Do you even enter the conflict?

How do you deal with conflict? Even more importantly, are you willing to communicate over a conflictual issue?

In an HBR survey, the majority of responders are unable to even start a conversation over the tensions that inevitably appear in the workplace, and in private lives. At best, the communication is indirect, and the problems are just hinted at. What this might entail is that emotional distress is avoided, and problems persist, digging deeper trenches among people, and making it harder to have profitable and efficient communication and personal/professional interactions.

Sometimes, this is so because we might have the tendency to think that the problem is well understood by everyone around the same table or, that the issues are perceived in the same ways by everybody. Also, we hint at the problem in the wishful expectation (misunderstanding) that others should read our minds and pinpoint our needs and how to satisfy them. In a way, we leave the solution to the other parties, and we forego responsibility (for reasons of fear, demotivation, time, relative power, resources, etc.). Afterall, we have the problem, the others created it, so why should we do more than, at best, show our distress, and let the others figure out causes and solutions?

Another way we deal with such tensions is to let them accumulate over time. Here, the accumulation of emotional distress continues within, till a point where the person is unable to hold the flood and just bursts out in a strong cry, at times filled with anger and resentement. Loss of motivation and disengagement might have already come a long way. Energies are dispersed, and the focus is no longer on the issue, but on who's right and who's wrong, who's the victim and who's the perpetrator. Such emotional flooding might be contagious, and it is not useful to handle any problem, even less to create the space and reciprocal empathy required to find appropriate solutions.

A better way to address conflict would be to speak up. Openly, kindly, discussing the facts and their impact on ourselves, as well as the impact we fear the issue might have on the relationship and our work/life together. Issues are facts, but what we think about them, and the feelings they engender, are a more subjective matter. Communicating our perception and feelings about a problem is a way to take responsibility for a possible common solution. Listening to others' perception and feelings is a way to try understand how we can share this responsibility.

It is my problem, this is how I see and feel it, here is how I fear it can affect both of us. How do you see and feel about it? Do you even see it? What do we expect instead? And, what can we do about it, together?

It's not easy to take a step back and be at ease when conflict arises. We must practice to be able to do so. And we must allow ourselves and others the opportunity to work together through it. It starts from ourselves, from seeing we're not alone and that feeling on the right side is no solution. It starts with cultivating acceptance, non-judgment, openness, and empathy, even before any conflict arises. Loving-kindness meditation (metta) is a wonderful practice to strengthen these attitudes.

#mindfulness #conflict #communication #meditation