Destructive conflict: from enemies to all winners

Pre-words and kind reintroduction

We’re back and hotter than ever! Or at least the weather in Barcelona is. Thank you for your patience in the last two weeks while I took a break from creating. I’m back more focused on improving my niche and knowledge on leadership, and I’m excited to share my findings with you.

In the following weeks I will be thinking of new methods of sharing my thoughts with you. The known structure will sit in place, but I will see how I can bring this even closer to your experiences.

If you have any questions or topics you would like me to tackle, drop them here! I would be more than happy to resolve personal experiences, and share them with the rest of the world!

Onwards and upwards! Let’s talk about conflict!

Introduction

Conflict is unavoidable. Putting people with different backgrounds, experiences, and preferences at the same table is bound to spark discussions. Disagreements can:

• strengthen our points of view;

• challenge assumptions;

• motivate individuals to perform at their highest potential.

However, it may feel odd to open honest conversations - we may feel that our image is at risk in these situations, or that we might have to be confrontational.

Of course, not all conflict is useful. Personality clashes and unhealthy disagreements can foster toxicity within your team. For others to feel encouraged to speak up, it turns out leaders must demonstrate confidence in their own abilities and actively embrace constructive conflict. You want your team to have debates; that’s how creativity and learning happens.

The base of healthy group dynamics rests on how your group handles conflicts; your conversations can define rules that your group can follow, and new ideas to implement. Looking from afar, one can clearly see how conflict adds value:

• Helps people see different perspectives and ideas.

• Leads to greater engagement and collaboration.

• Helps to clarify or reassess issues.

• Strengthens interpersonal relations.

Your team needs to feel psychologically safe to have discussions with the idea of getting to a win-win situation: the aim of win-win negotiations (or mindsets) is to find a solution that is acceptable to all parties, and leaves all parties feeling that they’ve won, in some way, after the event (discussion).

It’s up to us, the facilitators, to provide our teams with the tools and guidelines necessary for handling conflict, whether it is constructive or destructive.

Objectives

Subject

Destructive conflict is bad for the morale of the whole team, not just those involved. Conflict can decrease productivity and affect the organisation’s output and performance — making conflict management an essential leadership skill.

Serious conversations may seem intimidating: the stakes behind the conversation sound serious: with high risk, there’s a high risk of failure. Luckily, conflicts do not happen in a dog eat dog work environment.

Everything is easier once you have established the dynamic of the group, its culture, and social connections. These all aid into handling difficult situations with a positive attitude in mind. With the necessary steps, you and the ones involved in the conflict can reach the expected outcome: a win-win situation for all.

Find the root cause 

This step may require some research on your part. If the conflict is complicated or long-standing, you’ll want to know what’s going on before you invite tense people to a meeting to hash things out. If you decide to invite other people to your inquiry, try to talk to all the parties involved in your conflict separately. Follow up with anyone else on the team whose perspective may help clarify the problem. Run what you know through the following questions:

1. Why are team members arguing with each other?

2. Is there a deeper personality conflict here?

3. Are there external factors affecting this conflict?

4. Is this a recurring pattern?

5. Why does one member insist on getting their way?

6. What is the cause of the conflict?

When you have answers to these questions, you will be able to start thinking of ideas for negotiating a resolution. Some of the conclusions you may draw might have a different root cause. Behaviours can be driven by facts, or by emotions. Both categories require you to acknowledge the root problem, and come forward with appropriate suggestions.

Framework

When leading a team, you may have a few ideas on how this situation should evolve, but it’s best for you to not be the ones deciding the solution. It will feel imposed and it will not teach the ones involved how to handle difficult conversations in the future.

A win-win negotiation is a careful exploration of both your own position, and that of your opposite number, in order to find a mutually acceptable outcome that gives you all as much of what you want as possible. If you all walk away happy with what you've gained from the deal, then that's a win-win!

Former Harvard Law School professor Roger Fisher, and academic, anthropologist, and negotiation expert William Ury developed an approach in their 1981 book, "Getting to Yes." They identified five steps of principled negotiations, and argued that negotiations are successful when they encourage cooperation toward a common goal.

Let's look at the five stages of principled negotiation someone in conflict will go through:

1. Separate People From the Problem:

The person you are discussing with is not your opponent. Be sure to focus on the issue at hand, and try to ignore personality differences.

Examine and acknowledge your emotions, and to ask yourself why you feel the way you do. For example, could a previous bad experience in a negotiation be affecting your behaviour in this one?

Remain calm during the negotiations, as this will aid your decision-making processes. Make sure that your communication is clear and precise, to avoid misunderstandings. Use active listening techniques, such as looking directly at the speaker, listening carefully, and allowing each person to finish before you respond.

2. Focus on interests, not positions

The way someone handles conflict may be very different due to their cultural background, previous experiences, and reactiveness.

When negotiating, you should be mindful of this. Do not directly blame someone for their behaviours; it’s as uncomfortable for them as it is to you. Remain respectful and have the clear goal of growth and reaching a common ground in mind.

3. Invent options for mutual gain

Throughout your conversation, the points of each party will become clear. Listen actively to everyone’s problems and goals: common solutions may be easy to identify.

From a leadership perspective, this is your opportunity to act on what you are preaching. Do not leave solutions at the ideation level: continue by making the first steps towards resolving the conflict, and provide a clear schedule on any future actions that will still need to be completed.

4. Use objective criteria

Too many conflicts are seen as personal, especially in environments which did not nurture a culture based on open communication. Consequently, people come into conflict thinking of the problem as a subjective matter, directly influencing their personality and position in the team.

Luckily, this is often incorrect, and can be mediated through objective criteria. Look deep into the problem and measure it using facts that are understood without any bias by all parties.

Facilitate the discussion by ensuring the criteria chosen to discuss the conflicting situation is indeed understood by everyone: go back and confirm with everyone that the base of the discussion is understood, and ask them to rephrase the criteria to ensure clarity. Your chosen criteria will downsize the “opposing” points, and allow everyone to be more prone to listen to other perspectives, too.

5. Know Your BATNA (Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement)

Ask everyone involved in the conflict to share their BATNA - in short, you are seeking to know what they think will happen if the conflict will not be resolved. Evaluate these alternatives and at the end of that process, the most promising alternative solution is your group BATNA.

Continue by asking them to ponder on how their BATNAs will affect the rest of the team. Articulating consequences to the group may help them recommit to finding a solution.

Final thoughts

If the conversation proves indeed to be too difficult even after following a win-win negotiation strategy, congest the conflict to only the key priorities, and limit the scope to these issues alone. Topics can easily snowball.

With practice, your team members will learn how to handle constructive conflicts on their own, especially if you will be treating them as a process. By contrast, destructive conflict will always require your involvement and attention.

The impact of such unhandled situations can be immense: for individuals, for the team, and for your organisation as a whole. But with the right processes implemented, you can begin to feel comfortable with difficult conversations and understand that at the end of each of them you will be a stronger team with a more effective group dynamics.

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Quality content

Today’s quality content is unrelated to the topic, as it’s been a longer newsletter than usual. Here’s my favourite DJ’s newest music video about the intensity of music festivals. Use it as a break today. It’s mad(ly).

This is it for today! Thank you for reading!

Razzmatazz without the matazz.