Managing Conflict Resolution in the Office
Taking things personally! It’s at the bottom of every conflict whether it is in the office, between co-workers, friends or family. As soon as the following kind of thoughts pop into our head, we know we are operating from the animal brain: “I don’t like the way they said that!” or, “How dare they speak to me that way!” or, “Unbelievable! I can’t believe they just did that!”
In an office environment when someone takes things personally, it can create so much hassle for a company that everyone suffers—from customers, to co-workers to stockholders. Work performance goes down and problems go up. If you don’t agree, listen to this—a true story. A telemarketer, Betty, is really good at her job except she begins to have problems at home and starts bringing them into work. Her co-workers listen to the problems for a few days and then it gets into weeks until one day, Jim, a co-worker says, “Listen I’ve had it up to here with your complaining—I can’t stand it anymore—I don’t want to hear your problems. I’ve got enough of my own.”
Betty, the telemarketer says, “Thank you for telling me—I won’t talk about them at work anymore.” And everyone feels relieved—like the air has been cleared. Except, next day people come into work and a strange thing has happened: the door, which has always been open between Betty and the rest of the office, is closed. All day long, people are wondering ‘what’s wrong’. The manager finally gets involved and asks Betty, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing!” Says Betty. “Nothing is wrong.”
Over the next few days everyone in the office is working under a terrible cloud. Betty doesn’t talk to anyone—the rest of the staff attempt to smooth things over—the manager gets involved again except that Betty keeps saying, “nothing is wrong.” Finally, months later and much to the relief of everyone in the office Betty leaves.
What could have stopped it from happening? Well, there are some steps:
1. The manager must operate from the human brain and see the bigger picture—Betty needs help and it cannot come from the office
2. Do not allow the conflict to escalate—take immediate action to stop Betty infecting the rest of the team
3. Do not leave conflict for co-workers to sort out
4. Use company resources; send Betty to H.R. for counseling solutions.
If the company does not have resources, talk to Betty about not bringing personal problems into the office and steer her towards some kind of counseling or coaching.
Here’s another different story about a sales person who wanted to become a manager: Tom had been talking about being a manager and was given the opportunity to ‘run’ a small sales team at a large conference in Orlando. It was a disaster. When the team returned, they had made very few sales, and were very disgruntled. One team member said, “Tom was nuts—he got us so nervous that we didn’t know what the heck we were doing.” Another team member said, “He set all these unrealistic sales quotas and started yelling at us when we didn’t sell anything in the first hour.”
When Tom got back to the office, the manager had to talk to him about his performance. “So what went wrong?”
Tom replied, “They just can’t sell. They should all be fired!” In this situation, Tom also left the company after a few months. Now in both cases of Tom and Betty, they were good at their jobs and it would have been better for the company if they had stayed. So what could the manager have done differently with Tom? Here are some suggestions:
1. Have an experienced manager present to correct the problems as they arose
2. Coach Tom on management skills.
Most conflict situations arise because someone is operating from their animal brain and taking things personally. Betty took what her co-worker said to heart—even though she should not have brought her problems into work. Tom should not have been given the responsibility of managing the sales team without some coaching.
If you ask people if they want conflict in their lives most will say, “no of course not.” It happens because the animal brain which is about survival, takes over and when that happens, it wants to defend itself, it can never be wrong, and it always wants to blame others. As a manager, your job is to operate from your human brain and see who is operating from survival and fear and step in to smooth things out.
Don’t allow someone operating from their animal brain to be let loose in the office. Don’t allow them to run the place or it will wreak havoc. So here are some tips for keeping yourself in your human brain so that you can find acceptable solutions for any problem that your team may encounter:
1. Affirm your day:
Stand in front of the mirror; look into your eyeballs and say, “Today I am amazing. Today I will easily solve any conflict before it arises.”
2. Recognize when you are operating from your animal brain and ‘switch’ to your human brain. Between your animal brain and human brain is a Reticular Activating System (RAS) which connects the outside world with your inner world of emotions and feelings. When you become aware that certain events are triggering your animal brain—you can choose to ‘switch’ to your human brain and operate as an evolving human being.
3. Recognize when your team members are operating from their animal brain and do not engage with it—instead continue to operate from your human brain until the best solution presents itself—remember, the human brain is inventive and creative—it always finds the best way to solve problems.
When you are in the middle of conflict—where the rubber meets the road—the best and most effective solution is to activate your human brain—it has all the solutions and is the most powerful tactic you will ever encounter.
Back to The Winners Attitude |
