Guy Harris: The Recovering Engineer

Reflect, Respect, Reengineer, and Reinvent

This blog is about learning to take a close look at your thoughts, feelings, responses, and reactions to find better and more effective ways to resolve conflicts, lead teams, and clearly communicate to build and maintain both professional and personal relationships...[Read More]

Using Apology to De-escalate a Conflict

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sorry-sky-writing

Apology is a powerful — and often under used — conflict resolution tool. One reason for not apologizing that I often hear in my work with clients is the concern that apologizing either totally admits fault for the conflict or reveals a weakness.

While these concerns may be legitimate in some situations, they are overblown in most cases.

The perception of threat is the primary reason for conflict escalation, and removing this perception is the leverage point for conflict de-escalation. Apology works so well because it makes you less threatening to the other person.

Here are three tips for apologizing in a way that leads to de-escalation…

  1. Only apologize for your behaviors, words and actions, and never apologize for the other person's feelings or interpretations.
    While it can happen, I seldom see situations where a conflict starts and escalates due solely to the actions of one person. So, there is likely some word choice, tone, or action that you contributed to the conflict escalation. When you are willing to take responsibility for your contribution, you tend to reduce the perception the other person has that you are a threat to them.Likewise, when you apologize for the other person's feelings, you subtly imply that you are in control of their emotional state. For many people, when you claim ownership for their feelings you convey a threat signal.
  2. Maintain appropriate eye contact.
    Appropriate eye contact conveys respect and trustworthiness. As a result, good eye contact is a critical component of an effective apology.
  3. Make sure your tone and body language match your message.
    In his often quoted (and misquoted) communication study, Albert Mehrabian found that body language and tone are the majority contributors to the received message in face-to-face communication. For the purpose of this post, the key observation is that when the message conveyed by tone and body language does not match the message sent by your word choice, the listener tends to believe the tone and body language in preference to the words.

With these tips in mind, here are some suggested ways to successfully phrase an apology…

  • “I apologize for the tone I used.”
  • “I am sorry that I spoke in a way that was offensive to you.”
  • “I am sorry that I said/did ______.”

Please add your tips and suggestions in the comments section.

photo credit: butupa via photopin cc

This article is from the De-escalation Tips series. Use the links below to read more from this series.

How to Plan a Wedding Reception in Seven Days

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The Food Table

Last month, my wife created  a miracle. She planned and pulled-off a wedding reception in seven days.

Yes, you read that correctly — seven days from decision to wedding and reception.

Many things happened leading up to the decision, but the simple answer for the question “Why would you do that?” comes down to my daughter's fiance (now husband) receiving orders to Germany following the completion of his training as an Army medic in March. Since she is a sophomore in college who intends to finish school before joining him permanently in Germany, the break between semesters was the best time for them.

The lessons from the family decision-making process reveal some great communication, conflict resolution, and leadership lessons; and those are stories for other posts on other days. For now, I'm focusing on what happened in the seven days starting December 16th and ending on December 22nd.

We chose to keep things fairly simple, and still it was amazing. There was a wedding dress for the bride, a bridesmaid's dress for her sister, and a new dress for my wife. There were flowers for the bride, the bridesmaid, and the groom's best person (his twin sister). There were church sanctuary and fellowship hall decorations. There was a cake. There were heavy hors d'oeuvres chosen to match the first meals as married couples for the new couple, my wife and I, my parents, and my grandparents. There were photographs. There was special music. The beautiful bride (yes, I'm biased) danced with both her husband and her father.

As one friend said, “If you didn't know the story behind this wedding, you would think you had been planning it for months.”

It was amazing. It was beautiful. And despite the many opportunities to have conflicts and arguments caused by the stress and pressure of the short timeline, everyone came through the process with relationships intact.

At one point during the day of the wedding, another friend asked me how we managed to pull it all together so quickly. I replied: “Some people say this wedding came together in seven days, and it really took fourteen years.”  The comment that came to me spontaneously in response to my friend's question gets to the learning point of this experience.

You see, we have lived in this rural, Indiana community since 1998. In that time, we have made great friends in churches, businesses, and community organizations throughout the county. We have no immediate family here. We do have great friends.

The wedding reception came together in seven days because of the depth of relationships built up over the course of those fourteen years.

Yes, my wife is great at organizing and delegating. And, her skill would not have mattered without the willing, discretionary effort of the people around her. No amount of ordering and coercing would have gotten the job done. Good will, common focus, and strong relationships did.

The lesson for leaders is this:

To accomplish great things in a short amount of time, invest in relationships before you need something done.

This post would not be complete without saying thank-you to our friends from all over Montgomery County. To us, it doesn't seem like enough to just say thank-you, and we are so overwhelmed with your generosity, we don't know what else to say. Thanks.

(If you'd like to see the wedding, there's a video and pictures at www.adamandlydiawedding.com)

Three Questions to Consider Before you Speak Assertively

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Successful conflict resolution depends on the careful application of several communication and relationship building principles and skills. Frankly, it can be complicated and difficult to do.

