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  Moving from Conflict to Collaboration

  Turning a disagreement into a creative conflict uses elements of the Fact AND method, as well as some of the skills we discussed in Chapter 7 regarding considering other viewpoints, and how to disagree with possibility.

  The next time you find yourself in a conflict, follow the steps below to turn it into a creative conflict:

  Take a walk to recharge. Create some healthy distance between yourself and the conflict if things start to feel sticky. The best option is to get outside. The most important thing is that you give your mind time to wander and open.

  After recharging, challenge yourself to find three fresh perspectives. That’s right, three. What position does your colleague hold? What impact does the conflict have on your team, customers, and key stakeholders? What outcome would be best for the organization as a whole? Force yourself to see the bigger picture.

  Re-enter the situation and work to agree with your colleague on a definition of the problem. Conflicts stem from a simple misunderstanding more often than you’d think.

  Find something to agree on. If you disagree on exactly what to do about the defined problem, find something more general that you can agree on and then work on the bigger issue from there-I call this “notching it up a level.”

  Say out loud-to your colleague(s)-what you think they want, and why. Use the following framework: “If I believed that [insert what your colleague wants], I’d probably be thinking that [insert any theory that would support the colleague’s premise].” Your theory will probably be wrong and your colleague will need to correct you. That’s the point of the exercise! Take turns repeating this process to encourage clarity and understanding.

  Allow the conflict to naturally morph into creative discussion. You are now more open to solutions and engaging in greater collaboration. Pat yourself on the back – you’ve earned it.

  CONCLUSION

  In this chapter, we’ve examined three of the most common situations that give rise to difficult conversations in teams and meetings: interruptions, sabotage, and conflict. Use the exercises at the end of this chapter to strengthen the skills we have considered for improving discussions within workgroups. In the next chapter, we turn our attention to the challenging discussions that come with shared spaces.

  EXERCISES

  #17: Finding Common Ground

  One of the fastest ways to turn the tide on a conflict with a colleague is to find common ground. Find something you can agree on. You might want to start with coming to agreement on exactly what the problem is or what factors are causing the problem. Alternatively, you can look to adjacent spaces to find an area of agreement (i.e., the schedule on this project feels practically impossible). From there, notch it up a level by talking about other areas of the project or situation where you have common ground. Acknowledge that there are parts of the situation you agree on. From here, it will be easier to notch it up again and get closer to the source of the problem and a new solution.

  Think of a situation where you and a colleague had a clash in your approaches to a challenge. Write down the different points of view and then make suggestions for how each party can see the other’s side.

  #18: Be a Turn Researcher

  The next time you attend a recurring meeting (e.g., weekly) with the same attendees, subtly keep track of how many turns and of what length (relatively speaking) each team member takes. How close is the group to having equal turns, both in numbers and in length?

  If you find the turns are not equal, use some of the strategies outlined earlier in this chapter to influence a more equal turn distribution.

  Use this space to note how much each person talks during your meeting. You may also use it to note who interrupts others and who shies away from participating.

  CHAPter 10

  Challenges in cubicles, cafeterias, and common areas

  Ryan rounded the corner on the way to his office and caught a glimpse of the copy machine. A handwritten sign with the words “Fix Me” scrawled in a Sharpie was taped to the front of it. Ryan’s emotions surged. He wasn’t sure which he was more upset about: that the copier was out of order again or the passive-aggressive behavior from whichever colleague put the sign on it.

  A project manager at a large retail organization, Ryan had been working with his team on being more straight-forward and open in their communication. It was a grassroots effort. As a project manager, he didn’t have a budget or approval to bring in any outside help such as a consultant or a trainer, but he was bound and determined to turn the tide of the passive-aggressive behavior of the employees on the project he was overseeing.

  It hadn’t been easy going. Many of the people on the project didn’t think their behavior was passive-aggressive. So when Ryan tried to have an open dialogue with them about communicating differently, without passive-aggressive overtones, they got defensive.

  “I’m NOT passive-aggressive,” Gwen had responded. “I just soften the blow when I deliver bad news,” she posited. In more than one team meeting, Gwen made comments directed toward Ryan that sounded incredibly passive-aggressive to him. “Ryan, I was surprised to see that the deadlines for Phase 2 have moved,” she remarked in a meeting the other day. Ryan had briefed her on those exact changes several hours before the meeting. Why was she feigning surprise in front of the entire team?

  When Ryan spoke to her about it later, she replied, “I was sure others had the same question, so I was really speaking on their behalf. I was doing you a favor.”

  Really? It didn’t feel like a favor to Ryan. He’d shared the new dates with her in advance, expecting her support in the meeting. This felt like backstabbing.

  Ryan swung by the copier and removed the sign. He circled over to the other side of the hallway where the administrative assistant sat and he asked her to call the service team. Again. Then he went back to his desk to strategize one more time about how to address the passive-aggressive behavior in his project team.

