Oh WOW! - Workplace Conflict

Saying Im Sorry Is Hard

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 07:29:08 GMT

Saying I’m sorry is hard, and it’s especially hard to say it to someone who we are pretty sure doesn’t trust anything we say. It can feel like an act of surrender and will give the other person power over you, or will open you up to the possibility of further attack. But would you rather be right than be in the relationship?

The person who feels you harmed them often badmouths you, and that makes it even harder to apologize. Once you have been labeled as a bad guy, your need for self protection increases and it’s really difficult to get those words out.

Admission of ownership or remorse can throw you into the victim corner and bring up feelings of shame.

Often, there is a very bad start when you try to make a verbal apology. The person you are apologizing to may say something like; "You should be sorry!” or "Too little too late", or "I've heard that one before", or "How do I know you won't do it again?" Reactive responses like these come from anger or hurt feelings, but its part of the process.

The words you choose really do make a difference. "I apologize for hurting you" is a lot easier to take than "I apologize if what I said seemed hurtful." And even that is not as strong as "I'm sorry I said you aren’t helping." Don’t qualify it with a “But you” or “But I”… it takes the power out of your apology.

When you are the type of person that tries very hard to do the right thing, to be considerate, and to be helpful, but your efforts to please have backfired - it's just a tremendous letdown to have hurt someone. Accepting that disappointment in yourself can be very difficult and apologizing requires overcoming your sense of shame.

What lies underneath is pride. I don’t mean selfish, arrogant pride; it’s the pride you take in who you are and what you do. Basically your self-esteem is at risk. So to admit that you’re wrong means that you’re admitting that you made a misstep, and that hurts your self-esteem.

Tips for getting an apology:
1. You are a lot more likely to get one if your rebuke conveys your belief in other person’s basic goodness.
2. Publicly chastising someone exposes them to even more humiliation, making an apology even more of a challenge.
3. If the person you want an apology from is someone you know takes pride in themselves, expect it to be hard, and try to make it safer for them by expressing your love or respect for them.

Tips for giving an apology:
1. Express understanding of the other person’s hurt feelings, and that you appreciate why they are angry. (Justifying your feelings will likely be interpreted as you missing the point of an apology.)
2. Communicating vulnerability can help, even if it’s hard to do.
3. Be as specific as you can about the mistake, and as clear as you can about your responsibility.
4. Allow the person time to think about your apology—the time they take may vary but the offended person has the right to determine how much time that should be.
5. Clearly request forgiveness but don't expect or demand it.

I’ve come to the conclusion that we are all very fragile beings. We may pretend we are not, we may even be pretty good at it, but we are. We also have wounds and unmet needs from our childhood that get played out in every relationship we have as adults, which makes our interactions way more complex than we realize.

Gracefully confronting someone with a wrong, and navigating an apology can be very tricky, and very painful. Recognizing the difficulty of the action while at the same time honoring our own need to hear it, is the trick.

The Case for Speaking Truths

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:29:08 GMT

Anger phobics tend to avoid speaking their truth at any cost. I think that has been true of me most of my life, for a variety of reasons. Funny thing, though, most of the time it happens is when the person is important to me. I can say almost anything to a waiter.

But my children, my husband, my best friend, or my boss... well, that is something else altogether. Speaking my truth to them has a higher cost than it does a waiter. Only in the past few years have I begun to recognize my misplaced priorities. The waiter or clerk has better things to do than deal with my own misdirected hostilities. Because the truth is if I come across as angry to them, they don't really care. They may placate me, but they don't really care. It would be beter to speak my truth to people who care wouldn't it?

Speaking truths to the people who are most important to us can be terrifying. What if they disown us (our kids or parents) or leave us (our partners or friends)? Being able to speak our truths requires a level of trust and skill in communicating. But if we do it before we have fully explored the feelings ourselvees, it's possible we will incite more conflict than is necessary.

When we practice compassion for ourselves and everyone else, we are more likely to speak truths in such a way as to be heard, and to have a reasonable outcome. When we can own our own truths and speak them with empathy and respect for others we pathe the way for deepening our connections and communication.

