Koan #9: Hearing The Whole Choir

This situation was published in the 29 Mar 2021 newsletter.

Situation

You had a meeting in person this week to talk about how your team is working towards its quarterly goals. It was run by your outgoing and talkative peer and involved a lot of short discussions and group feedback. Whilst there was good morale during the meeting, you felt that only a minority of voices were heard, and very few notes were taken for the team to follow up on. You also had some team members joining remotely and you did not hear much from them. At the end of the meeting you go over to the manager and explain how you feel and….

Option A - …. say that you’d like to meet to discuss with them how you can use meetings, email, chat and other platforms moving forward to be more inclusive.

Option B - …. ask if it would be possible to have another meeting soon to make a concrete plan, and between now and then that people are able to input ideas to the notes from today.

Option C - … ask them if they noticed this too and how they think the team can move forward from this meeting to ensure people do not become disempowered.

Option D - … offer to write up the notes, and to send them out for any amendments or additions from the team before the plan for the next quarter is drawn up.

Results

Managing someone else’s conflict at work can be really daunting. It may lead to self-doubt (did I mishandle a situation in the past that led to this) or frantic problem solving and taking a side (this seems like an emergency; must act now!). Therefore before any actual conflict solving happens a manager must be self-aware and identify their own biases when dealing with conflict. Knowing your own bias will be useful when considering the other aspects of the conflict.

The second thing to understand is what causes the friction between Alex and your peer. Research suggests that personality clashes and different styles of working cause almost half of the workplace conflicts, but there are many other reasons too. It is important to talk separately to both people or groups to understand their grievances. Exercise active listening by allowing up to a minute of silence to process the story before responding. Another tool in such conversations is raising empathetic questions that cause a person to consider a differing perspective. This would also be a good time to ask why the peer has not given the feedback to Alex. This is similar to Option D, but the goal of these conversations is to not retell the feedback from the peer to Alex and vice versa, but to set everyone up for a resolution. As one of the subscribers observed:

“I would definitely not choose A or C, because it’s too easy for misunderstandings to arise when “reported speech” (reporting person A’s views about person B to person B) is involved. Option D might be useful down the line, but I think if the other manager has a problem, then solving it has to start with that manager speaking directly to Alex.”

The next step is to decide who will give feedback to Alex. As the quote above suggests choosing option A or C could cause more harm. It will depend on the culture of an organisation as to whether feedback is given directly or must pass through the chain of command. Unless the other manager is not allowed to, encourage them to give feedback directly and empathetically. You should have an idea of why the peer manager was unable to give the feedback directly to Alex. If it is due to a lack of skill, another subscriber suggested how to help the peer manager do that:

“Situation Behaviour Impact - I would advise my peer to use something approximating this model when providing feedback about Alex. I would also inquire if that feedback has been raised with Alex directly before approaching me. It seems the real issue is that my peer is a leader but not skilled in providing feedback appropriately.”

By now you as a manager should have a good understanding of the situation. The peer manager and Alex have considered the other side point of view while talking with you. Now you should encourage them to look for a resolution in a private conversation with one another. Unlike in option D, where the burden of mediation is on you, you set them up for success. Check-in with both of them afterwards and ask if there’s anything left unresolved, as suggested by a subscriber.

Finally it is important to note that this was the successful outcome of this situation. It might be that a situation is not salvageable or involves gross misconduct.. It is important to know that you can contact HR, as they will know the correct protocol.