Round 1
By
Conflict! As the old adage goes, if two or more people
are in a room for a long enough period of time, they will find something to
disagree about.
People
are genetically unique, which means that they have unique wants, needs and
fears. Disagreements occur between
people when there is a discrepancy between their expected and actual results. Thank goodness many of the issues are
insignificant and just go away.
People in
organizations face daily disagreements.
Minor ones are shrugged off. If
the same minor issue occurs repetitively over time, it can, however, reach the
notable distinction of emotional conflict, or anger.
Other
issues, by their nature, can rise to that distinction quickly. These issues evoke strong emotions in
individuals due to their wants, needs or fears.
Examples are: being bypassed for
a promotion, feeling that compensation isn't appropriate, being excluded from a
decision process affecting their area of responsibility, feeling that their
boss gave bad or inadequate direction and then being held accountable for the
results, being treated unfairly, etc.
When the
inevitable happens and someone becomes angry, what do you do?
Here are
some things that don't work
when people are angry:
§
Ignore
them, or refuse to listen
§
Get
angry and argue back
§
Tell
them they are wrong
§
Try
to reason with them
When
people are angry, it is important to recognize that the brain logic center is
no longer in control. Research has told
us that the reptilian brain center takes control. In that state, people are in no position to
understand reason or logic. They tend to
frequently and emotionally rehearse the problem and subsequent reactions.
It is a
normal reaction to take a defensive posture when confronted with an angry
person. Angry people tend to attack
other people's personality and not the problem.
It takes a high degree of will power to overcome your own emotions and
do the opposite of what you might feel like doing. In his book, Getting Past No: Negotiating with Difficult People, William
Ury advises that "..instead of pounding in a new idea from the outside,
you encourage him to reach for it from within."
The
following steps help to defuse an angry person and start building a discussion
path:
1.
Ask
them to tell you what is wrong.
2.
Establish
that you have heard them by repeating back what you heard.
3.
Validate
their feelings by indicating that you understand now why they may feel
the way they do. This is not validating
the facts, only their feelings.
4.
Ask
them what solution they are hoping for.
Don't start guessing at what they want.
What they really want may be surprising.
At this
stage you are in a position to separate those people who are the reasonable,
decent types with a genuine problem from those who have chronic hostility or
use anger to get their way. The decent
types generally calm down and thank you for letting them talk about it. There is a high probability of working
through the problem and building a stronger relationship.
By the
nature of my work, I encounter conflict in many levels of organizations. The issues range from management and
ownership succession in family businesses to employer-employee and peer-to-peer
conflict. In many cases simply talking
with an objective outsider helps clarify the problem and put it in the proper
prospective. The parties involved are
then able to work through the issues on their own.
In some
situations, emotions and stress levels are so high that it is difficult for the
parties to resolve the conflict without outside mediation. Anger is so close to the surface that
relatively minor stimulus results in violent outbursts. Most discussions degenerate to emotional
anger and no progress is made on the fundamental issues.
As an
outside mediator, I find it necessary to separate the parties and listen
(there's that word again) to each version of what's wrong. After several private sessions, we are able
to meet as a group where I act as interpreter and as referee.
My
immediate goal as a mediator is to work past the hurt feelings and eventually
define the real issues. The long term
goal is develop better communications skills and understanding between the
parties.
When
anger erupts in your organization, the underlying issues must be properly
resolved. Finding a method to defuse the
anger is imperative to seeking a satisfactory solution.