we usually think of conflict as
something that happens between people
after all who’s there when things go
wrong people and people can be very
annoying but they’re really just the
part of the story that’s easiest to see
in almost 30 years of working with
employees at every level from warehouse
associates and service reps to CEOs I’ve
seen over and over what happens when we
hold the mistaken belief that conflict
would not exist if those annoying people
would just get themselves together and
work things out unfortunately when we
operate out of that belief we tend to
say and do things that cause conflict to
persist and to create even more damage
to both organizations and the people in
them and that’s true whether we’re
talking about businesses or nonprofits
schools even families and entire
societies if we want to solve conflict
we’ve got to do some digging we have to
look at the structures that lie
underneath the conflict and I’m gonna
give you an example and then five steps
that you can take to fix conflict
wherever you are so a couple of years
ago a CEO brought me in to work with two
senior executives I’ll call them Amy and
Bill and they were locked in a serious
conflict and the CEO described it to me
as a communication problem and it looked
something like this
now I interviewed Amy and Bill and they
told me a different story
from their description the conflict
actually looked more like this they
didn’t see it as a communication problem
they saw it as differences in
departmental opinions about how the work
should be done in the company based on
their beliefs about each other’s
functional roles but then I interviewed
Bill and Amy’s team members and other
people in the organization and it turned
out that the situation really looked
like this you can see that underneath
what looked sort of like a
person-to-person conflict or a
departmental conflict we have these
deeply embedded structures including
everything from company history and
cultural norms to work processes and
procedures now it seems unrealistic to
blame individuals and to treat them as
if they have sole responsibility for
conflict when as you can see they’re
really only the tip of the proverbial
iceberg and it also seems unrealistic to
think that we can come up with
simplistic interpersonal solutions like
sending Amy and Bill off to
communication training or even to anger
management classes no we have to
excavate what’s under the conflict and
bring it out into the open so that we
can analyze understand and begin to
resolve the human conflict that’s
building on the top and now I’m going to
give you five steps so you can do just
that
wherever you are step one we need to
rule out the unfortunate possibility
that a single dysfunctional individual
is actually the source of conflict
I don’t mean somebody who makes mistakes
I mean someone who’s really a danger in
organizations a common example of this
is someone who’s a bully bullies don’t
have the self-awareness to recognize
when they’re hurting other people and
it’s very hard for them to give up
whatever kinds of nasty behavior they
believe has worked for them in the past
a second common example of the kind of
dysfunctional person who can truly be
the source of conflict is someone who’s
an incompetent they create a lot of mess
they sometimes fake their way into a job
and in other cases you may have seen
people promoted beyond their capability
now the lucky thing about workplace
conflict is that it is completely
legitimate and appropriate to screen out
dysfunctional individuals or to deal
with them through a combination of
coaching counseling and corrective
action so once you have dealt with or
screened out your dysfunctional person
you can go on to step two and that’s
asking the right people the right
questions you might think that you
should store it with the folks who are
in control the people who have power and
status but it doesn’t work because
they’re not close enough to the real
action instead you need to interview the
people who are experiencing events on
the ground and you need a full range of
their opinions because even though
they’ll try to give you their honest
opinion each one by its very nature is
incomplete because they’re bounded by
their individual experiences and their
perceptions so you need a broad range of
views and that permits you when you have
the full picture to start to see the
patterns and dynamics operating
underneath and what kind of questions
can you ask here are some that I like to
use
can you tell me what goes right here
what’s the thing that whenever it
happens it makes you nuts is there
something that would help you do your
job better and why do you stay if it
sounds like there are so many problems
here so let me recap we rule out the
dysfunctional individual and then we ask
the right people the right questions and
that lets us go on to step three and
that’s making sure that everyone is
aligned that they have a consistent
understanding of what the goals are
who’s responsible for which decisions
and who does what to whom you would be
amazed at how many sincere well-meaning
people can have deep disagreements about
goals and means including fairly obvious
things like who has budget Authority and
who has responsibility for which