One critical skill in the complicated mess of conflict resolution is assertive communication. As I speak, write, coach, and train on the application of assertive communication techniques and strategies, I get many questions related to this topic. One of the most common questions relates to the potential risks of choosing to communicate assertively.

The question takes many forms, but it generally comes down to this:

When is it safe to speak assertively with another person?

This is a great question because it acknowledges the potential risk of confronting another person's behaviors. The conflict resolution process is full of various kinds of risks. There are usually relational risks. Sometimes there are financial risks. And occasionally there are physical risks.

I understand the risks. I see the risks.  And I have to deal with the risks when I find myself in a real or potential conflict situation. To manage or mitigate these risks, I have developed three questions I ask of myself before I make the choice to communicate assertively.

  1. Is there a way to act assertively that minimizes the risk of retaliation?

    The starting point for mitigating the risk begins with taking a close look inwardly to see if there is a way I can adjust my behaviors to make it safe for the other person to receive what I have to say. With this question, I hope to find a way that I can deliver my message in a non-threatening manner.

  2. Do I trust the other person to respond honorably and without retaliation?

    If the answer to this question is yes, then I proceed with the assertive communication. If the answer is no, then I ask myself the third question.

  3. Am I willing to accept the consequences if they do not?

    This question reveals some additional risks raised by the question: Can Every Conflict Be Resolved? If I am willing to accept the consequences, then I proceed. If I am not willing to accept the consequences, then I look for another path to resolution.

These questions do not address every variable and every situation you might face in working to resolve a conflict. They are pretty good guidelines for making decisions about how to proceed in a conflict situation.

Keep Moving Forward

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As a watch officer on a submarine, I got to “drive the boat.” During my six-hour watch (shift), I led the team that charted course, controlled direction and depth, coordinated atmosphere controls, and a number of other activities.

A submarine at sea never sleeps. There was always someone on watch both before and after me.

When I took the watch, I reviewed logs, looked at instrument settings, and discussed with my predecessor what happened during his watch. We then looked over the Night Orders to see what the Captain wanted my team to accomplish during my watch.

During my watch, I consulted with the Quartermaster (he tracks position and course), the Diving Officer (he controls direction and depth), the Chief of the Watch (he controls many systems), and others. It was exciting, tiring, interesting, frustrating, scary, and fun. And, it taught me a whole lot about how to work with a team.

The Quartermaster and I spoke about our position and our intended course. We used a chart that showed where we were and where we were going.

The Diving Officer told me what he observed in the way the submarine handled. We talked about trimming the boat and course and depth corrections.

The Chief of the Watch told me what he saw in the systems he monitored. With his help, I made decisions and gave instructions about announcements to the crew, changes in system settings, and other watch management issues.

At the end of my watch, I had a conversation with the person relieving me that was similar to one I had with the person I had relieved earlier.

In reflecting on those many conversations that led to hundreds of decisions, I see a common thread running through all of them that illustrates a powerful concept for leaders.

Once you know where you are; chart a course for where you want to go, and keep moving forward.

We might take a moment to figure out how we got where we were, but we didn’t focus on that. Every conversation quickly turned to the future: where are we going, what do we want it to be, etc.

We were all different: college boys, college dropouts, farm boys, inner city boys, high school honor students, and high school trouble-makers. We were a team of people from nearly every state, educational background, and race.

We did not care where we had been; we only cared where we were going. That common focus on the future drove us together so that we could get past our many differences and work together productively.

People are a Package Deal

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Nearly everyone irritates me to some extent. Even the people close to me — my wife, my kids, my friends, and my professional colleagues — irritate me from time to time.

All of them have body gestures, word choices, and tones that get under my skin because I see them as rude, impatient, inconsiderate or pushy. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, frustrates me some of the time.

And I'm okay with that.

The reality is that I probably frustrate, irritate, and aggravate them to some extent as well. As I think about it, probably is the wrong word. Let me rephrase that last sentence.

I definitely frustrate, irritate, and aggravate the people close to me.

I can say that I irritate them with a certainty because I am a human being, and people are a package deal.

A few months ago, I was speaking with my friend and colleague JJ Brun, and he said that he had come to the conclusion that when he was in any kind of relationship with a person, he had to accept the frustrating and challenging parts of their behaviors if he was going to enjoy the positive parts.

JJ said he realized that the good and the bad in a person are inseparable because people are a package deal. The phrase is pure JJ. And it's brilliant.

I'm okay with the fact that people close to me sometimes irritate me because I choose to focus on the good things that they bring to the relationship rather than on their annoying behaviors. I realize that they are a package deal — just like me. I want them to accept me with all of my frustrating, irritating and aggravating habits. So, I have to accept them as well.

The next time you find yourself focusing on a negative attribute that another person brings to your relationship with them, shift your focus and look instead at the good they bring.

Remember, people are a package deal.

 

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