I recently came across an article on how to avoid conflict in the workplace. While insightful at times, the article's main premise set off alarm bells in my head; avoiding conflict is not the solution to managing or resolving it.
The goal with conflict is to make progress, not to avoid it.
I know that is easier said than done. Avoiding conflict is engrained in most humans. However, avoiding conflict does not address the underlying structural issues in a relationship. This can lead to further complications down the road such as a boiling point blowup, or even a loss of the relationship (client, vendor, employee, your own job, etc).
Making progress on conflict in the workplace starts with understanding what choices one has in any relationship. In my training as a coach, I believe there to be 5 choices:
Do nothing in the relationship
Leave the relationship
Accept the relationship
Alter how you experience the relationship
Change the relationship
The first two choices have been addressed already in the context of managing conflict. Avoidance equates to doing nothing, in that you have not made any other choice to yourself or the other party forward in the relationship. In other words, avoidance is tolerance of the status quo.
You can also leave the relationship. While not ideal in the workplace, sometimes this has to happen. This would ideally be the last resort for you to choose to end the relationship, if it is even an option at all.
The remaining three choices require more action - both internally and externally
Accepting is more inwardly focused, and requires the least amount of external work. Should you choose to accept the relationship as it is, you have thus come to peace with how the relationship stands. Unlike doing nothing, you have mentally shifted to rising above the conflict, and stand to be at peace with how the relationship dynamic functions. Judgment and stress surrounding the relationship is no longer present because of the peace of mind you have created for yourself.
Alter how you experience the relationship is also inwardly focused, but it requires more introspective work. Rather than simply accepting the relationship for what it is, you are seeking change through modifying and shifting how you look at it. This might look like seeing how the other person views the experience of the relationship, or how an objective 3rd party might view it. What is the true core issue that causes the conflict? What opportunities are there to shift your thinking in the relationship? Asking powerful questions is the key to how you alter the experience the relationship.
Finally, changing the relationship is about putting in the external work between the other party and yourself. This requires progress to be made by all parties involved. In this choice, it is helpful to think about what the common shared purpose is. Rather than looking at what's in it for you alone, think about "what's in it for us?"
This may be the most uncomfortable choice of all 5, because it requires both naming the problem out in the open, but also finding the right amount of "heat" to use to make progress on the issue without simply retreating from the conversation (avoidance), or walking away entirely from the the relationship (leaving the relationship). It is hard work, but it may be necessary work in order to truly make progress.
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Making progress on conflict in the workplace might look like a combination of choices in the relationship. Sometimes making changes will lead to acceptance. Other times doing the alteration of how you view the relationship may lead you to take action on changing the relationship. Sadly, other times you make attempt to change the relationship, one or all parties may agree to leave the relationship. All choices are not mutually exclusive from each other.
Whatever your choice might be, at least now you have the conscious awareness of how you can plan to proceed with making true progress on the conflict in the workplace you are dealing with.
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