When there's conflict on your team that's not addressed, it could be so utterly draining. And you can't escape it. When it's unaddressed, it just keeps coming up. And it's so frustrating, because you might feel that if these two people - or if these several people - just understood each other, or thought differently, that it would all work. But it doesn't. It doesn't happen. And the more it doesn't happen, the more stressed out you get, and the more stressed out they get, and the more productivity just falls because people aren't able to work together properly.
Unaddressed conflict just destroys teams. How many times have you been on a team and there's been unaddressed conflict and people have left. Maybe you even left a job because of that. But it doesn't have to be that way. People can learn to communicate.
So how does conflict resolution work? How do you actually get people to get past all of their projections of each other, and actually communicate in a way where they can come out feeling mutually understood. How do you do that?
The conflict can be between two individuals, within a team, between various teams, or within an organization. First, we train very specific communication tools - to be able to communicate without being blaming, to listen without defensiveness. And then we facilitate a process where people communicate very real issues and concerns and feelings that are causing the conflict. But they can only use the communication tools they just learned. So they're forced to not be blaming, to not be defensive.
And when they get to communicate without blame and defensiveness, it's amazing. It's amazing what happens. It's incredible because people have so much frustration and anger and reactivity, all based on stories - stories they have about the other person, about the situation. And when they realize that, “Oh, it was just a story, right? There was a misunderstanding,” or “This person was coming across a little differently. I didn't quite get it.” When they realize it's a story, then all that anger, all that frustration, just melts. And then they have the opportunity to have not just mutual understanding, but mutual trust. Because to be able to sit across from each other, and be real and authentic, and be in their power, and communicate what's real for them - but doing it in ways with emotional intelligence, without being blaming or defensiveness - it transforms the way that they're being with each other. And they start to trust each other.
Trust. Can you imagine? Can you imagine what your team would be like if they trusted each other? Well, trust only happens when you go through things together, and you come out successfully. You know, people try to do trust games and trust building exercises, and those are fun. I love doing those. But that's not trust. True trust is when you have a conflict, you have a situation that's causing frustration, and you're real with each other, but respectful of each other. And you're able to work it through. You have a completely different relationship after that. And more importantly, you have a relationship where people can give each other feedback. Because if teams can't give each other feedback, they can't grow; they're limited. So you have to be able to give each other feedback, but you need to be able to give feedback respectfully.
So addressing conflict on your team not only addresses the specifics of that issue and hopefully resolves it, but it also transforms your culture into a culture where people can give feedback to each other, where people can share concerns with each other - but in a respectful way, with emotional intelligence.
Can you imagine what your team would be like if they trusted each other?
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