Mediation Maven Musings: October 2016
We recently traveled to Oaxaca to take Spanish classes, something my husband wanted to do for his birthday this year. I had my classes scheduled, my bags packed, and I was ready to spend my days learning Spanish and my evenings eating my way through one of the best food cities in Mexico. United Airlines had other plans. Our flight was delayed thirty minutes, and then another forty-five, and then another thirty, over and over again until we had been at the airport for more than five hours. By the time United finally called it and pushed the flight to the next morning, we had spent most of the day at the gate waiting on a plane that was never going to leave that night.
Everyone at that gate had somewhere to be: wedding to attend, family waiting on them, tight connections, and bookings at risk of cancellation. To my surprise, we all kept it together, and at some point, started bonding over the shared frustration. Sometime over the course of the day, perhaps between the fourth or fifth delay, we stopped being a collection of strangers staring at our phones and we started talking to each other. People traded notes on what the United app was saying, passed along information they could learn from the gate agents, and compared intel from customer service calls. We shared our prior experiences and helped those who could not get their questions addressed by the airline. There was plenty of frustration to go around, and some of it was aimed squarely at the airline, but it did not turn us against one another. If anything, our shared experience gave us something in common. By the time the overnight delay was announced, we had become a little community, tired and a bit punchy, but very much in it together. My daughter calls it trauma bonding, but I do not think the delay itself was what connected us. What connected us what that we were all trying to get to the same place, and we figured out fairly quickly that helping each other was the best way to get there. The next morning when our flight finally took off, we had compared notes about how everyone had accommodated the overnight delay, how they were handling the trip interruption, and even where they had found that much-needed cup of coffee.
Conflict Does Not Need to Divide
Most of us think of conflict as something that pushes people apart, and in the workplace it often does. Two employees stop speaking, a team splits into camps, and everyone starts creating their own narratives. But that day at the gate reminded me that sometimes, when people face a hard situation together, the difficulty and the forced problem solving can become the thing that connects them. None of us could fix the delay, but each of us could share what we learned, and that cooperation is what turned a group of strangers into collaborators or teammates. Coworkers in conflict often get stuck seeing each other as the obstacle. When they are given a goal they both care about, and a structure that requires them to work together toward it, they may discover that they have more in common than they thought, and that realization can build understanding and trust.
Hear Me Out
So what does this look like? The first step is to address the conflict early rather than hoping it resolves on its own. Tension between two coworkers rarely stays contained for long, and the longer it goes unaddressed, the more likely it is that positions harden, colleagues take sides, and a manageable disagreement becomes a formal complaint. Before choosing an approach, employers should also take a careful look at what is actually going on. A personality clash, communication challenges or a dispute over how work gets done is a good candidate for conflict resolution. An allegation of harassment, discrimination, or retaliation is not, and it needs to be investigated.
Once it is clear that conflict resolution is the right path, a facilitated conversation is often the best place to start. Meeting with each employee separately first gives each person a chance to be heard without the other in the room, and it gives the facilitator a sense of what each person needs to move forward. When the two employees then sit down together with a neutral facilitator, the goal becomes not to decide who was right, but to shift the focus toward the work they share and the working relationship they both need in order to do their jobs well.
One option Amy and I suggest at this stage is a shared project or assignment. What brought the passengers at my gate together was a common goal and the need to rely on one another, and an assignment can create that same dynamic for two coworkers in a far more positive setting. The point is not to make work harder for each employee, but to give them a reason to collaborate and humanize each other with a shared task. The project should be meaningful, with a clear purpose, a defined timeline, and a real deliverable, so that it does not feel like busywork or a punishment. It works best when each person brings something the other needs or lacks, which means they have to communicate and rely on each other to succeed. The employer should be clear about expectations, provide the resources the project requires, and check in along the way so small frustrations can be addressed before they grow. A shared assignment is not a substitute for the initial conversation, and it is not appropriate where there is a significant power imbalance or any concern about safety, but when the groundwork has been laid, it gives two people a chance to build a new kind of working history together.
Finally, employers should follow up. Check in with both employees after the conversation and as the project moves forward, recognize the progress they make, and be honest if things are not going as planned. What frustrated everyone at the gate was the steady drip of updates that nobody believed after the second or third one, and employees respond the same way to vague reassurances. Handled with care, a conflict between two coworkers can end with a stronger working relationship than the one they had before the conflict began.
Landing Together
We did eventually make it to Oaxaca, and the classes, the food, and the people were every bit as wonderful as I had hoped. I still find myself thinking about that group of strangers who made a miserable situation more tolerable. That is the same shift Amy and I work toward in the workplace conflict resolution sessions we offer. When coworkers who are not getting along are given the right setting to talk honestly, they often find more common ground than either expected. If your organization has employees who are struggling to work together, we would be happy to talk about whether a conflict resolution session could help.