decisions and who can take credit for
success an example at one of my clients
a senior leader assigned overlapping
responsibilities for the same turf to
two different executives these two execs
and their teams fought for an entire
year over who got to call which shots
and who was going to take the blame for
declining performance results the human
resources group came in tried to
facilitate a truce encourage better
behavior but until the senior leader
left and the overlapping assignments
came fully to light and were completely
redefined there was no change because
it’s very hard to think that just a
little good behavior pleasantness trying
harder is going to make a difference
when you have two different sets of feet
standing in the same space
the fourth step is to find allies at all
levels in the organization to help you
implement the change because even if
you’ve ruled out the dysfunctional
individuals and you’ve asked the right
people the right questions and you’ve
aligned around the goals and the means
if you don’t have a critical mass of
participation nothing substantial is
going to happen at one of my clients
there was a persistent conflict in the
executive team itself I was facilitating
a group of mid-level managers and these
people really needed to get their work
done so they were willing to work on
concrete practical solutions together in
ways that their bosses were not over
time we were able to build bridges
across the various departments these
allies communicated the concepts down to
their teams and eventually they were
able to start managing up in ways that
created better performance better
productivity and definitely better
behavior even within the executive team
and the fifth step teach new habits for
managing differences I’ve talked about
the problems with structures and how you
have to recognize them and what their
impact can be but from time to time
people do have significant interpersonal
communication problems so it only makes
sense to teach some new techniques and
habits that can help people deal with
the strong feelings and the stressful
thinking that conflict brings with it
here are just a few of the habits I
teach my clients the first one is called
lizard listening I remind clients that
our amygdala our ancient lizard brain
interprets a mute emotional cues as if
they were present physical danger even
before we have a chance to a
what’s going on or interpret them
logically I encourage them to reconsider
what they’ve just said or are planning
to say to their counterpart in conflict
and to think about what will happen when
that counterpart filters the
conversation through their lizard brain
what misconceptions could come up
inaccurate
negative beliefs what could be
misconstrued even perfectly good
intentions are there ways to reframe
those negatives so that the next
conversation can be more persuasive and
more positive then we have the evil
logic check when somebody bothers us we
tend to think of them as a bad person
so when clients complain about the bad
people they work with I asked them
specifically if they think their
counterpart is evil and that’s the word
I use because it’s so strong no no they
have to step back she’s not really evil
she’s just annoying
so then I press it a little bit further
and I ask why would a smart person do
such a stupid thing this leading
question helps people reconsider what’s
really going on with that annoying
person and sometimes in addition to the
alternative explanations for what they
meant they can even develop some
compassion for the annoying persons
situation because after all when we
label behavior as bad and stupid
it is usually coming from some form of
pressure fear or threat and then my
favorite are these elephant cards
sometimes there is something important
and true that needs to be said but it’s
too uncomfortable
most of us don’t want to be the one to
put someone on the spot we don’t like to
say something that sounds unkind it can
feel like a real risk to put
undiscussables subjects on the table I
distribute these elephant cords at my
facilitations
when there’s something important going
unsaid anybody in the room can play an
elephant card I have clients who are
doing this years later the very act of
playing the card raises the possibility
with other people who understand the
significance that you can discuss topics
which previously would have been
impermissible okay so we have ruled out
dysfunctional individuals we’ve asked
the right people the right questions
we’ve ensured that we have alignment
we’ve looked for allies to help us
implement the change and we’ve taught
some specific techniques so people feel
that they have a better way to
communicate with each other now let me
tell you working through these five
steps it’s not easy it takes courage and
commitment it takes a little humor and
it takes a heap of effort to get
traction on persistent conflict but if
we are ever going to help our schools
our workplaces and our civic
organizations function better if we want
to help people make the real
contribution that they can we have to
uncover and understand what’s truly
underneath any conflict in any situation
then we can help people work together
successfully for everyone’s benefit
wherever we are
thank you
[Applause]