  ◆◆◆

  If you are like most people, you are probably not actively seeking out difficult situations or conversations-instead, these challenging moments find you. Frustrations plague us every day, from the co-worker who steals your food from the breakroom refrigerator to the person who spills in the cafeteria and runs, to the passive-aggressive pest who jams the photocopier and merely leaves behind a sign that says “fix me” like Ryan experienced. With the trend of open floorplans and agile work environments, such situations are becoming more and more common.

  These examples, while relatively minor, can still be incredibly disruptive for the culprit’s co-workers or any others who share the same space. In these situations, a disproportionate amount of energy is often spent on frustration, anger, lack of productivity, and gossip. Without effective tools for constructing conversations, sensitive issues tend to be deferred … and sometimes, when these relatively mundane situations begin to drive you insane, you might snap and say something without the diplomacy and tact you wished you’d used. Outcomes from situations like these range from frustrating conversations in which feelings are hurt and miscommunication occurs to the involvement of a manager or human resources. To reach resolution and keep these situations from becoming a drag on resources, it is necessary to approach them head on, and with the perfect mix of directness and grace. This chapter provides tools to do just that, and prevent the small but intrusive annoyances of shared spaces from becoming big problems.

  WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER: SHARED SPACES

  Martin loved his new FitBit. And everyone in the office knew it. Co-workers adored Martin. He was friendly and outgoing and a dependable colleague. And in the past 12 months, Martin lost over 50 pounds and became very focused on his health. He had another 30 pounds to go to reach his goal weight and he was very motivated. The whole office was incredibly proud of him. And then he got a FitBit and began tracking his steps.

  In his role as an account manager, he spent most of his workday on conference calls with
clients and colleagues in other locations. Once he began wearing his FitBit, he became obsessed with getting as many steps in each day as he possibly could. He began taking his conference calls on his headset while walking around. If his work area had been all offices with closed doors, that might have been fine. But Martin worked in a sea of cubicles. As he walked up and down the cubicle hallways on his conference calls, he talked. Loudly. Co-workers were distracted as they tried to focus on their own work, amidst the sound of Martin’s roving voice.

  You’ve probably faced a situation like this. Whether it is a FitBit walker-talker, someone using a speakerphone in an open office plan, or someone discussing the details of their personal life in areas where you could clearly overhear them despite not wanting to, you have felt the disruption and wanted to say something. And perhaps you did. But for many people, situations like these are awkward because they span both personal and professional boundaries. If you’ve ever been told, “If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all,” you may feel uncomfortable raising these sorts of topics. Let’s look at some common reactions to this situation and then provide guidance about how to approach issues like these head on.

  Venting

  When frustration mounts at work, you may feel inclined to “vent” about it to another co-worker. While venting is often thought of as a harmless coping mechanism, it can actually do more harm than good. An assumption that goes back at least to the work of Sigmund Freud is that expression of emotion will help to dissipate that emotion. The prevailing hypothesis of Freud’s time was that emotion was energy and if it remained trapped in someone’s body it could lead to psychosomatic, or stress-based illness. The sentiment was that venting, or airing the troubling matter, would lead to catharsis and the person would be freed from the troubling emotions.

  Unfortunately, this is not an accurate theory about how human emotions function. Studies during the past few decades have demonstrated quite the opposite. Whether talking aloud to someone or simply ruminating silently about it, the outcomes are the same: it does more harm than good. As psychologist Jill Littrell notes, venting makes matters worse.24 In one set of experiments, participants were divided into two groups. Individuals in both groups were provoked to be angry. Half of the participants vented their feelings of anger and irritation and the other half were distracted by the researchers with a different task rather than being allowed to vent. The participants who vented were shown to be more bothered by the thing that provoked them, even after time had passed. The other group, the ones who were given a distraction by the researchers instead of venting, were significantly less bothered after the same amount of time passed.

  Venting is in fact, a poor substitute for confronting the problem and taking appropriate action. Why is this so? In the moment, as you are venting about the problem, your brain responds with some of the same regions that are responsible for problem-solving. Because talking about it partially relieves your distress, you are less inclined to take action toward remedying the situation. Your brain, to a certain extent, acts as if you’ve solved the problem.

  Researcher Jeffrey Lohr demonstrated that anger will dissipate faster if you try to control it than if you vent it.25 He and his research colleagues found that discussing the anger magnified it, whereas consciously and deliberately controlling it (distracting was one of the techniques used to control it), lessened the anger. However, it is worth noting that Lohr found a significant difference between venting about anger versus sadness. When sharing your feelings about sadness or depression, those emotions get validated and your pain begins to lessen, making it a good technique for somber or bleak situations. Anger on the other hand, is strengthened and intensified through venting.

