Leadership Notes: Engaging with Others

Pre-amble:

We all want to have productive adult conversations, though various tensions and conflict that make this challenging. Structural differences can put us at odds with each other (i.e. there is no overlap of interests; for me to win, you must lose). Even when not in direct conflict, collaborative tensions can hinder us working together to find a workable solution, (i.e. finding ways to satisfy minimum requirements across a number of dimensions within firm constraints).

As much as we can search for clarity, we often have to engage with others without crystal clear parameters of the context. Due to the uncertainty and ambiguity, we run into differences of opinion, some of which may be better or worse informed. Here we look at three aspects of such interactions:

Specific interactions (and how the parties involved act and react)

General patterns (and how we can shift from harmful to helpful patterns)

Communication strategies (and what we can actually say to people)

Specific interactions: Actions and Reactions

As much as we say, it is business nor personal, conflict becomes personal, not necessarily in the sense of personal agendas (but those always play a part), but more in the sense that your entire person becomes involved. Communication training will often break down a situation by looking at what we THINK, FEEL and DO. There are interplays within these areas, but in conflict situations our body will “do” things automatically, like redden our cheeks or increase our heartrate. This causes us to feel differently, think differently and act differently.

We can draw a distinction between two kinds of reactions, ATTACK and RETREAT, but in practice, they are not entirely distinct.

Our bodies may not be able to distinguish between a malice-laden interaction, and someone simply challenging one of our many assumptions. If we feel someone has minimized our contribution, questioned our competence, or failed to respect as a human being, we can rightly feel (metaphorically) attacked.

If our body feels attacked, there are two predictable and automatic responses. We attack back or we retreat. To apply our earlier framework, this could be the scenario:

Anatomy of ATTACK mode:

I FEEL attacked, which brings additional feelings of frustration, anger, etc.

This makes me THINK that I have to defend myself, that I need to fight back to regain status, win an argument, etc.

The ensuing behaviours (what I DO) will include raising one’s voice, leaning forward, talking over others, interrupting, not listening to them until I get my points across, etc.

Anatomy of RETREAT mode:

The feelings may be the very same, but my thoughts will veer towards wanting to end the conversation, escape the situation, “just get through this and everything will be OK.”

Visible behaviours will include flat facial expression, looking down or away, remaining silent, automatically agreeing, and conceding points rather than engaging in a discussion or dialogue.

Much of this will happen whether we like it or not AND whether or not we try to stop it. The question becomes: how do we manage ourselves and try to influence others when these automatic and cyclical behaviours arise?

Managing me:

DO – Breathe. Pause, even ask for a break.

Apologize for your behaviour, if warranted. (“I am sorry that I got a bit of an edge in my voice.”)

Describe the reason for the frustration. (“I think there are different options to explore, and I find it frustrating when people think there is only one way forward.”)

Managing them:

DO – Give them space to talk or to think. Stepping back can let them rant and can also create an uncomfortable silence that can coax a retreater back to the discussion.

Describe what you are seeing. (“You have gotten really quiet. I am not sure if you are thinking or if you have checked out.”)

Acknowledge the difficulty of the situation. (“It is stressful because we are talking about a situation that will affect a lot of people.”)

General Situations: Harmful and Helpful

Many situations carry a power dynamic, where can feel powerful or powerless. This can sometimes come with our roles (Team leaders have a degree of power) or can be situational (A person who is having to adapt to a new change can feel powerless.)

If you ask people about the unhelpful power dynamics, they will describe their situation as feeling like, for example, the hall monitor, a traffic cop, or a parent. Others will say they feel they are treated like children.

Psychologist Eric Berne used the Parent/Child patterns to understand fraught interpersonal relationships. When you feel like a parent, you start thinking the other party is shirking or struggling with their responsibilities. If the former mindset prevails, we adopt behaviours that have us enforce our will, control the situation, and give clear and firm direction. The latter approach may take on a more nurturing flavour whereby we offer support or start doing things ourselves (and later resent the extra work!). We start to tread the line between supporting and coddling.

Similarly, in the face of such behaviours, we may fall into the pattern of behaving like a child. Such reactions also split into two overriding narratives. We can submit to the directive behaviour and fall into mindlessly doing what we are told. We stop trying to find any rationale and simply do as we are told. Another (brattier?) version of the child mindset starts to disengage but cannot help themselves from having a little fun. Playful exploration of the boundaries (You didn’t say that we COULDN’T sit on the tables!) and questions designed to get a rise out of someone (Now, when you say, “keep you up to date on things,” should I bring the materials to your house when you are working from home? What if your post box is too small for the reports?”)

Like chickens and eggs, it can be hard to know where such cycles actually begin. The answer is to shed the predictable and self-propagating behavioural cycles to return to the “adult” mindset. This happens when we remind ourselves that we are not dealing with children, nor should we be treated as if we were.

We…

·         Acknowledge our own responsibilities,

·         Engage in discussions to explore the nuances of accountability,

·         Remain curious, even when our patience is teste, and

·         Raise awareness to behaviours that are not helpful.

We don’t…

·         Take the bait when people try to draw us into discussions of unrealistic or improbable situations (“Let’s say someone came to work naked…”), and

·         Ignore immature or inappropriate behaviour.

This adult mindset brings us to tangible approaches to dealing with conflict, disagreement, and different perspectives.

Communication Strategies: What we can actually say (and do)

When reasonable people disagree, we can expect two things, both of which demand attention and energy:

·         The willingness to explain our perspective; and

·         The interest in understanding the perspective of others.

Such an exchange allows us to gauge two things:

·         The extent to which you share my perspective: agree to disagree; and

·         The firmness of that view: from firm to malleable.

Each combination brings a different approach:

If you agree and the opinion is firm, we can work to CONFIRM that alignment, e.g. “I think we share an understanding that the main challenge is…”

If you are leaning toward agreeing but that idea has yet to set, we can SUGGEST a shared view, e.g. “Let me make share where I think we are going with this…”

Similarly, a disagreeing view that we see as malleable provides an invitation (to seek PERSMISSION) to have a discussion, e.g. “Are you open to another perspective?”

When we get the sense that a conflicting idea has taken root and won’t move easily, we can probe to better understand the stance, e.g. “I am sure that I am missing something. Can you help me understand how ...”

In closing:

Every situation is different and no solution is perfect. If any of the above seem to cause automatic Attack/Retreat reactions OR seem to place us into unhelpful patterns and directionality, take note and ask yourself (and maybe each other), “How do we best return to an ADULT-to-ADULT conversation?

Note: The above article summarizes the content of the one of the sessions of our Clinical Leadership Program. This is designed to be a resources of participants in and alumni of that program. Please see the description in the OUR PROGRAMS section of this website.