Waging Peace in the Workplace
By Daniel Robin
With the increase in work force diversity, emphasis on teams, and the new-world-disorder — also known as chaos — sooner or later, we all get into conflicts that just don’t resolve, even with a Ph.D. in active listening mode. Calmly sitting down to “talk about it” can be frustrating when there are hidden agendas, turf wars, or fear patterns in the culture and in the people involved.
So what if you give it your best shot and nothing comes of it? A willingness to deal with an issue — even if the effort is clumsy at first — is far better than the insidious patterns of avoidance, denial, passive-aggressive indirectness, plotting how to get even….
In the gap between theory (what we know) and practice (what we do) lives an astounding fact: our culture has developed remarkable tools and technologies for handling virtually any type of dispute; however, the ones that work are seldom used, and the ones that are used seldom work.
Finding Alternatives
I’m surprised how few people have even heard of “alternative dispute resolution” (ADR). Here’s a quick quiz:
What is arbitration and when would you use it?
Under what circumstances should you use a “third-party neutral” (hint: before you begin to unravel emotionally) and
When is it best to handle a situation yourself?
What does mediation have in common with arbitration? What are the differences?
If you know the answers to these questions, you probably practice ADR for a living. Unfortunately, our schools are only just now providing this practical information – so vital to success in today’s workplace.
It is simply not true that the only way to deal with conflict is to provoke more of it. Even in the most difficult situations, the other person isn’t necessarily our adversary. Our congested court system is hardly a place to bring important, emotionally-charged issues — business-related or not. And yet, despite the uncertainty that goes along with giving up control, power and major dollars to someone else to work out a legal “remedy” (notice it’s not called a solution), we still rank as the most sue-happy culture in the world.
How ADR Applies to the Workplace
What makes the workplace unique and challenging is that most relationships can be strengthened through collaboration, and yet, few people seize this opportunity. Perhaps it’s just too darn risky and uncomfortable to surf the chaos of including other views and perspectives before deciding what to do with them. It certainly seems faster and easier to reduce options to a tidy twosome (“my way or … “), then you can pick the least lousy alternative. The phrase “What are some other options?” can work wonders.
It takes careful and confident facilitation — and sometimes it takes not being in the middle of the issue — to broaden the focus just enough to generate and explore options without getting derailed. The facilitator needs the flexibility to move with the other person or group, the focus to keep working toward goals, and the smoothness not to interfere with communication in the process.
California is ripe with caring professionals who would like nothing better than to have everyone live in peace and harmony. And yet [Excuse me while I yell at my cat. Now, where was I?], we cannot drift too far from getting business results, or we’ll have no workplace to be peaceful in.
Above all, workplaces need to be fun. Wage peace and we’ll enjoy the dividends of a wage increase with profit for all.
