From the hallway to the boardroom, workplace conversations are getting tougher. The list of acceptable topics is becoming increasingly shorter. Constructive debate and respectful disagreement are dying arts.
Along the path to technological advancement and the pursuit of efficiency, we’ve lost the ability to listen deeply and our willingness to be vulnerable. In our increasingly distracted and polarized world, it’s easier to dismiss, reject, or avoid thorny conversations entirely.
Flight or fight is our typical reaction to the mere whiff of conflict.
Flight manifests itself as sweeping differences of opinion under the proverbial carpet. Beneath the carpet issues incubate like bacteria in a petri dish, slowly multiplying at first until they invariably morph into personality conflicts and power plays. With enough time, problems become too immense and too toxic to tackle. More importantly, the original problem gets lost in this toxic stew, placing significantly greater stress on the system to solve the primary issue now in the face of strained relationships.
Flight may be as innocuous as glancing down at your phone to text in the middle of a conversation. Flight can also take the form of presenteeism; employees who are physically present but they have mentally checked out, often as a self-protective mechanism.
What does fight look like?
On the other hand, fight behaviours runs the gamut from criticism and sarcasm to bullying and it exists in all organizations, albeit more covert in some cultures than others. Flight frequently rears its ugly head as passive-aggressive behaviour. Have you ever witnessed a colleague being shut down or ignored outright. How often have you seen conversations transform into hallway gossip? These are all examples of fight behaviour.
Both flight and fight are harmful if not promptly identified and positively dealt with. If left unchecked, these two polarized stances lead to the same predictable results: employee disengagement, poor working relationships, lower productivity, higher employee turnover, less innovation and a soured corporate culture.
Fight and flight are inevitable responses to stressors in the environment. Here are simple skills and techniques that can help you overcome these human tendencies and learn how to disagree well.
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Focusing on all sets of facts.
Too often, our discussion goal is to change the other person’s mind. We rarely engage in a conversation anticipating that we need to shift our perspective. In the new world of work, leaders don’t have all the answers. It’s hubris and naive to believe that additional scrutiny won’t improve our ideas or expand our thinking in some way.
Imagine you are with a colleague conducting a venue site assessment for an upcoming off-site meeting. You are admiring the stunning view from the grand foyer. Light floods the room from the 35-foot cathedral ceilings. On the other hand, your colleague is roaming around the dark, windowless basement complete with builder-beige coloured paint and musty broadloom. Each of you would have a very different opinion of the venue. Each of you would be right.
Presume instead that you and your colleague are working off very different data and seek to understand what that full dataset is. Fleshing out the example above, you believe that your colleague is acting negatively as she/he describes the venue as uninspiring if not downright depressing. They, in turn, wonder about your judgment when you describe the event space as being perfect for team-building and celebration.
Ask for clarification.
Why do you and your colleague have such different interpretations of what you believe is the same environment? How can you learn more about their worldview, e.g., take a trip down to the basement to understand their experience better? Invite your colleague up to the foyer to understand where you are coming from.
Rather than disagree with each other, take the opportunity to learn.
While this is a simplistic example, it describes what I regularly observe in the workplace.
2. Create a Yes and… Scenario
Even with the same data, expect differences of opinions, though your job isn’t to steamroll over people in an attempt to get your way. First and foremost, you need to nurture your relationships by affirming them, not necessarily affirming their point of view. In Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts., author and researcher professor Brene Brown recommends inserting the phrase “that isn’t my experience” when you are faced with an opinion that opposes yours.
Here’s an example.
Your HR business partner approaches you about one of your Managers, Johan. She tells you that Johan is a weak communicator and that he needs to work on his presentation skills if he is going to be a candidate for the next round of promotions. You believe Johan is an exceptional communicator.
Rather than butting heads by making your HR business partner wrong, speak from your own experience, “I understand you feel like Johan isn’t a strong communicator, however that isn’t my experience. I’ve seen Johan deliver compelling presentations to the board on several of occasions. He has been well prepared, articulate and answered follow-up questions with confidence and gravitas. I’d appreciate hearing what your experience of Johan’s presentation skills has been?”
Your HR business partner responds by saying, “Well he certainly didn’t deliver when he presented to our team. He fumbled over numbers and got flustered when asked about some of his 2Q projections.” You remember that meeting differently. While Johan did stumble over a few numbers, he recovered with ease in the final few minutes of his presentation. Plus, you have seen Johan deliver under pressure in many other situations, which influences your opinion of him.
