What is Happening?
The painfully personal quest to understand conflict at work.
Our work relationships can impact our well-being and define our legacy.
Few things are as powerful as aligning with a team that cares about you. Few things are as disorienting as a team struggling to get along.
When a relationship is in trouble, the hardest part is often just understanding what is happening.
What you discover, will depend on the questions you ask.
This is the first in a series of articles on workplace relationships. Subscribe to receive the rest.
What is happening?
Sometimes things seem off from the get-go. Perhaps there was a cryptic heads-up from their former colleague.
Other times, things are fine until the chess pieces move. Organizational shifts can disrupt how well your interests align, and how well you collaborate. In 2019, Formula One’s Lando Norris was a close mentee to his McLaren teammate Carlos Sainz. In 2020 the teammates became spitefully competitive when Sainz declared he would leave McLaren at the end of the season.
When you detect tension, respond with curiosity over judgement. Research has shown we are terrible at understanding what other people think about us. Gut reactions can be driven by paranoia as well as wisdom, so let’s just explore this for a minute.
Before you get too riled up, go for a walk, take a nap, and eat something healthy. After that you can start to explore.
As you do, investigate in ways that nurture the relationship. For example:
Ask them open questions to discern what matters.
“Mirror” what they say to verify you heard them.
Validate what they say, to ensure they feel heard.
Build trust by vulnerably sharing with them what you care about.
Spend time relating outside of the transactional elements of the relationship.
Play together if you can.
Do all of this while in nature.
Things won’t change instantly, so be ready to commit to this for weeks or longer without improvement.
If you start to experience clear warning signs like heated exchanges, information withholding, politics, or people not meeting commitments, something is up. But what?
Is it me?
It is probably best to start by asking how you could be causing the problem.
Spiritual teachers recognized this centuries ago. Jesus warned us to inspect our own records before throwing stones at the sinner. Buddha offered similar counsel - “To straighten the crooked you must first do a harder thing - straighten yourself.”
Without even realizing it, we could be the one undermining the relationship. We tend to automatically mimic the approaches that worked for us as children. Growing up in the middle of a pack of six siblings taught me how to build consensus. But I can get irrationally squirrelly when I feel a team is unaligned.
The habitual responses we develop in our younger years are also the root of our unconscious bias. When we grow up in a racist society, we inaccurately associate negative attributes on people that look a certain way.
For us white men, the call to inspect our own actions first is crucial. Our ideals for “good” behaviour are built on norms formed to protect our privilege. It is one thing to decide our white-bro colleague is off base, it is an entirely different thing to reactively blame a racialized woman for how her views make us feel uncomfortable.
Mindfulness meditation has been an insightful tool for seeing my own reactive ways of thinking. By practicing noticing my automatic thoughts in the morning, I’m better able to notice my subconscious scripts in the afternoon. Like in meditation, I can then choose to respond to those scripts with non-judgemental curiosity instead of with blind agreement.
When particularly uncertain about your role, engage a neutral and uninvolved party who can ground or challenge your views.
While questioning our own actions fosters accountability, taken too far it can undermine our confidence, our well-being and our ability to show up productively. If this happens, a coach or counsellor can help you learn to trust yourself again.
Is it them?
If, after considerable reflection, we conclude an other is part of the problem, we might be tempted to ask “why can’t they just be reasonable and act like me?” A more curious and empathetic approach however will deliver better outcomes.
It is possible our colleagues are healing from, or actively experiencing, trauma. As has been powerfully written in Oprah and neuroscientist, Dr. Bruce Perry’s book, the question may not be “what is wrong with you,” but instead, “what happened to you?” In their book, Dr. Perry shares the story of a child acting aggressively towards a teacher. It turned out the teacher wore the same deodorant as the child’s abusive father. By changing deodorant, the teacher helped the child feel more safe. The subconscious nature of the reaction shows how in some sense, we are all this child, transposing our early experiences unfairly onto others.
Even if you’re in no place to help them, an understanding of what is behind someone’s actions can help you respond more compassionately.
Is it us?
More often than it being me, or you, it is “us” - oil in tension with water.
It could be conflicting interests - one wants rapid growth, the other moderate expansion.
It could be personality types. Nothing is more frustrating for a detail-oriented person than a visionary with an ill-formed plan. For the visionary, nothing is more disheartening than having to unpack the minutiae of their idea for denting the universe.
Strengthening relationships is complex, but personality tests and clarifying vision, values, and roles can help everyone see how they can better support their colleagues.
It is what you think it is.
As you work to understand what is happening, the important thing to remember is that you have a choice.
You can reactively assume the other is an unmanageable problem.
Or each side can take responsibility for their 100% of the relationship, and commit to understanding what each other needs.
As often in life, when collaborating - whether you think you can, or you can’t, you’re likely right.
Did you enjoy this read? This is the first in a series of articles on workplace relationships and conflict. Subscribe to receive the rest.
