Compassionate Confrontation
Managers and team leaders often avoid confrontations in the name of efficiency, but compassionate confrontation is a time saver. Teams that avoid conflict doom themselves to revisiting issues again and again without resolution.
Compassionate confrontation is limited to facts and specifics and avoids personality-focused, mean-spirited attacks. Passive-aggressive, sarcastic comments are not constructive conflict.
One of the challenges in promoting compassionate confrontation is the fear that the people involved will take it personally. In many cases, unresolved conflict only serves to strain the relationships because resolution never occurs.
In his landmark book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team Patrick Lencioni states that teams that have fear of conflict:
- Have boring meetings
- Create environments where back-channel politics and personal attacks thrive
- Ignore controversial topics that are critical to team success
- Fail to tap into all the opinions and perspectives of team members
- Waste time and energy with posturing and interpersonal risk management
One great tool for taking responsibility in all relationships and asking for your needs to be met is using an “I-statements” request. Below is a 5-step script for making such requests in your personal and professional relationships.
- When you (don’t engage with my ideas during the meeting.)
- I feel (disappointed and frustrated.)
- The story I’m telling myself/It feels (that I am not an important member of the team and that my hard work is being ignored.)
- I want/prefer (to know that my work is valued.)
- Would you (engage with my ideas at the next meeting acknowledging when my ideas are good or explaining to me where my ideas fall short so that I can improve?)
Photo by TienDat Nguyen on Unsplash
