01 Jul TSLH #026: 6 Steps To Manage A Conflict Between 2 People
Read time: 5 minutes
In my coaching sessions with leaders at all levels – from first-time manager to C-suite – one constant topic that will pop up at a point or another is managing conflict between 2 or several people, or even between 2 teams.
This week, I’ll discuss a tool and method to manage a conflict between 2 people. Next week, I’ll give you a tool and method to manage conflict between 2 teams.
Conflicts make a leader’s skin prickle (yours truly included!) and this is usually one of the most dreaded leadership situations one has to manage. Needless to say, most leaders hate these situations and do their best to avoid them like the plague. As a result, conflicts are usually badly handled, they get buried deep until they potentially resurface, even stronger and more harmful.
Avoiding conflict is a sure way to send the wrong message to the team or other stakeholders, who are expecting you, the leader, to take action.
Within the team, I have already explained in a past issue of this newsletter how to set an agreement with the team on how it wants to handle conflict or disagreement. Using the wisdom of the team will usually be enough to handle most conflict situations within the same team.
As a reminder, as you, the leader, join a new team, it is one of your key responsibilities to work with the team in establishing some ground rules, for instance on how the team wants to handle conflicts and disagreements. Useful questions to ask to start that discussion include:
- What process do you want to use when there is conflict or disagreement in the team?
- How do you want to behave when conflict or disagreement happen in this team?
- How do you want to work in resolving conflict or disagreement when they happen?
- What are some behaviors you want to have when conflict or disagreement occurs?
- What are some things you do not want to happen when conflict or disagreement occurs?
- What will you do if someone breaks an agreement?
There are situations though, within a team or between 2 people of different teams, where that process the team agreed on with the leader may not work.
This is usually where the leader has to step in.
There is a tool I am using with my coaching clients and that can be used by any leader with people in conflict, after gaining some practice of it. The tool has 6 steps to follow and is usually very effective at solving conflicts, provided the 2 people in conflict are willing to work on this and with no blame!
Here are the steps I recommend using:
Setup the rules for the discussion. Before the discussion can start, you want to ask each person to tell you and the other person what they need in order to make that discussion valuable, positive, and effective. You can simply ask “What do you need to have in the discussion in order to make it valuable and effective for you?” and let people come with what is important to them. Usually, you will get things like confidentiality, no blame, no judgment, all ideas are good to have, no high emotions, etc.
Provide the context for the tool. This is about explaining what you will be doing with the other people. And what you will be doing is ask each person in turn why they are here, do a couple of rounds of ventilation, reflect on what they hear, find common interests and work together on solutions to address their conflict or disagreement. These steps are described below.
Do ventilation rounds. There should be at least 2 rounds. The idea here is to ask each person in turn to answer these 2 questions, while the other person stays silent and does not answer, make comments or whatsoever:
- “What’s happening for you?”
- “What do you want to see happen?”
Make sure that each person talks to you and not the other person as this will help trigger the conversation and have the person who remains silent able to witness the other person’s experience and position. Also ask each person to use “I” statements, for instance “I feel…” or “I want to see this happening”.
Once the first person has answered, ask the second one this question:
- “What’s happening for you when you hear the other person?”
- “What do you want?”
And do some repeats of these same questions, now always starting with “And what’s happening for you when you hear the other person?” or “What are you feeling when you hear the other person say this?”
You should continue this phase until you can start identifying common themes or a shift in how people listen, reply, all things that would indicate there is more willingness to work towards a solution.
Discover common interest. Once you have done the ventilation rounds, you can start asking people “Why is it important for you to resolve this issue?” and ask this several times until people have explored as much as possible what their drivers for wanting a solution. A key question to ask then is “Are you willing to resolve this without blame?” This is a key question because this will tell you if the people are ready to work together on solving the issue.
You can then continue exploring a bit by asking questions like:
- “What do you agree on?”
- “What will make you willing to resolve this issue without blame?”
As the leader, you should also summarize the common interests you have heard in that discussion so that the 2 persons can take ownership of that common interest.
Invite the people to have a discussion. Once the people are ready to move forward, tell them that you will leave them alone for 10-15 minutes to start discussing ways of addressing their issue.
Get people’s commitment. After the discussion is over and you join back the 2 people, you need to ask them to state specific actions they have agreed to and that they are committed to make happen.
To make these actions specific and create accountability, you could help the people set them as S.M.A.R.T. goals. S.M.A.R.T. stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound.
Also ask the people how they want to stay accountable to each other – and potentially also to the team – for the action they have decided.
Remember, a conflict is never easy to handle, especially when it is a conflict of persons. Successful leaders are those who can manage these conflicts well (or better than others). The 6-step method I have described here is a great way to extinguish a conflict and to have people cooperate to actually solve an issue together. You may even considering hiring a coach to help you with that process. It will remove any potential bias you might have in the issue discussed, and it can also help create a bigger safe space for the people in conflict to willingly participate in the process and find resolution.
I wish you a great read. I’ll see you next Saturday!
TL; DR (Too Long, Did not Read)
6 steps to manage a conflict between 2 people
- Setup the rules for the discussion.
- Provide the context for the tool.
- Do ventilation rounds.
- Discover common interest.
- Invite the people to have a discussion.
- Get people’s commitment.
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