Unfolding Leadership

Despite all the good advice about resolving conflict, perhaps best exemplified by Stephen Covey’s famous line, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood,” people mostly don’t. When the emotion of conflict takes over and the higher functioning parts of the brain have been hijacked, what we want is to be understood, to be seen for our hurt, our pain, our sense of offense from disrespect first. Even as we try to talk it out, another voice within may say, “he doesn’t get it” or “she’s still covering up” or “he says he won’t do it again but I don’t believe him.” We bring, in essence, our firmest opinions of each other and the other person’s presumed motives.

Having worked as a third-party facilitator over the years with many two-person workplace conflicts, my role seems to almost always include offering a different perspective to counter the rigid negative beliefs people hold about each other. They often see the other person as unrepentant, self-excusing, and “having an agenda.” Sometimes, these beliefs are almost funny because they are so extreme or so clearly projections, but mostly they are just heart-breaking. It isn’t a case of not listening; it’s a case of listening and then actively discarding the face value meaning of the exchange. It goes something like this:

Person One: “I didn’t come to you when it happened the first time because I didn’t want you to get angry.”

Person Two: “It’s because you didn’t come to me that now I am angry.”

Person One: “Yes, I understand that. I’m sorry. Next time I’ll do it differently.”

Person Two: “How do I get through to you how disrespectful it is when you talk to other people but don’t talk to me?”

Person One: “I really am sorry. I get it!”

Later, Person Two says to me in a private one-on-one debriefing, “Person One isn’t that sorry. She’s just saying that. I don’t believe she won’t do it again.”

I ask, “How come?”

“She didn’t come across to me as genuine,” Person Two replies. “Did you think she was that genuine?”

“Yes,” I say. “I don’t have any reason to believe she’s not.”

Similarly, when Person One and I debrief, she says to me, “Do you see what I mean? I try to talk to him and he just gets madder!”

“Yes,” I say. “And I sense he’s really trying to be honest with you about what’s going on for him.”

“Maybe so, but I think he knows he can bully people and he likes it that way.”

You’ll notice as a savvy student of the human condition that I become each person’s surrogate and the argument is basically continuing. Obviously, I see things differently, but if I’m not careful our private debriefings can actually reinforce the conflict.

The combatants in this common scenario are failing to adopt what my colleague and co-author, Kathleen Ryan, used to call “the face value rule,” a simple principle about giving the benefit of the doubt. If I say I’m sorry, I’m sorry. If you say you get it, you do. If your not talking to me makes me angry, it’s so. It is all about taking people at face value. This, it turns out, is part of what it means to extend trust rather than hold onto mistrust.

People in conflict can have a difficult time with the face value rule because it violates their ego-protective “truths” about the other person, truths that are really, of course, assumptions. The problem is these background assumptions at the core of the conflict are not as discussable with the other person because they are so highly offensive.

A more serious conflict happens when the parties begin to assert their negative assumptions in an aggressive way.

Person One: “What you can’t handle is this: you blow up whenever anybody suggests you have the tiniest imperfection. You freak out and retaliate!”

Person Two: “And what you can’t handle is the fact you’re a coward who sneaks around criticizing people behind their backs because you don’t have the guts to say what’s really on your mind. And no matter how many times you say it, the truth is you’re not sorry at all.”

Sometimes people dance around these angry “truths” a great deal, but eventually they begin to “leak” and sometimes “gush” out in a moment of deep pain. The goal at this stage seems to be to force the other person to acknowledge a weakness by rubbing it in his or her face. “I see you for who you really are,” seems to be the theme, “and I’m not going to let you get away with it.” But this is gasoline thrown on the fire.

And such statements can cause a rift that will last forever. Perhaps in the best case, the participants in the conflict each go home with the fire and think about it. Maybe they ask a spouse or friend a couple of questions. “Do I blow up when some imperfection in me is pointed out? Do I really do that?” or “Tell me the truth, do I talk about people behind their backs too much?”

This period of reflection may lead to some new understanding — if the spouse or friend is both compassionate and truthful.

Person One and Person Two go back to work in this better scenario a little chastened, with the tension still there, but in time one or the other may apologize and the air gets softer and clearer.

So, if we were going to replay the whole scene, there’s another possible way the script could run.

Person One: “I didn’t come to you the first time because I didn’t want you to get angry.”

Person Two: “I didn’t know you were concerned about that, and I’m not sure I understand.”

Person One: “It may be as much my problem as yours, and I apologize for that. You’re right I should have come to you.”

Person Two: “Well, you know I do want to hear from you if I’ve done something that’s upset you. But I don’t understand why you wouldn’t talk to me — that hurts!”

Person One: “I know I’ve got to do a better job of confronting my own fears about speaking up to you. Are you open now to some feedback about that?”

Person Two: “Yes. Tell me.”

Person One: “Okay, here goes…and I would appreciate your feedback in return.”

And then, after a time, both of them share: “And here’s what I am learning from our conversation….”

To get to this second script requires personal application of the face value rule — on both sides. Simple enough to understand, harder to do, but why?

It’s easy to chock it up to ego and protection of self-image. Those are the fear factors, for sure. But at a deeper level, I think it is also an unfamiliarity with our own hearts, a faithlessness in our ability to accept and then to reach across the divides and separations that are natural to our relationships. The heart thrives on being able to bridge, to reach across voids, inner and outer. It is only our failure to truly accept these voids as real that stops us. We want to believe in a fantasy — and this too is part of the ego — that we ourselves are hidden and omniscient, and that we have no real agency or capability to fix things. That’s why the ego wants so badly to believe it can actually see into the other person, that person’s hidden motives and real nature. It is this “knowledge” of the other person that excuses us to be silent, uncreative, passive, walled in. But that is all fantasy and projection. That’s just our own ego trying to remain hidden by claiming the other’s real nature is so plain.

The heart, by comparison, seems to thrive on how well we accept our real separation from one another, our differences and our egos, so that we can then build a real bridge. This is a great deal more than simply “agreeing to disagree.” The bridge is the product of the void in the way separation is what makes an active apology possible and necessary. The void demands our energy, our agency and our forgiveness.

No one can possess another’s heart and when we think we can see into someone else better than he or she can, then it’s quite likely we really don’t know our own heart at all.