My anger was rising. Every time he spoke, I grew more frustrated and irritated. I could feel my blood pressure rising, my face flushing, my lips tightening, and my shoulders hunching forward. I knew that I was furrowing my brow and that my voice was growing flatter and more menacing with each verbal exchange.

While I did not physically fear for my safety, I did feel threatened. I felt ambushed, cornered, and criticized. I was not happy. My greatest desire was to make the conversation end — quickly.

And, I was falling prey to a common problem in conflict resolution.

I was responding to my fight-or-flight response rather than responding logically and rationally to what was happening. I was withdrawing into my own perspective without objectively hearing the other person’s.

I was assuming that he had the intention to verbally attack me. When I heard his words through the filter of intentional attack, I could not find the focus and ability to remain objective. I became almost totally self-protective, and I went on an attack of my own.

Was his voice volume elevated? Yes.

Was he leaning forward? Yes.

Was his face flushed? Yes.

Did his tone sound like aggression to me? Yes.

Did his body language look like aggression to me? Yes.

Did he intend to be aggressive? I didn’t know.

Assuming a person’s intention is a pretty dangerous thing to do. In reality, we don’t know the other person’s intention unless they tell us. In most cases, we only know what we assume to be true about their intention based on our past experiences and our own emotional filters.

The leverage point for better self-control lies in recognizing that we have the power to choose our assumptions.

In the example above, I could have assumed that the other person was passionate about the topic rather than angry with me. With that one shift in perspective, I would have changed my focus from self-preservation to problem solving. I could have listened better and kept my responses more controlled.

By making the assumption of benign intent, I could have moved the conflict from escalation to resolution.

In this case, sadly, I did not make the switch. I chose a negative interpretation, and I escalated right along with my partner. The conversation did not end well.

Fortunately, we spoke again on a different day, and we had a more positive outcome. It ended well, but it took far too long to get there. My contribution to the excessive time investment started when I assumed that he meant to attack me verbally.

It turns out that he did not intend to attack me. He was merely frustrated over the situation, and I saw it as an attack.

The fight-or-flight response that causes our bodies to respond under the influence of adrenaline is a wonderful thing when we face a physical threat. And few of us face a physical threat in most conversations.

Choosing to assume that the other person has benign intent can help you to control your response so that you can be the one to move towards resolution by showing empathy and understanding rather than anger and judgement.

Assuming benign intent could prove to be wrong. The other person might actually mean to verbally attack you. If that is the case, you can escalate if necessary. Even in many situations where the other person intends an attack, you can deescalate the conflict by making the positive assumption and responding kindly.

The assumption of intended threat almost always leads you to respond in ways that escalate even minor misunderstandings. The assumption of benign intent can give you the time and self-control you need to respond in a way that resolves the conflict.

If you want to do everything that you can do to move a conflict conversation towards resolution, remember to assume the other person has benign intent.

(Check this post on Why Conflicts Escalate for further insights on this topic.)

From what I could tell, he was engaged in a bit of a conflict conversation.

I could also tell that he was making a common mistake that rarely, if ever, leads to conflict resolution and almost always leads to conflict escalation. Based on the bits and pieces of conversation that I overheard, I think the person on the other end of the phone call was making this mistake as well.

The symptoms of the mistake manifested as:

• Justifying behaviors
• Explaining why he was right
• Showing the other person why he was wrong
• Rehashing what had already happened
• No focus on what to do the next time this situation occurred to make it turn out better

The root cause of the problem stems from focusing on the past rather than the future. I wrote about this challenge previously in my post about the 7 Deadly Sins of Conflict Resolution.

If you want to guarantee conflict escalation, keep revisiting the past — past statements, past actions, past reasons, past thinking, etc.

Talking about the past is like throwing out an anchor. It stops forward progress and keeps the conversation stuck in problem discussion rather than problem solving.

Problem discussion becomes negative and accusatory, if it goes on too long.

Problem solving is about finding ways to set and meet mutual expectations and how to interact with and behave towards each other so that conflicts do not recur.

If you want to productively resolve conflicts, move quickly to a future focus. Only stay in the past long enough to understand how the miscommunication or misunderstanding happened, and then look for ways you can interact with the other person in the future to stop the problem from happening again.

I tend to notice how people respond to certain words. I guess that’s something of an “occupational hazard” for me.

As I watch how people respond, I look for patterns. And I see a strong pattern developing around three words (and some variations) that almost certainly guarantee that a conflict will start or escalate if you use them carelessly.