something that happens between people
after all who’s there when things go
wrong people and people can be very
annoying but they’re really just the
part of the story that’s easiest to see
in almost 30 years of working with
employees at every level from warehouse
associates and service reps to CEOs I’ve
seen over and over what happens when we
hold the mistaken belief that conflict
would not exist if those annoying people
would just get themselves together and
work things out unfortunately when we
operate out of that belief we tend to
say and do things that cause conflict to
persist and to create even more damage
to both organizations and the people in
them and that’s true whether we’re
talking about businesses or nonprofits
schools even families and entire
societies if we want to solve conflict
we’ve got to do some digging we have to
look at the structures that lie
underneath the conflict and I’m gonna
give you an example and then five steps
that you can take to fix conflict
wherever you are so a couple of years
ago a CEO brought me in to work with two
senior executives I’ll call them Amy and
Bill and they were locked in a serious
conflict and the CEO described it to me
as a communication problem and it looked
something like this
now I interviewed Amy and Bill and they
told me a different story
from their description the conflict
actually looked more like this they
didn’t see it as a communication problem
they saw it as differences in
departmental opinions about how the work
should be done in the company based on
their beliefs about each other’s
functional roles but then I interviewed
Bill and Amy’s team members and other
people in the organization and it turned
out that the situation really looked
like this you can see that underneath
what looked sort of like a
person-to-person conflict or a
departmental conflict we have these
deeply embedded structures including
everything from company history and
cultural norms to work processes and
procedures now it seems unrealistic to
blame individuals and to treat them as
if they have sole responsibility for
conflict when as you can see they’re
really only the tip of the proverbial
iceberg and it also seems unrealistic to
think that we can come up with
simplistic interpersonal solutions like
sending Amy and Bill off to
communication training or even to anger
management classes no we have to
excavate what’s under the conflict and
bring it out into the open so that we
can analyze understand and begin to
resolve the human conflict that’s
building on the top and now I’m going to
give you five steps so you can do just
that
wherever you are step one we need to
rule out the unfortunate possibility
that a single dysfunctional individual
is actually the source of conflict
I don’t mean somebody who makes mistakes
I mean someone who’s really a danger in
organizations a common example of this
is someone who’s a bully bullies don’t
have the self-awareness to recognize
when they’re hurting other people and
it’s very hard for them to give up
whatever kinds of nasty behavior they
believe has worked for them in the past
a second common example of the kind of
dysfunctional person who can truly be
the source of conflict is someone who’s
an incompetent they create a lot of mess
they sometimes fake their way into a job
and in other cases you may have seen
people promoted beyond their capability
now the lucky thing about workplace
conflict is that it is completely
legitimate and appropriate to screen out
dysfunctional individuals or to deal
with them through a combination of
coaching counseling and corrective
action so once you have dealt with or
screened out your dysfunctional person
you can go on to step two and that’s
asking the right people the right
questions you might think that you
should store it with the folks who are
in control the people who have power and
status but it doesn’t work because
they’re not close enough to the real
action instead you need to interview the
people who are experiencing events on
the ground and you need a full range of
their opinions because even though
they’ll try to give you their honest
opinion each one by its very nature is
incomplete because they’re bounded by
their individual experiences and their
perceptions so you need a broad range of
views and that permits you when you have
the full picture to start to see the
patterns and dynamics operating
underneath and what kind of questions
can you ask here are some that I like to
use
can you tell me what goes right here
what’s the thing that whenever it
happens it makes you nuts is there
something that would help you do your
job better and why do you stay if it
sounds like there are so many problems
here so let me recap we rule out the
dysfunctional individual and then we ask
the right people the right questions and
that lets us go on to step three and
that’s making sure that everyone is
aligned that they have a consistent
understanding of what the goals are
who’s responsible for which decisions
and who does what to whom you would be
amazed at how many sincere well-meaning
people can have deep disagreements about
goals and means including fairly obvious
things like who has budget Authority and
who has responsibility for which
decisions and who can take credit for
