BetterCulture spends a good amount of training time helping our clients to recognize (a) the big-time benefits of intellectual conflict and (b) the big-time damage that can result from personal conflict. Exceptional leaders embrace the former and avoid (or quickly resolve) the latter – something easier said than done.
In line with this topic, often we have clients that are familiar with one or both of the following books: Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson, et al. and Radical Candor by Kim Scott. Both share useful perspectives and advice. Both books (a) emphasize the importance of effective communication in personal and professional relationships, and (b) provide structured approaches and practical tools to handle difficult conversations and feedback.
Crucial Conversations
Crucial Conversations offers something of a paint-by-numbers guide to navigate difficult conversations, placing a large emphasis on maintenance of mutual respect and understanding. It is applicable to a wide range of situations – both professional and personal, and offers such guidance as:
- Start with Heart
- Stay in Dialogue
- Make it Safe
- Don’t Get Hooked by Emotion
- Agree on a Mutual Purpose
- Separate Facts from Story
- Agree on a Clear Action Plan
Radical Candor
Radical Candor focuses on the importance of balancing care with directness, stressing that leaders need to be both empathetic and straightforward. It is more targeted on workplace dynamics and, although it sometimes ignores the difficult power dynamics that can exist between two people in a workplace setting, it is my favorite of these two books. It introduces a 2X2 framework based Caring Personally and Challenging Directly. The result is four quadrants that describe varying interactions:
- Radical Candor: The ideal quadrant where you both care personally and challenge directly. For example, you tell a team member that you enjoyed their presentation but suggest they could improve by being more concise.
- Obnoxious Aggression: You challenge directly but fail to show you care personally via harsh or even rude feedback.
- Ruinous Empathy: You care personally but do not challenge directly. Your feedback is overly kind and avoids addressing important issues.
- Manipulative Insincerity: The worst pattern where you neither care personally nor challenge directly. Your feedback is insincere, often involving artificial flattery or backstabbing.
Let me add just a few thoughts from BetterCulture on the topic of managing conflict.
Conflict can be good.
This sounds like the statement of the obvious, but many people automatically associate conflict with something bad – something that needs to be extinguished. That can be the case, but if the goal is to try and find the best possible pathway forward, then intellectual conflict should be viewed as a positive.
When any two or more individuals are trying to reach a decision, the existence of conflict simply means that both are trying to make the pathway forward as successful as possible.
Experienced leaders understand that conflict within a team or work group can usually be addressed. Conflict is not the killer for the effectiveness of any team or work group. No, the killer is apathy. Where apathy exists, frequently the only remedial action you can take is to change the players sitting in those seats.
For heaven’s sake, read the room.
Good leaders should recognize the correlation between the passion that another party feels about their position and the necessity listen. No one likes to have a decision go against what they believe to be right or better, but most will accept that decision much more readily if they feel as though their position or side of the argument has been heard.
Socrates was fairly bright.
In some instances, if you’re particularly knowledgeable and willing to take the time, the Socratic method can be a wonderful learning opportunity for both you and the other party. It is a process of asking questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presumptions.
When using his method, Socrates described himself not as a teacher but as an ignorant inquirer, asking a series of questions to see if the other person has thought through their position. He was curious. You will often find that individuals will much more graciously acknowledge errors in their thinking when they discover the errors themselves as opposed to them being pointed out by others.
The biggest factor.
There are techniques that can be helpful in managing, and effectually resolving, interpersonal conflict, and books like Crucial Conversations and Radical Candor can help you acquire some of those techniques and skill sets. But those individuals who are best at managing conflict understand the power of one factor that, when present, reduces the necessity of skillfully managing the “process.” That factor is the degree to which you have established genuine trust with the other party.
You see, when the other party trusts that your motives are to find the best possible answer for all concerned, the degree of personal angst involved with disagreement will be dramatically reduced.
We see the evidence of this anytime we watch a well-coached team on the playing field. If those players genuinely believe that it is the motive of their coach to help (a) the team win and (b) help the player become as successful as possible, that player will accept even the most candid and direct feedback that the coach will give – even if it is delivered with…well, let’s say with volume and vigor. 🙂
If that player, however, does not trust the motives of that coach, their reaction to that feedback is going to be far less than optimal.
The point: Trust is not something that one gains in the middle of a crisis. Trust is something that’s built over time by the consistent investment in the success of others. Trust is gained by reputations and interactions over time. Trust is gained by showing the ability to understand and empathize with another person. Trust is gained by leading in a way that is absolutely committed to BetterCulture’s third principle of leadership: helping others find more success at work and in life.
When you have established that level of trust, you will find the need for you to memorize paint-by-numbers conflict resolution techniques to be…well, perhaps helpful but certainly not necessary.
As we like to say at BetterCulture: when in doubt, go with genuine. It is likely to be your best call.