So that you can beware of them slipping into your communications (especially in conflict situations), I’ll share the three common conflict escalation words:

No

While I’m not suggesting that you never use the word no, I am suggesting that you be sensitive to how and when you use it. I have noticed that some people tend to start many statements with this word. And, I have carefully observed the body language of people who receive the “no” statement. It is almost universally negative.

But

I have written on the dangers of this word previously. Today, I’ll share three other words that have essentially the same impact: however, except, and yet. My friend and colleague, JJ Brun, says that these words are “polite buts,” and I agree with him.

Always

My real point here is to beware of using words with an absolute or final connotation. Another word that fits in this category is never.

The next time you find yourself in a conflict or confrontation situation, beware of these words and their common variations. Remember to use them intentionally — to make a specific point — rather than out of habit because they are the first words that come to mind.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post in the ABC’s of Life series on forgiveness. Today, I got a comment from Aled Davies with a link to a post on his blog about 5 Steps to Forgiveness.

I really liked what I read over at Aled’s blog, and it got me thinking: one of the key components I see in the 5 steps he wrote about is patience.

The patience to:

• Slow down your emotional response
• Consider that the other person might actually have a positive intention rather than a negative one
• Carefully consider what might be the other person’s perspective

I have noticed that people who are able to successfully resolve conflicts generally exercise great patience with others, with themselves, and with the process of reconciling differences. They seldom push or rush either the other person or the process, and they work to remain open to alternative explanations for events rather than assuming people meant harm by their words or actions.

While I am not always patient with others, that is my goal. As Benjamin Franklin said:

Genius is nothing but a greater aptitude for patience.

Personally, I would love to be a genius at something, and resolving conflict seems like a good, productive area to be a genius about.

Won’t you join me in pursuit of conflict resolution genius by working to exercise greater patience?

Not all conflict is bad. In fact some conflict can actually be good.

The difference is whether the conflict is constructive or destructive.

The challenge is that the emotional energy, body language, and other external signs of the conflict can look the same to an outside observer.

So, how can you tell the difference between a constructive conflict and a destructive conflict?

Here are three tell-tale signs to help you distinguish between the two types.

1. Constructive conflict conversations focus on issues. Destructive conflict conversations focus on people.
2. Constructive conflict conversations focus on the future. Destructive conflict conversations focus on the past.
3. Constructive conflict conversations bring people together to solve a problem. Destructive conflict conversations create polarization and division within an organization.

If a conflict conversation is constructive, let it go to completion. It is likely to turn out well.

If a conflict conversation is destructive, use the Seven Secrets for Resolving Personal Workplace Conflict to move the conflict in a positive direction.

In a previous post on exercising your power of choice to get conflicts under control, I mentioned some specific actions to consider using to de-escalate conflicts.

In this post, I’m expanding on three of the actions with some additional thoughts on how to put them to work in your conflict resolution repertoire.

Here are three things you can do in virtually any conflict situation to improve the outcome.

1. Apologize

I seldom see conflict situations where all of the miscommunication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation of intentions rests entirely on one person. You might not be totally at fault for the challenge that led to the conflict. Odds are, there is something you contributed to the early stages that helped it to escalate. Whatever that behavior, word choice or tone was, apologize for it.

Don’t apologize for how the other person feels or how they interpreted your actions. You can apologize for the action itself.

Apology is a powerful way to de-escalate conflict. When you apologize, remember that apologizing for your contribution does not mean that you have to take all of the blame. Just own your contribution.

2.  Forgive

Just as you should apologize for your contribution, be ready to accept their apology or ownership of responsibility. Resist the urge to take advantage of their show of vulnerability. Just forgive graciously.

In practice, you don’t even have to wait for an apology to forgive. You can forgive simply because you chose to do so. (And you can do it without holding it over the other person. Remember the gracious part.)

3.  Listen

As a general rule, people feel less angry or frustrated when they feel understood. When you listen without interrupting, correcting, or debating, you can help the other person feel understood. When you help them feel understood, you improve the odds of de-escalating the conflict.

I don’t propose that these actions are necessarily easy to do when emotions are high and the conflict is escalating. While they might not be easy to do, they are possible to do. And they are powerful steps you can consciously apply to help conflicts move towards resolution.

I was helping my wife clean our living room, and I was, as I often am, thinking about what I could write here. I was not thinking about my wife, my kids, or my professional colleagues.

I was just thinking. (Remember, I am a recovering engineer. I am almost always “thinking.”)

I started thinking about how we often misinterpret other people’s meaning, and this little rhyme popped (almost) fully formed into my mind.

So, I share it here with you today:

I’ll never know your real intent,
Until I ask you what you meant.
And, if you choose, in your reply,
To then, tell me the reason why.