  As you review your anger or frustration with another person by discussing it out loud, you are actually reinforcing it, making it stronger, and giving it more power. Your neuropathways are getting stronger and stronger, bolstering the memory and increasing the likelihood that this situation will continue to replay in your brain. Neuroscientists use the phrase “synapses that fire together wire together.” When you have a thought, brain synapses, or small connections in the brain, are set off and make connections across spaces where previously there were none, essentially adding new neuropathways, or wiring, to your brain. The more often the thought is repeated, the stronger the pathway becomes.

  That new pattern is also likely to make you more upset the next time a similar event occurs. The neuropathways are already there and your response becomes easier and easier to produce. We have the prefrontal cortex to thank for this. It not only allows us to simulate the future by having an experience in our minds before we try it out in real life as discussed in Chapter 3, we can also replay experiences we’ve had in the past.

  Will This Help or Harm the Relationship?

  If you are continually venting to the same person, you may also be doing harm to the relationship. Imagine a person who comes to you on a near daily basis to complain. How likely are you to give a warm welcome to that person and positively anticipate their arrival? Regularly sharing your troubling emotions with a colleague at work (or a friend or family member outside of work, for that matter) can corrode the relationship. You might think of it as emotional littering.

  However, the complaining may land differently depending on how well you know each other and the context of your relationship. Other studies have found that in close relationships, co-rumination, or replaying negative situations with one another, makes people feel more attached to each another. The tone and attitude with which you share those negative situations makes a big difference, too. When the talk is focused on preventing the situation from occurring again and making you feel like you have agency in the matter, according to Margot Bastin, a researcher at the University of Leuven in Belgium,26 it is referred to as “co-reflection” and is a positive and constructive technique. If the sharing addresses the problem in a passive way however, expressing anger and disappointment while focusing on the bad consequences and predicting further catastrophe, it is known as “co-brooding”. Co-brooding is likely to do more harm than good, regardless of whether it is a close relationship or not.

  Approaching Shared Space Conversations

  What should one do, rather than ruminate or complain to others? Approach the situation head on, of course. Let’s start with how you might use the head on approach with Martin, the walking, talking FitBit fitness fanatic:

  “Martin, I know your health is extremely important to you and you must be very proud of the progress you’ve made in taking better care of your body. Your FitBit is a new addition to the mix … and as you take your “walk and talk” meetings, you come by my desk frequently talking rather loudly. It’s distracting to me and is interfering with my work. Can we schedule some time to talk about it and come up with another solution that works for both of us?”

  THE OFFICE KITCHEN AREA

  I was recently guest lecturing a university class on the topic of how to have difficult conversations and sharing the method I’ve described in this book. I selected an example that I thought students could relate to: roommates not taking care of their own dishes (leaving them in the sink, common areas, etc.). They agreed; it was a problem that many of them experienced. When I began to give examples of similar situations, both at home and at the office, one young man, looking exasperated, raised his hand and said, “Dr. Anderson, do you mean to say that even long after I’ve graduated and moved on from college, I’m still going to have to deal with the issue of dirty dishes?” Indeed, young man, dishes will continue to haunt you if you allow them to. Better to learn how to address them head on earlier in life rather than later.

  Not cleaning up shared spaces at work (and at home) is a perennial issue. Why people don’t clean up after themselves is a topic for a different expert. I don’t make any claims about people’s motivation or lack thereof. Rather, I offer an approach for discussing it with them directly to remedy the situation. Whether it is dishes in
the sink in a common area at work, spoiled items left in a communal refrigerator, failing to start the next pot of coffee when you’ve just taken the last cup, or spilling in the cafeteria and not cleaning it up, the issue of food and dishes is one that is not likely to go away as long as we humans still need to eat.

  You might initially try to take the high road, thinking you can transcend this pesky little issue. Pick your battles and all that. And yet, day after day, coffee cup after coffee cup, it piles up. And eats away at you. I’m here to tell you that if you don’t approach it head on, and fairly soon after you begin to take notice, it will become a much larger issue in your mind than it may be in real life. Better for everyone involved then, for you to address it while it is still small potatoes. Let’s look at an example of how to approach a situation like this head on.

  Approaching Kitchen Cleanup

  In this case, I’m going to take a “let’s solve this together” approach. When you are working on an issue that occurs in a communal area, there is a great deal of room to pass the buck and avoid responsibility. If you come on too strong in a situation like this, it can look like you are stalking the person or the kitchen area, trying to “catch” the person in the act. That creates a culture of suspicion and mistrust. Of course, if you work in a very small office and there is no possibility of the culprit being someone else, then I would use the more direct approach modeled throughout the rest of this book. However, presuming there are many people who share the kitchen area, I suggest an approach like the one modeled below.