success an example at one of my clients
a senior leader assigned overlapping
responsibilities for the same turf to
two different executives these two execs
and their teams fought for an entire
year over who got to call which shots
and who was going to take the blame for
declining performance results the human
resources group came in tried to
facilitate a truce encourage better
behavior but until the senior leader
left and the overlapping assignments
came fully to light and were completely
redefined there was no change because
it’s very hard to think that just a
little good behavior pleasantness trying
harder is going to make a difference
when you have two different sets of feet
standing in the same space
the fourth step is to find allies at all
levels in the organization to help you
implement the change because even if
you’ve ruled out the dysfunctional
individuals and you’ve asked the right
people the right questions and you’ve
aligned around the goals and the means
if you don’t have a critical mass of
participation nothing substantial is
going to happen at one of my clients
there was a persistent conflict in the
executive team itself I was facilitating
a group of mid-level managers and these
people really needed to get their work
done so they were willing to work on
concrete practical solutions together in
ways that their bosses were not over
time we were able to build bridges
across the various departments these
allies communicated the concepts down to
their teams and eventually they were
able to start managing up in ways that
created better performance better
productivity and definitely better
behavior even within the executive team
and the fifth step teach new habits for
managing differences I’ve talked about
the problems with structures and how you
have to recognize them and what their
impact can be but from time to time
people do have significant interpersonal
communication problems so it only makes
sense to teach some new techniques and
habits that can help people deal with
the strong feelings and the stressful
thinking that conflict brings with it
here are just a few of the habits I
teach my clients the first one is called
lizard listening I remind clients that
our amygdala our ancient lizard brain
interprets a mute emotional cues as if
they were present physical danger even
before we have a chance to a
what’s going on or interpret them
logically I encourage them to reconsider
what they’ve just said or are planning
to say to their counterpart in conflict
and to think about what will happen when
that counterpart filters the
conversation through their lizard brain
what misconceptions could come up
inaccurate
negative beliefs what could be
misconstrued even perfectly good
intentions are there ways to reframe
those negatives so that the next
conversation can be more persuasive and
more positive then we have the evil
logic check when somebody bothers us we
tend to think of them as a bad person
so when clients complain about the bad
people they work with I asked them
specifically if they think their
counterpart is evil and that’s the word
I use because it’s so strong no no they
have to step back she’s not really evil
she’s just annoying
so then I press it a little bit further
and I ask why would a smart person do
such a stupid thing this leading
question helps people reconsider what’s
really going on with that annoying
person and sometimes in addition to the
alternative explanations for what they
meant they can even develop some
compassion for the annoying persons
situation because after all when we
label behavior as bad and stupid
it is usually coming from some form of
pressure fear or threat and then my
favorite are these elephant cards
sometimes there is something important
and true that needs to be said but it’s
too uncomfortable
most of us don’t want to be the one to
put someone on the spot we don’t like to
say something that sounds unkind it can
feel like a real risk to put
undiscussables subjects on the table I
distribute these elephant cords at my
facilitations
when there’s something important going
unsaid anybody in the room can play an
elephant card I have clients who are
doing this years later the very act of
playing the card raises the possibility
with other people who understand the
significance that you can discuss topics
which previously would have been
impermissible okay so we have ruled out
dysfunctional individuals we’ve asked
the right people the right questions
we’ve ensured that we have alignment
we’ve looked for allies to help us
implement the change and we’ve taught
some specific techniques so people feel
that they have a better way to
communicate with each other now let me
tell you working through these five
steps it’s not easy it takes courage and
commitment it takes a little humor and
it takes a heap of effort to get
traction on persistent conflict but if
we are ever going to help our schools
our workplaces and our civic
organizations function better if we want
to help people make the real
contribution that they can we have to
uncover and understand what’s truly
underneath any conflict in any situation
then we can help people work together
successfully for everyone’s benefit
wherever we are
thank you
[Applause]
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