Vision and approach
CONFLICTs – do you recognize this?
The following situations often occur:
- During meetings people don’t speak up, but at the coffee machine they start talking
- The atmosphere is cold, but people stay polite
- Everybody keeps silent for the sake of peace, but tensions are building up
- The same heated discussions occur over and over again
- As a manager you are constantly fire fighting and it doesn’t really help much…
- There is a lot of energy loss due to tensions below the surface
- There are camps and cracks and the distance between collaborators increases
Where people collaborate, differences often lead to problems that need to be ‘solved’. This resuls in irritation, frustrations, anger or verbal and non-verbal aggression.
The differences however, are not the problem. The way we deal with those differences is. Often we don’t recognize conflicts as such, or we fail to intervene. Therefore they can escalate, until the situation gets worse is more difficult to handle.
Conflicts are often a cocktail of different elements. There is more than meets the eye. For instance: emotional reactions to organizational change, agitation due to unclear procedures or expectations, failing leadership, differences in work style, lack of space or safety to speak up or address difficult topics.
Group dynamics accelerate the escalation. The atmosphere becomes toxic, people drop out, distrust grows, productvity suffers, because people don’t collaborate anymore.
“We must learn to navigate conflict and tension with dignitiy and humility in this rapidly-changing world,
so that we can survive and thrive as a species.”
What doesn’t work…
With the best intentions we do all sorts of things in conflict situations that do not work:
- Sweep the difficulties under the rug
- Patiently wait until tensions blow over
- Focus on consensus, harmony, and a good atmosphere
- Not address disturbing behavior
- Ventilate and look for support and sympathy
- Keep silent for the sake of peace
- ‘Fix’ incidents as quickly as possible and move on
- Become overly careful
- Punish ‘difficult’ collaborators or remove them from the team
- Try to shift negative dynamics via 1-on-1 conversations
- Mediate between two conflicted collaborators and not involve the rest of the team
Frankly speaking, we don’t really learn how to address difficult topics and talk about conflict in a constructive way.
Fortunately, there is a way out!
Address conflicts
The first step in conflict resolution is making sure there is time and space for people to talk about the tensions.
The focus is on:
- Stop further escalation and polarisation
- Check interpretations and clarify misunderstandings
- Explore the sources of the tensions
- Be prepared to look at the different dimensions and complexity of a conflict
- Make the shift from defensive reactions to curious exploration
- Break old protective patterns and choose new behavior
- Make an inventory of what is needed to collaborate better
- Agree on specific agreements for future functioning
develop conflict resolution skills
During the process of conflict resolution, a team can grow in conflict resolution skills!
- Directly address disturbing behavior
- Invest in giving sincere feedback
- Differ in opinion in a constructive way
- Reflect on a regular basis on the question: how are we collaborating?
Building an open and productive culture
By engaging in courageous collective conversations, you invest in culture change.
Because you are the culture that needs to change!
“(…) what is important is not coming into conflict,
but feeling allowed to do so.”
TRAUMA in your organisation – do you recognise this?
Trauma dynamics are not so easy to detect, read or understand.
Often organisations don’t understand what is going on and how to deal with a situation that seems stuck.
What I often hear is:
- There are ‘historical’ conflicts that don’t get resolved, whatever we try
- The culture has become ‘toxic’ after years of transgressive behavior and people feel helpless
- There is a strange ‘heaviness’ in the organisation, but it is hard to talk about it
- There is ‘something’, but we cannot grasp what it is
- People talk about ‘old pain’ and remain stuck in the past
- There is a breach in trust
- People seem to be in ‘survival mode’
“Trauma, in essence, is all about overwhelm and broken connections. (…)
Trauma can result from shock,
and also from a series of painful and difficult experiences which can be cumulative over time.”
‘solving’ problems, or is something else required?
Organisations have different strategies in place to deal with difficult situations:
- procedures (e.g. informal notifications; formal complaints; disciplinary procedures)
- tools & instruments (e.g. risk analysis; climate study)
- professional roles (e.g. trusted person; prevention consultant; well-being coaches; internal mediators)
In addition, there is a need for a relational and a collective approach that focuses on:
- foster personal leadership and responsibility when people are confronted with inappropriate, impolite or destructive behaviour
- recognize, address and change pathological patterns in collaboration
- invest in an open and healthy culture where difficulties, conflicts and painful experiences can be talked about.
Time does not heal all wounds…
In order to heal traumatic experiences, it is necessary to give recognition to the needs, pain and fears of all involved.
An appropriate social container is required to hold these conversations about painful events. A space where people can explore what has gone wrong and identify the destructive patterns that need to change.
The goal is to contribute to more well-being and relational health in the workplace for a productive climate.
When people manage to learn from difficult situations and can integrate them, they have learned something for the future (‘post traumatic growth’).
The compulsive repetition of hurtful incidents can stop.
This investment in relational intelligence, emotional resilience and dialogue skills, is a first step towards a healthy organisational culture and a greater tolerance for difficult situations.
“When we become burdened by the stories we tell ourselves about the past, we cannot show up fully in the present; we can’t bring our most essential energy into our work or relationships. (…)
Unhealed trauma damages our capacities for presence and embodiment and harms our ability to relate and connect with others in a healthy way.
Only by addressing unresolved past suffering can we work effectively to prevent potential future suffering.
A collective trauma requires a collective response.”