As I read about, study, and work to apply effective conflict resolution techniques, I see one common and overwhelming problem develop in workplaces, families, and social organizations. I see the same problem develop just about everywhere I see people interact.

What is this huge problem?

People make assumptions about other people’s intentions.

Sadly, they often make wrong assumptions about the other person’s intentions.

This behavior is so common and so prevalent, I have written about it on at least two other occasions.

In one post, I told the story of how I started down the path of wrong assumptions in an interaction with my daughter.

In another post, I shared an observation I made about an interchange where one person based their entire interaction with another person on their assumptions about the other person’s intentions without ever asking for clarification.

Recently, I had the opportunity to observe another interchange between two people who got seriously engaged in a heated conversation because one of the parties took offense to what he believed to be the other person’s intentions. For the purposes of this post, let’s say their names are John and Joe.

In a small meeting setting, Joe raised a question about something John had proposed in a previous meeting. I heard Joe question the proposed approach to solving a problem. Apparently, John heard Joe question the necessity of solving the problem.

John’s body went almost immediately rigid as he turned to face and lean toward Joe. His voice tone grew sharp, and his volume went up. In all fairness to John, I don’t really know what he was thinking. I did perceive his tone and body language to become aggressive.

The conversation got progressively more heated as Joe and John spoke.

As they continued, John made direct, negative comments about his view of Joe’s intentions. He used words like:

• “You just said that because you want to…”
• “You didn’t have the courage to speak earlier about…”
• “I knew you would do this to me…”

In rapid succession, John manged to:

• Negatively label Joe’s intentions,
• Attack Joe’s character, and
• Express his view that Joe was doing something “to” him.

It only got worse from there, and it all began with John’s assumption about Joe’s intention.

John immediately assumed that Joe had a negative intention. His response followed the classic conflict escalation cycle almost perfectly. From this negative interpretation, he went to anger (my interpretation of his emotional state), and both parties found themselves locked in a negative conversational spiral.

Had John been willing to question his assumptions about Joe’s intention and then to engage in conversation and dialogue rather than in attack and recrimination, the situation would likely have gone in a totally different direction.

The next time you find your assumptions about another person’s intention leaning towards the negative, stop yourself for just a moment and question your assumptions.

• Did they mean that as an attack or simply as a statement of their opinion?
• Are they attacking my character or are they just trying to understand my approach?
• Did they mean what I think they mean?

I’m sure you get the point. Take just a moment to slow down and question your assumptions before you dive into the conversation.

As I watch and participate in conflict conversations and conflict resolution efforts, I notice patterns of behavior that consistently produce bad results. In a recent conversation with one of my coaching clients, we started to discuss these patterns of behavior. We jokingly began to call them “The 7 Deadly Sins of Conflict Resolution.”

The conversation stimulated my thinking about what NOT to do in conflict resolution.

Sometimes, knowing what NOT to do can be as helpful as knowing what TO do. So, I thought I would share the results of my conversation with you today.

Here you go…

The 7 Deadly Sins of Conflict Resolution:

1.  Continuing to talk about the past.

Other than looking at past behaviors to understand how you got into the current situation, forget about it. Talking about what has already happened just stirs up negative emotions and drives conflict escalation rather than resolution.

2.  Trying to “fix” emotions.

Emotions are simply the result of how we interpret and respond to the world around us.

We can control our behaviors.

We generally cannot control our emotions. We certainly cannot control other people’s emotions.

When we try to fix emotions, we sink ourselves in a conversation about things we cannot control. So, we get stuck in a negative conversation spiral that tends to make conflicts worse rather than better.

3.  Rushing the conflict conversation.

If a workplace conflict has grown to the point that it calls for a focused and intentional resolution conversation, it has become a business problem. And, this business problem is probably costing you more than you first realize when you consider the salaries of the involved employees, the value of work that is not being done, the cost of poor decision quality, the impact of poor information flow, etc.

Unresolved conflict gets expensive very quickly.

Since most people are conflict averse, they want to have a quick conversation to get the conflict resolved. They do not want to be involved in an emotionally charged discussion for very long. So they schedule 30 minutes to an hour for the discussion, and they send all parties back to work after the discussion in an elevated emotional state that makes them less able to do their jobs and make good decisions.

This is a bad plan.

While the specific time line for a conflict resolution conversation depends on many factors, most conflict conversations reach their peak of emotional energy at about 45 minutes to an hour. Most resolutions come after the peak emotional involvement. They rarely happen before or during the height of emotion.

If you want to resolve a conflict, make sure that you set aside enough time to get through the emotion and on to the plan.

