Archive for conflict escalation – Page 2

Jul
21

Intentions – A Poem That Came to Me While Cleaning

by Guy Harris

I don’t know why this came to mind, but it did.

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.

3 Categories : Communication Skills, Resolving Conflict

Jun
12

Conflict Resolution Techniques: Question Your Assumptions

by Guy Harris

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.

Photo by striatic.

1 Categories : Resolving Conflict

Jun
7

The 7 Deadly Sins of Conflict Resolution

by Guy Harris

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.

Top 7 Secrets to Resolving Personal Workplace Conflict

3 Categories : Gallery, Resolving Conflict

Apr
23

Why Your Natural Response to Conflict is Probably Wrong & What You Can Do About It

by Guy Harris

As I mentioned in my post about why conflicts escalate, bad things can happen when we perceive other people’s words or actions to be a threat to us in some way.

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.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/javiercito/ / CC BY 2.0

7 Categories : Communication Skills, Resolving Conflict

Apr
19

Conflict Resolution Insights: Why Conflicts Escalate

by Guy Harris

On two recent occasions, I have been involved in interactions that started with a minor miscommunication and quickly elevated to full-blown conflict. In both situations, the other person and I pretty quickly recognized what was happening, and we managed to get our communications back under control.

These situations caused me to reflect on what happens in conflict:

How it gets started,
How it escalates, and
What you can do to de-escalate it.

I was also wondering if these situations happen in your life. Here’s what I mean, you know what you should do in a given situation, the situation occurs, and then you do exactly the opposite of what you knew to do.

Since I’m guessing that I’m not alone in this struggle, I thought I would interrupt my series of posts on Frequently Asked Questions About the DISC Model by mixing in a few posts on understanding the dynamics of conflict escalation.

Using this post as a starting point, we can then look at how to avoid or minimize this problem in our lives.

In this post, I will quickly show a model of what often happens during conflict escalation. By understanding the model, we can plan positive steps to back conflicts down after they start. I’m drawing some of this post content from a video course I am developing on resolving personal workplace conflicts. I’ll share more on that later.

The escalation cycle generally starts with one person (I’ll call them Person A) doing or saying something that the other person (Person B) perceives as a threat. Notice the key word: perceives. It doesn’t really matter if Person A meant their words or actions as a threat. It only matters if Person B sees the words or actions as a threat.

This perception of threat can take many forms, and it is likely linked to the anger process I wrote about previously.

Once Person B perceives a threat, they will probably move to anger and then behave in a self-protective way out of that anger.

Person A now perceives Person B’s behavior as a threat.

Person A follows the same perception-anger-behavior pattern and further contributes to the conflict escalation as shown in the video above and the image below. (Click on the image for a larger view.)
I plan to revisit the specific things we can do to reverse this cycle in future posts. For now, I’ll leave you with this observation: either person can take steps to de-escalate the conflict.

They can either:

Recognize the problem and change their behavior so that the other person no longer perceives a threat.

— or —

Question their perception in order to get their own anger under control.

In practice, the person taking responsibility would likely do both.

In an ideal world, both parties would take responsibility, stop blaming, and move to resolution. Even in our less than perfect world, either party can take the right actions and move to resolve the conflict with or without the other person’s cooperation.