it comes to solving and resolving things? Where are the two of you closest?
• What else occurs to you as you consider these questions?
• What insights do you have now that you didn’t have before you answered these questions?

It seems to me – based on my work as a conflict management coach and, well, just as myself – that one of the things that leads to interpersonal conflict is when we have expectations of another. It might have to do with how we interact on a day-to-day basis, how we treat one another privately and publicly, how we communicate when in conflict, how we support each other, or whether our values and needs are compatible. Further, we might expect someone to support us in a matter, to acknowledge something we did for them, to care for us when we are not well or unhappy, to meet our needs, to recognize our good deeds, to trust us, to respect our decisions and reasons we acted in certain ways, and so on. The list is endless!

It is worth considering this variable when we find ourselves reacting to these and other sorts of circumstances. Exploring our affirmative answer to the question, “Am I reacting because of unmet expectations?”, will make it easier to understand what we needed and ultimately, easier to articulate that to the other person. Taking a look, too, at our related reactions helps us do so. Indicators may be if we are feeling disappointment, betrayal, dismissed, ignored, not trusted, that we and our needs are not taken seriously, and many other emotions that reflect that we are let down by what the other person said or did or didn’t say or do.

How we manage situations and the range of feelings we experience will differ depending on variables such as the length and nature of our relationship, our needs and values and beliefs, influences from our upbringing, how we are feeling at the time, the amount of stress in our lives, our general state of health and well-being, and so on.

This week’s Conflict Mastery Quest(ions) blog is about this topic and you are invited to consider an interpersonal dispute in which you experienced unmet expectations in the situation and emotions that reflect that as you answer the following:

• What is the situation?
• What did the other person say or do, or not say or do, that had an adverse impact on you? How might you describe the impact on you?
• What, more specifically, did you expect of that person that they didn’t deliver on?
• What makes the aforementioned expectation especially important to you?
• What reasons are you attributing to the other person for what they said or did or didn’t say or do?
• What excuses have you made for the other person – such that you are inclined to let the situation go without voicing your expectations, if that is what you are doing?
• What do you know for sure about the other person’s motivation for not meeting your expectations? What don’t you know about their motivation?
• What is your fear, worry, concern about letting the other person know, if you are reticent to tell the other person?
• What advantages are there to raising the matter? What are the disadvantages?
• What are your expectations of yourself in this matter?
• What else occurs to you as you consider these questions?
• What insights do you have?

(Popular- from the archives)