Now your conversation with your HR business partner has some space to breathe. You both have an opportunity to interrogate together. Most importantly, this open stance protects your relationship, which is vital to business success, your sense of job satisfaction and ultimately, your career.
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Set learning rather than consensus as the goal.
Consensus is a deceptive and unhealthy goal. We need a greater willingness to explore a broader range of perspectives and be prepared to change our minds in the process. Innovation requires a healthy sense of humility.
In 1983, The Quaker Company headed up by President, William Smithburg, purchased the Gatoraid parent company for $220 million, which Quaker grew to $3 billion in 10 years. By 1994, Smithburg, yearning to buy another high growth product, identified Snapple as the likely candidate at the lofty purchase price of $1.8 billion. Market analysts reported this was a bad buy and every member of the Quaker executive board opposed the purchase. However, not a single board member spoke up to counter Smithburg’s unbridled enthusiasm and the acquisition went through.
The Snapple purchase was later described as one of the greatest business failures in history. By 2000 the fateful purchase nearly toppled the 100-year-old company. Snapple was later sold for a 1/6 of its purchase price and Smithburg, who had been President for 16-years resigned.
This devastating set of losses might have been averted, if at least one Quaker executive had stepped forward to challenge Smithburg’s over-confidence
Leaders implicitly set the decision-making tone within their organizations. Unconscious biases, which include overconfidence and confirmation bias may be limiting your team’s ability to make the best choices. Confirmation bias is defined as attending only to the data in the environment that supports your beliefs and world view. Resist the urge to confirm what you already know; the future success of your organization is predicated on your teams’ ability to harness a more extensive set of ideas. If you are going to lead into a successful future, anticipate that many of the ideas from your teams and consultants who support your work will be counter to your thinking.
Here are two simple tactics that you can use to mitigate over-confidence and confirmation.
(a). Brainwriting.
Brainwriting is a tool to safely surface diverse opinions in a group, while quelling the conflict that can arise. At meetings, provide each participant with a marker and a stack of index cards or larger sticky notes. Ask questions that invite divergent thinking such as, “If you were in my position what would you do with this project?”, “How would you solve this current problem we are facing” or “What opportunities do you see that we should be capitalizing on?” These questions sharpen people’s thinking, expand the range of ideas, options and interpretations available for further inquiry.
After asking a brainwriting question, give your team a few minutes to think about the question before writing their responses on an index card/sticky note. Complete this individual activity in silence. You might need to re-enforce these rules. Do not rush this process. The more time you give your team to reflect and write, the better. Get comfortable with the silence.
Once people have written down their idea, they pass their index card/sticky note to the person next to them. At this point, the person reads what is written on the card and builds off of that idea by writing down their additional thoughts. Complete a few rounds of this exercise; three or four rounds are ideal. Finally, have team members post their cards/notes on the wall. Review and discuss the ideas as a team, with an open mind and heart.
Be mindful of your reaction to the responses to these questions. Ask a trusted ally in the room about your tone of voice, your choice of words and your body language. Verify if your verbal and non-verbal communication are in sync. Were you open and curious and rewarding people for exploring new concepts or were you unconsciously shutting people down?
(b). Expect to be Wrong.
Routinely ask your colleagues and team the question, “Where am I wrong?” Above all, this question explicitly gives other permission to challenge your thinking. Through stress testing your ideas, you are also empowering your team to think more critically and creatively. Expecting to be wrong is also a healthy and necessary precursor to normalizing conflict.
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Normalize conflict.
Productive conflict, as Liane Davey in her newest book, The Good Fight describes it, is a wise and proactive way to address thorny conversations that arise in this new world of work. As Davey explains, historically we relied on “the right words to say”, as though it was a simple role-play exercise. Productive conflict is a natural part of the human condition. Moving through conflict requires a genuine connection, not just a script that we follow.
Productive conflict is where you will find gold.
First of all, being comfortable with conflict signals to your team and your organization that you aren’t fleeing the situation, nor are you preparing to go into battle. In doing so, you will reward your team for staying in tough conversations with curiosity and respect. Your team will quickly realize that you can take a bit of the emotional heat because you trust them and you have confidence that as a group you will come out the other side, better for it. Additional benefits include: more fully flesh out ideas, more nuanced solutions, strengthened relationships, more fluid communication and fully tapped innovation.
As the world of work becomes progressively more demanding and exponentially more complex, leaders are going to have to step up to meet these thorny challenges. Disagreeing well is a vital step forward in creating a more enlightened workplace.
