The 4 Dimensions of Workplace Conflict

This week's article summary is Leveraging 4 Dimensions of Better Conflict Conversations, which I referenced during preplanning.

As I discussed last week, there are many benefits to teaming, yet there are also sundry challenges.

Patrick Lencioni is his classic book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team views effective teaming as a pyramid with the base being trust. From that foundation of trust—the most critical component of any well-functioning team--emanate four other needs for all members of a team: productive conflict, commitment, accountability, and focus on results.

The 4 Cs of teaming I discussed last week are as follows:

• Connection
• Clarity
• Curiosity
• Commitment

These alliteratively focus on the same teaming needs as Lencioni.

Teaming takes time and effort, yet as we discussed--and many of us have experienced--it also reaps many rewards.

Thank you all for a smooth, productive start to the school year!

Rest up this weekend as we gear up for our first five-day week! 

Joe

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When dealing with inevitable disagreements/conflicts with colleagues, especially within teaching teams, it’s important to keep the following 4 Dimensions of Conflict in mind:

• Connection — Do we know one another well enough? 
• Clarity — Do we have a shared understanding of what success looks like? 
• Curiosity — Are we interested in other ideas and perspectives?
• Commitment – Do we have a clear agreement with follow ups/throughs

Connection: Do we know one another well enough? 

Workplace conflict always involves others — and every conflict gets easier the more you know one another, understand one another’s perspectives and see one another as human beings. 

Imagine that you’re in a clash with a coworker named Bob. You’ve come together to talk about it. Bob opens the conversation with: “I really care about you and this problem, and I’m confident we can find a solution we can all work with.” 

Well, if Bob’s basically a good guy, who got you out of a bind last year when your child was sick, that’s a solid way for him to start the conversation. 

You might think, “Well, I’m frustrated but come to think of it, Bob always seems fair. Let me listen to what he has to say. I bet we can work this out.” 

Now imagine the same conflict different Bob. This Bob recently threw you under the bus and took credit for your work. He also scoffed at your idea during a team meeting in front of others. 

Now, if Bob starts the conversation the same way, by saying, “I really care about you and this problem . . .” you might think, “Nice try, Bob, but I don’t trust you.” 

That’s the power of connection. The more connection you can build before you need it, the easier conflict becomes. As you seed the ground for easier collaboration, influence and trust, one of the best things you can do is get to know the people you work with as people, not just their function. Treat them with dignity and be trustworthy. It takes extra time, but you’ll earn it back many times over when you work through conflict. If you’ve not invested in the relationship, or the other person doesn’t trust your intentions, even the most carefully chosen words will fall flat. 

And speaking of connection — there’s one more person to connect with: you. Constructive conflict requires you to know your values, your goals, what you need and what you want. 

Clarity: Do we have a shared understanding of success looks like? 

Think about any significant conflict you have now or had in the past. We’re willing to bet that the source of that conflict includes an expectation violation. You thought they’d clean up their coffee mugs after the meeting. They thought the magic coffee mug fairy would take care of it. Everyone carries around expectations of one another. And sometimes, you don’t even know you have an expectation until someone doesn’t live up to it. So, the second dimension of constructive conflict is to get on the same page: create clarity about outcomes and expectations. 

One of the common mistakes we see people make in workplace conflict is that they don’t clearly understand what success looks like.

When you get clear for yourself and help other people find their clarity, now you can have a more productive conflict conversation. 

Curiosity: Are we interested in other ideas and perspectives? 

One of the fastest ways to get to the root cause of a workplace conflict is to show up genuinely curious about the other person’s perspective. Your sincere curiosity helps people feel seen and gives you a better understanding of what it will take to solve a problem. 

This is often the hardest part of constructive conflict because you have your point of view for a reason. But the benefit of being curious is that when you ask a good question, it automatically helps pull you out of that reactivity. It’s hard to be defensive and genuinely curious at the same time. 

Commitment: Do we have a clear agreement with follow ups/throughs?

One of the most frustrating aspects of workplace conflict conversations is that it seems like they’ll never end. As you connect, get curious, and build on one another’s suggestions, your conversation needs to produce action, or nothing changes. And if nothing changes, it’s worse than if you never had a conversation. Now you’ve wasted time, trust drips away, and people lose hope. Commitment is the answer and the key to moving you from words to action.

There are two keys to a useful commitment. The first is to get specific. You want specific actions with specific owners who have specific finish lines. The second key to an effective commitment is to schedule a time to review your agreement. 

Let’s look at an example. 

Say you have a peer you rely on for data. Let’s call him Don. And the two of you are in conflict because Don’s not giving you the reports you need for your team members to do their jobs. You have a friendly conversation, and because Don’s team is drowning in work, you agree your team will request the data only once a week. 

That’s good so far, but that’s not a commitment. You still need specific actions, specific owners and specific finish lines, with a specific time to review your commitment. So, you build the following agreement: This Friday, you will explain the new process to your team. Your team members will get data requests to Don’s team by 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday. Don will explain the new process to his team at their meeting tomorrow morning. Don’s team will supply the requested data on Wednesdays by noon. You and Don will meet in two weeks on Monday at 4:30 p.m. to see how it’s going. 

The specificity makes it clear what everyone will do. You don’t leave it up to good intentions. The follow-up meeting makes it more likely that you will both keep your commitments, and it creates time to deal with the inevitable challenges that will disrupt your new plan. 

By fostering genuine connections, ensuring clarity of goals, maintaining an open curiosity about different viewpoints and securing clear commitments, you can transform potential conflicts into opportunities for growth and collaboration.