They just irritate me', 'They go out of their way to be awkward, 'They are so obstructive', 'We just don't get on'...and so on...
In my conversations with clients, the topic of tensions in the workplace nearly always crops up. It can be with team members, a line manager, stakeholders or customers. It manifests in the guise of underperformance, poor employee engagement, silo working, lack of accountability, resistance to change and back-channel politics. The bottom line is, it’s often making what that person is trying to achieve more difficult.
The people we are referring to are those who we feel ignore us, don’t listen, have it in for us, criticise us, are running their own agenda, talking behind our backs or are just going out of their way to be as awkward as humanly possible.
Except this behaviour usually isn’t reality. This is just a story we keep telling ourselves, born out of the assumption that our version of the story is right, they are in the wrong, and more to the point, we’re on their mind every minute of the day. Reality? They aren’t even thinking of us, they’ve got their own stuff going on and they are struggling too. They are in protect mode, winging it just like we are, and they are probably making similar assumptions about us.
Conflict is rarely discussed overtly in the workplace, yet it is at the heart of so many poor relationships and teams that aren’t functioning as well as they could be. Challenging this disconnect openly is normally avoided, and instead we see passive aggressive behaviours, people talking behind each others’ backs, cattiness and moaning. Sometimes I wish there would be a row; at least we’d know how people felt, and the cards would be on the table!
When these behaviours all become to much, then clients often reach out to me to help their team work together more effectively. What though can you do to stop things escalating in the first place? The starting point is to address the situation and reset expectations. Below is a framework to help you.
Recognise: Firstly, recognise there is an issue, and that you are judging the other person’s behaviour without knowing their intention. We never do this of ourselves – we think about our intent. So this means you need to find out theirs.
Explore: Next, set up a meeting with them and express your wish that you would like to explore how you can both work together more effectively. Simply opening with that line is a great starting point.
Acknowledge: Together, acknowledge the situation, without judgement. Share your goals and priorities with each other, find out what is important to each other, and discover how you both work at your best. Also find out what isn’t working for each party – again without judgement. Just listen to each other.
Create: Next, create together what steps you both need to put in place to work together effectively. What do you need from each other, who will do what, and when will you feedback to each other. When doing this – discuss how do you both like to receive feedback. Finding this out can be very useful to stop future issues.
Try out: Then, try out what you agreed. See it as an experiment, rather than something set in stone. That means you can tweak what your both doing and continue a dialogue, so things work for both parties.
Review: Finally agree a date when you will review together how things have gone. Assess what worked, what didn’t and what you need to adjust. You won’t get things right first time, but if you’re prepared to see this as a work in progress, you can tweak as you go. These conversations will also help build your relationship with each other, which can only help in getting your more aligned. Guess what, you may even find you like each other!!
Annabel is an Executive and Systemic Team Coach. She works with newly formed teams, teams with challenging mandates and stakeholder relationships, and teams in conflict across a number of industries. If you would value an exploratory discussion on how your team could work together more effectively, contact Annabel via LinkedIn, annabel@successfultraining.co.uk, or visit www.successfultraining.co.uk