Coaching through Conflict
Conflict is a complex subject in the workplace; an understanding about the mechanisms of conflict and how it arises can help clients to understand how to work with conflict in meaningful ways.
There are different types of conflict; we generally think of conflict as something that is loud and overt, perhaps shouting, swearing or physical fighting. Whilst this type of conflict exists, what is more often witnessed in the working environment is is internal conflict.
Internal conflict; resides within people, frustration, resentment and anger can result in inappropiate behaviour and often leads to claims of discrimination or harrassment. This less extreme type of conflict occuring on an ongoing basis can do immense damage to relationships and the work environment generally.
When people are in disputes they get positional; inability to see the other person's point of view and focusing on 'their own version of truth' is at the heart of many conflictual situations, often the result is mis-understanding and mis communication.
Avoiding conflict builds resentment; people feel powerless and the situation becomes problematic for both individuals and the organisation. Coaching the conflict is a powerful process for managing and resolving conflict and its 3 step structure provides a safe and effective environment for people to work out their differences.
Coaching through conflict is a staged process whereby the disputants start to listen to each other and respond in a different way with the help of the coach. The people and the relationship coached together creates a powerful outcome and this process can be used effectively with two clients or a small group of people or team.
What is success? People often ask about success criteria and this is most often evidenced by the quality of the communication between the two parties and their willingness to repair broken working relationships.
Examples of Conflict in the Workplace Include;
- Miscommunication that gets in the way of relationships and creates a bad atmosphere in the office
- Subtle discrimination that attaches labels to people or stigmatizes them so that they feel vulnerable and under attack
- Cultural clashes where each person is coming from their own point of view and unwilling or unable to look at the others viewpoint
- Silence between people - colleagues and/or managers which allows an employee to continue to do a bad job even when others know that this affects the team or service
- Blaming of other people for who they are or the group that they belong to without giving them the chance to learn how to do thinks differently.