How to Solve Coworker Conflict
The Problem
Sometimes good people just have personality conflicts and they just don’t get along. Just like in our personal lives, our workplace is filled with people of all types of personalities. Everyone’s acceptance range is a little different too. In other words, some people seem to get along with everyone and other people seem to clash with everyone else. Do you have any personality types that you just don’t get along with?
The Solution
If you have an adversarial relationship with a peer due to a personality conflict, the solution is to have a one-on-one feedback session with that peer. Having these one-on-one feedback sessions are 100% in your control and they are extremely effective at resolving personality conflicts. I will say though that one-on-one feedback sessions require managerial courage and tact.
I learned that most often, conflicts can be overcome by gaining an understanding of the other person's perspective. I was working for a company that hired a consulting firm to help us develop our strategic plan. Personality conflicts were common obstacles throughout our company. You see, if two people didn’t get along in our company, they would just ignore and backstab each other. It was very unproductive behavior!
To overcome this issue the consultants suggested that we have a blitz of one-on-one feedback sessions. Let me tell you, I was very skeptical about this approach. You see, I had a few peers that I lived in conflict with and I didn’t see myself resolving the conflicts through feedback. I anticipated that these feedback sessions would actually increase the level of conflict. But I was totally wrong! Having one-on-one feedback sessions really worked for me and for all the other leaders in the company. One-on-one feedback sessions eliminated the unproductive conflicts and helped the entire team to fly in the same direction. That year, we blew past our financial targets on our way to a record year.
So how do you go about having a one-on-one feedback session?
Step One: Grease the skids. When you decide to take this step and have a one-on-one feedback session with a peer, you will need to "grease the skids" first. In others words, have a pre-meeting with your peer and bring them up to speed on your plan for sharing feedback and explain to them how the feedback process works.
At this pre-meeting, let your peer know that you think there is an opportunity to improve your working relationship and that if you could improve your working relationship, then you would both experience higher performance and yield better results. Then ask if they agree with that statement. Try to gain their alignment. See if you can agree that there is a problem. Then ask them to have a friendly feedback session with you to help improve your relationship.
Next explain the ground rules. Ask if they are willing to share some feedback with you about what they think you are doing well and what they think you can do to improve and let them know that you’ll do the same for them. Explain that you will actively and openly listen to their feedback and ask them to do the same. Lastly let them know that listening doesn’t mean acceptance. You both have the choice to accept the feedback as an opportunity to improve or you can consider it hogwash. But you should both agree to listen to what the other has to say. End this initial meeting by agreeing to a time and date for the feedback session. Greasing the skids before the feedback session is the most difficult part of this process.
Step Two: Prepare. Prepare for the feedback session and start by identifying one or two of your peer’s strengths. What do they do well? Be specific and use examples. Its not about needless compliments. You really want to identify some of their strengths because you want them to continue to focus on what they do well. But of course a little sugar helps the medicine go down too. After identifying their strengths, then prepare to discuss their improvement opportunity. I recommend sticking to just one opportunity, be as specific as possible and identify at least one example.
Step Three: Conduct the Feedback Meeting. Now its time for you to meet with your peer and share feedback. When you meet and they start sharing their feedback with you, you want to actively and openly listen to them and not get defensive. Sincerely consider what they are saying to you and take notes too. This is a great chance to set the example and show your peer how to graciously accept feedback. When they are done providing you feedback, thank your peer for the feedback. After the meeting you can reflect on the feedback. Remember, it's your choice whether you accept it or not. But your peer doesn't need to know what you decide.
Now its your turn to provide feedback. Start with the positive feedback and let them know that you appreciate their good work. Now when you provide them feedback about their improvement opportunity, be sure to focus on the problem and not the person.
A Conversation Example
Background: Paul is a process Engineer who works in your department. You have a conflict with Paul because he is a visionary and you are a realist. You already provided him positive feedback and now you are providing him with an improvement opportunity:
“Paul, I think we have some low hanging fruit that can really improve our department’s output. I have a short list of some small improvement projects that I want to share with you. I know you have a really good vision for the future of our department however, I feel like when I share these small opportunities with you, you tend to make the solutions big and complicated and then these quick-hit projects never get completed. For example, when I asked you to look at redesigning the layout of the packaging area and adding a label printer, you told me we need to look at installing a robotic process. That was nine months ago and meanwhile, we’ve made no progress towards an improvement and that packaging area is still very inefficient and just a small improvement would really increase output. I’m hoping that you and I can work better together in the future and tackle some smaller improvement projects in parallel with our long-term opportunities." Ask Paul what he thinks and wait for his response.
You probably won’t walk away with perfect alignment but you have made tremendous progress. First you both heard each other out and in doing so, you’ve improved the relationship. Additionally, you both have some improvement feedback to consider and that’s a good thing too. I guarantee that if you have feedback sessions with your peers, your working relationships will improve along with your department results. One-on-one feedback sessions require you to have managerial courage and tact. But when you have these sessions, everyone wins. You win, your peer wins and the company wins.
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