A six-step process to overcome the fears of handling confrontation in the workplace
JO HAWKINS DONOVAN
For SBT
One of my new coaching clients manages a large staff within a non-profit organization. I’ve never met anyone more eager to enhance her leadership skills. She wants to start off with the most difficult one: face-to-face confrontations.
Very young children have no problem with confrontation. By adulthood, layers of fear get wrapped around us, and confrontation becomes highly complicated. In organizations, nearly everyone sees the value of knowing how to confront others, to effectively go face-to-face with negative feedback, unwelcome news, or uncomfortable questions. Everyone knows effective confrontation is vital, and nearly everyone avoids it. Avoiding truthful interaction, soft-soaping negative feedback, skirting issues, postponing critical decisions — these behaviors are rampant in the workplace and create enormous, expensive problems within organizations. That is in spite of all the proof that open communication within the system promotes teamwork, productivity, and loyalty.
Subordinates don’t like to disagree with the boss or carry bad news. The person at the top may be sterling in many aspects of leadership, yet will do anything to avoid confrontation. Horror stories abound: “Every one of my job reviews was great, then the next thing I know, I’m fired ….”
It’s not unusual for a CEO to delegate confrontation to someone in the organization who isn’t involved in the issue at hand. Suddenly, a subordinate is assigned to carry the burden of bad news, yet he or she hardly knows the facts or the person on the receiving end.
The word “confront” stems from two Latin words, “com” (together) and “frons” (forehead). When I think of foreheads coming together I immediately picture a baseball game where the umpire and manager are nearly forehead-to-forehead, confronting with every ounce of energy they can use without touching. Truly face-to-face confrontation! In the workplace, by necessity, confronting will sometimes be via phone, e-mail, or snail mail. Those less direct media are always inferior to an actual forehead-to-forehead meeting, in terms of creating a win-win result from the confrontation.
Many of my coaching clients have developed confrontation skills. I’ll mention some reliable techniques later in this column. The biggest challenge, though, is identifying and collapsing the internal barriers that make so many people avoid confronting. If you’re avoiding confronting someone, it’s because you feel threatened, even if you’re unaware. The perception of a threat will tense up your body, sometimes just a little, and sometimes the entire body will be thrown into a stress response. Heartbeat increases, breathing becomes tight; the spectrum of physical changes that go with stress may occur.
You’ve probably avoided a confrontation yourself, by putting it off, or dodging the person. The tension keeps building up until the slightest thing may trigger your “going off” on the person. Not effective leadership.
The trick is to recognize the tension early, before it gets to the volcanic stage. The tension may be a signal that you need to confront someone, or several people. Ask yourself why this is threatening. Usually the “why” is irrational and will collapse when exposed to daylight. With the threat dismantled, you can begin practicing solid techniques for building confidence in confronting.
For my clients, I developed a six-step process called NO FEAR, an acronym for Now, Open, Feelings, Effect, Alignment, and Request.
Now. In most cases it is best to do it now. The exception is when anger is at a boiling point. All the good techniques in the world will be cancelled by a lava flow of anger. Be sure to keep this from becoming avoidance, though. Tell the person, for example, “I want to talk with you about that last team meeting, and I’m so angry now, I’d rather wait ’til tomorrow.” Typically, the sooner the confrontation occurs the better.
Open. Effective confrontation stems from a willingness to be open to the perspective of the other party or parties. This is hard. Start by being open to your own intention. “What outcome do I want?” Brutal honesty is crucial. If your answer comes out, “I need to take him down a peg or two,” you’ve got more internal work to do before you confront someone.
It’s important to be open to the other party’s intention as well. Invite the other party’s side of the story, sincerely. “I am interested in what led you to talk to the president about the problems with our project” will work better than “What in the world were you thinking when you talked to the president about our problems? Have you lost your mind?”
Feelings. Confrontation is usually charged with emotion, and feelings create the most chaos when they are ignored or resisted. One nice thing about being adults, we can choose how we want to express these feelings into our relationships. A positive outcome is more likely if feelings are acknowledged out loud. An example: “You know how much I care about this project. That’s why I get so upset with delays, so my anxiety skyrocketed when your team was late reporting.” If feelings are labeled and accepted as part of the exchange, the communication is more authentic.
Effect. The content of the confrontation should focus on the effect of the incident in question. Start with the effect on the person you’re confronting. If she can see how her behavior has negative impact on her own job, she’ll listen with more open channels. “When your reports are late, it’s part of my job to write a note for your file.”
It helps to highlight effects on the entire organization, and toxic to talk about these effects by quoting others. Statements such as, “I’m not the only one who feels this way — two people from marketing talked to me about you,” will plug up ears and build resentments that blow the chances of a resolution.
Alignment. Throughout the confronting process, stay in alignment with the other party. You certainly don’t want to create even more distance and tension out of confronting.
To create alignment, respond respectfully to whatever the other party offers. Respect for even wildly disparate views can be expressed honestly. “Thank you for bringing that up; it connects to my idea.” Or: “That’s an interesting analysis.”
Another technique is to use the connective “and” rather than “but.” We’ve all heard too often “That’s a cool outfit but I don’t know about the tie.”
Take responsibility for frequently returning to common ground. If you’re in the same organization, there is always common ground. This is just another way of keeping truth in the conversation. To connect to common goals, make statements like: “Everyone here wants this team to achieve more than we ever have.”
Request. Instead of allowing the confrontation to sputter to an end, plan the end by stating a request. Even say, “I have a request.” The request needs to be specific and clear: “I request that your reports on the McGregor project be on time for the next three months.” Together decide on consequences, timeframes, and support needed from the system to accomplish the goals.
Of all the interpersonal communication skills, the ability to confront others is by far the most difficult. The NO FEAR approach can lead to healthier relationships, reduced stress in the individual and the system, and the satisfaction of knowing a sticky encounter was handled well.
Jo Hawkins Donovan has a coaching and psychotherapy firm in Milwaukee, and can be reached at 414-271-5848 or jo@hawkinsdonovan.com. The firm’s Web site is www.hawkinsdonovan.com. Hawkins Donovan will respond to your questions in this column. Her column appears in every other issue of SBT.
July 6, 2001 Small Business Times, Milwaukee