4.  Continuing to blame others.

We all have our moments when we want to blame others for our behaviors. Sadly, focusing on blame only serves to make the conflict worse.

Blame shifts the responsibility for our behaviors from ourselves to other people. For example, “I yelled at you because you yelled at me.”  While it feels a bit like self-defense, it actually triggers conflict escalation.

Very seldom will anyone respond positively to you if you blame them. (It could happen. It’s just not very likely.)

5.  Trying to justify our behaviors.

Justification is blame’s evil twin. They often go hand in hand.

Blame is a form of justification and justification often leads to blame.

Justifying our behaviors might seem like “explaining our behaviors” to us, but it sounds like “making excuses” to others.

6.  Refusing to apologize or giving a conditional apology.

I often hear people say something like: “I would apologize if…

• “They would apologize”
• “They would stop doing _____.”
• “They would do _____.”

Since I rarely see any conflict where one party is totally at fault and the other party is totally right, I find it hard to believe that we cannot find something to apologize for in the interest of resolving the conflict.

Why make the apology conditional? Why wait for them to do something so that you can apologize for your contribution?

Don’t take ownership of what they did, and don’t apologize for anything that was out of your control.

Do apologize for anything that you did to contribute to the conflict.

7.  Refusing to forgive past behaviors.

Like apology, forgiveness is often offered in a way that is contingent on the other party’s behaviors. For example…

• “I’ll forgive them when they apologize.”
• “I’ll forgive them when they stop doing _____.”
• “I’ll forgive them if they will do _____.”

Forgiveness might be the offer that helps to deescalate the conflict. It certainly is the catalyst for helping you get your emotions back in line. And, it doesn’t work to resolve conflict when it is offered conditionally.

Neither you nor the other person can go back and “undo” a past behavior. When you forgive it, you move out of the past and into resolution for both of you.

Forgiveness is more about changing your own anger and letting go of the negative thoughts in your head than it is about bestowing a gift upon the other person. So, just forgive. Don’t wait for them to ask.

Some additional thoughts on forgiving:

• Be careful how you offer forgiveness. If you come across as patronizing, it will probably back-fire on you.
• Notice that I did not say forget. You can forgive someone for their past behaviors and have little faith or trust that they will behave honorably in the future. Forgiving and forgetting are not the same thing.

Watch your behaviors for signs of these “7 deadly sins.” If you see them creeping into your conflict conversations, take actions to get them out of your conflict repertoire and find a more suitable behavior.

Photo by debaird.

As a result of this perception of threat, we often get angry. Then, we behave in ways that they perceive as a threat, and the conflict escalation cycle begins.

Our natural responses to conflict often begin with this perception of threat. This perception triggers our “fight-or-flight” response, and our adrenal glands kick into high gear. At this point, our bodies get flooded with adrenaline and logical, rational thought pretty much stops (at least for a moment).

When we perceive others to be a threat, we generally act in two ways that can be incredibly effective at protecting us from physical harm and terribly detrimental when it comes to resolving most workplace and family conflicts.

How the “fight” response contributes to conflict escalation is pretty straightforward. With this approach, we usually come on too strongly and too aggressively for the vast majority of normal relational situations. As a result, the other person feels a direct threat from our response.

How the “flight” response contributes to conflict escalation is a little more subtle, and still just as powerful in its affect on the conflict escalation cycle.

The flight response often leads us to disengage, remain quiet, and withdraw from the person we perceive as a “threat.”

Depending on the other person’s perspective, withdrawing from the situation can signal a number of things that actually contribute to escalating rather than de-escalating the situation (if not immediately, then over time).

For example, they might view us as being unmotivated, unconcerned, or unwilling to engage. In any of these cases, they can feel compelled to pursue interaction in an effort to settle the issue. They pursue, we withdraw, they pursue some more, we withdraw further, etc.

Our withdrawal, rather than helping the situation, has escalated the conflict.

To avoid either of these negative responses, I suggest an approach that starts this way:

Question the story you are telling yourself about the other person.

For example, you can question whether or not they actually intend to be a threat to you by re-framing your internal dialogue this way:

• “Do they mean to harm me in some way, or did I just misunderstand?”
• “Are they really on the attack, or are they just tired and having a bad moment?”
• “Are they an evil person, or did I say something that offended them?”

Alternative stories can stop our perception of threat and lead us to a more positive, rational, and engaged response than either a heated attack or an icy withdrawal. We can act to resolve the communication breakdown rather than act to escalate the conflict.

Please share your thoughts on the steps you can take to move conflicts towards resolution and away from escalation.