How can you decide when and how to get involved in a work conflict? Even if right is on your side, and you have a high enough level of hierarchical power, two assessments will help you decide if you have decent likelihood of progressing with your cause: whether you can make a relationship and whether you can make a case.
How Will the Other Person Respond to You?
The first step to building a bridge of relationship in a conflict is showing that you’re trying to understand the opposing party in the situation. Whether you think of this step as driven by empathy or pure practicality, unless you can force things to go your way, you will need to find ways to join up with your opponent. Having that bridge will help prevent your severing the relationship—or from the two of you hating on each other when things aren’t going well.
One of the most straightforward ways to engage, called a “bid for connection,” comes from D. John Gottman of the Gottman Institute, which studies love and health in relationships. When you make a bid for connection, you are showing that you wish to be in relationship. In work terms, this might be an offer like, “Let’s see what we can do about this problem,” or “Please tell me what you’re trying to accomplish,” or “I’d like to understand what would be helpful to you.”
Your colleague might respond in one of three ways. They might turn toward you by saying, “Thanks! Let me tell you what I’m trying to accomplish.” They might turn away from you and say, “Oh, that’s not necessary—I can handle this on my own.” Or they might turn against you, telling you that you have nothing to offer them or that they don’t intend to collaborate with you.
Of course it’s best if they turn toward you, acknowledging that you have a shared interest, goal, or problem. Then you can continue to work toward each other; hopefully, you’ll be able to do this with generosity and care, but at a minimum you should both show respect and a willingness to engage. You don’t have to agree with what the other party wants, but you should care about what it is, specifically because they want it. That way, your conflict will focus on how you can experiment and move forward together, testing hypotheses and actively seeking each other’s point of view as you try to resolve your differences.
What to Do If the Opposing Party is Negative
But if your opponent’s response to your bid for connection is negative, you may need to look toward other colleagues or your boss for support. You also might need to uncover the project or problem’s evolution by verifying the assignment, conditions, and instructions that you and your colleague have each received. If there’s a structural reason for your mismatch and you can get it clarified, your colleague’s lack of interest may not matter so much. If their personal style is one of detachment, though, they may not be willing to engage with you until you find ways to make them feel safer around you. It’s worth identifying opportunities to show them that your mutual success can only come from engaging together and that you are a worthy working partner even if you don’t always agree.
If you’re in the unfortunate circumstance of being turned against, then you may need more than support. If the disagreement is about resources, turf, or bad behavior, you’ll also need intervention from your chain of command or from Human Resources. Without people with more power or influence intervening, you may just keep circling around the same issues without moving forward.
Assess the Business Purpose and Data
Whether you ask someone senior for help or just try to persuade others to come around to your point of view, most opponents won’t go out of their way for you easily merely because you want something. And even when you’re seeking help, it’s not a good look to come across as a whiner or complainer—similarly, you certainly won’t want to come across as someone who needs to be bailed out. It’s also not a great idea to use whatever political capital you have to make anyone else look bad, or to come across as the bad guy yourself.
If you want others to agree with you, whether they happen to be your opponent or neutral arbiters, you’ll need to construct an actual business case with data, so make sure you can explain the business purpose that motivates you to seek resolution. If the issue affects your customers or your team’s output, then you’ll be able to identify a business cost or benefit. As a responsible businessperson, it’s your job to consider how this benefit or expense affects the organization. So, for example, rather than saying, “I’m upset because James isn’t giving me the data I need, and someone better tell him he has to,” you’ll have more standing if you can explain that your team will have trouble hitting their targets if they don’t have the information they need to make accurate quotes when they speak with customers. A complaint made on behalf of the business demands more attention than one that seems to be for your own benefit.
The Crux of the Matter
If you’re actively building relationship and you can make a concrete, data-based case for the validity of your point of view, then it’s worth continuing to fight the good fight. But without those two things, you won’t be in a particularly strong position to conduct an effective conflict, and it’s very likely that you’ll feel like you’re spinning your wheels.
Onward and upward—
LK