The Ethics of Compassion

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 00:57:58 GMT

The Five Principles

In January 2008 the “Ethics Guy” Bruce Weinstein, Ph. D, started writing abut his “Five Principles” of ethics in Business Week magazine. His principles are these:

• Do no harm

• Make things better

• Respect others

• Be fair

• Be compassionate

Weinstein says, “These principles reveal the secret to living a rich, satisfying, and happy life, and we have known about them for more than 5,000 years. Every religious tradition in the world teaches them, as do parents in every country.”

Why don’t we do them?

He is right; of course, these are principles we have all been taught for generations. But if we all know about them, why don’t we practice them?

Our primitive brain takes over our rational thinking when we feel threatened in any way, that’s why. Our sense of threat can come from both irrational and logical sources, but the list of potential threats is endless. And, what is threatening to one person may not be in the least threatening to another.

Our primitive brain

It is only by understanding how our primitive brain works that we can begin to practice compassion and the other principles Weinstein talks about. Having respect for others is impossible if we feel badly about ourselves. Being “fair” is impossible if we are fearful of the other person. Making the commitment to “do no harm” is impossible if we don’t recognize that we are all doing the best we can and we will make mistakes. We can’t focus on “making things better” when we feel badly about ourselves and we are fearful for our safety or well-being.

Practicing Compassion

To make the leap into the ethics of the practice of compassion requires courage and determination. Compassion is not just a word to pacify religious scholars. Compassion is a daily practice that requires first being able to be compassionate with ourselves. Taking the leap means being willing to feel the fear of doing things differently than our primitive survival brains tell us we “have” to do them.

Having compassion for our partner’s hurt feelings when we know we didn’t do anything wrong takes courage. Having compassion for our co-worker when they are acting like a jerk takes courage. It takes courage because our instinct is to respond defensively. When we can learn to respond with compassion instead, it changes everything.

What do you think?

Are you able to let down your defenses when you feel attacked? Does that seem like a crazy thing to do. Tell me about it!

Conflict in the Workplace

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Tue, 27 May 2008 22:38:36 GMT

Zowie, workplace conflict is costly!

Dealing with conflict in the workplace takes up to 60% of human resource managers time, according to an article by Rachel Zupek on Careerbulder.com. And, the number of incidents of employee violence has been increasing.

Her article encourages a sensible approach to dealing with conflict, she gives a list of well researched, common sense ways to deal with conflict. Check them out at cnn.com/living

The article really just skimmed the surface of the issue, of course. But if you really want to fully understand what is happening during workplace conflicts, you need to understand how the Cycle of Egocentrism works.

Conflict Resolution

One of her sources, Gus Stieber, national director of sales for Bensinger, DuPont & Associates, a professional services company says; “Avoid retreating to the safety of withdrawal, avoidance or the simplistic view that your co-worker is a "bad person." Zupek goes on to say “These are defense mechanisms that prevent the resolution of conflict.”

The Cycle of Egocentrism

Here, Stieber is talking about the Cycle of Egocentrism. It’s easy to think we are avoiding this kid of “defense mechanism” but most of the time we do it so automatically we don’t even realize it’s happening. And avoidance is only one of the ways the Cycle of Egocentrism works.

Getting a full understanding of how the Cycle of Egocentrism works is key to managing workplace conflict, and well, any other kind of conflict. When we understand how our brain tricks us into believing our survival is at stake in conflicts we can discover new ways to respond. The Cycle of Egocentrism locks us into believing that there is a good guy, a bad guy and a rescuer in every situation. This old game helped us manage to survive in our old primitive world, but it no longer serves us so well. Most of the time we are not in those kinds of dire circumstances, but our brain fools us into thinking we are. Then we get stuck in certain ways of responding that keep us trapped in conflictual and painful relationships.

Learning how to apply the Cycle of Compassion, the opposite of the Cycle of Egocentrism allows us to have deeper, more meaningful relationships with ourselves and others. It changes everything.

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