Melt The Glass Ceiling
Are you a career woman? Do you work in a male dominated workplace? In Melt The Glass Ceiling, your career coach, Lisa Liszcz, will share tips and strategies on developing the career of your dreams. New episodes drop each week.
Melt The Glass Ceiling
Mastering Workplace Diplomacy: Transforming Conflict into Collaboration
Ever found yourself in a tough spot with a colleague, where each conversation feels like navigating a minefield? Sarah's journey from tense conflict to collaborative success is not just an inspiring tale, but a masterclass in the art of workplace diplomacy that we unravel in our latest podcast episode. As careers progress, the ability to swiftly and skillfully resolve conflicts becomes an indispensable tool in maintaining productivity and building lasting professional connections. This episode doesn't just share stories; it offers actionable insights from my years of coaching that can equip you with the finesse needed to turn workplace challenges into opportunities for growth.
This week, we strip down the complexities of conflict resolution, starting with the power of positive assumptions and the art of asking the right questions. Discover how to identify and leverage common ground for cooperation, and embrace the openness necessary for genuine collaboration. For all the professionals out there honing their conflict resolution skills, this episode is packed with strategies that promise to accelerate your success. Plus, don't forget to grab the free downloadable resource I mention – your feedback on it might just shape our next conversation. Ready to navigate your career with confidence? Tune in, and let's transform those workplace hurdles into stepping stones.
Click here to download my article, "5 Simple Ways to Keep Your Cool During Work Conflicts."
Got a question? Click here to contact Lisa.
Hello, this week we are talking about conflict resolution. Have you ever experienced conflict at work? Most of us have, and it's one of the common things that my clients want to talk about and have questions about is how to resolve conflict, and so that's what we're talking about today. It seems to be a pretty universal challenge. I know I've had conflict at work. Where does this conflict come from? For crying out loud? We have different knowledge, different insights, different perspectives, and it's when those differences meet up with each other that we have conflict, because we think of that.
Speaker 1:The right course of action, that the right next step, that the right decision is one thing, when somebody else that we're working with sees it differently, and then we have that disconnect where we are not aligned, we're not in agreement, and sometimes that can really escalate and I know it can be very difficult and it's upsetting, it's challenging and it's just very stressful, and one of the reasons that we really want to resolve conflict as quickly as possible is to relieve that stress and we also want to get moving forward with solutions and progress and getting things done instead of being stuck in a conflict. So conflict can really be a time suck and it can feel like a waste of time. The faster you and your colleague can get on the same page, get aligned on next steps, the faster you can both achieve your goals and create solutions and solve problems, which is what we're all here for, right, and we want to resolve conflict as quickly as possible so that we can make progress, get things done, also to preserve those relationships. Our relationships at work are very important to not only our enjoyment of work although that's part of it but also to success and progress. I was talking last week with a CEO that I'm working with at a global company and they he and I were talking about that really, as each of us moves up higher in our careers and take on more responsibility and have more authority and our scope grows. He was saying and this is funny to me that a lot of people seem to think that the higher we go in our careers, the more responsibility we have, that the more autonomy we have, and that we just get to make decisions and tell people what to do. I'm laughing because he was saying that is, in fact, not true, which I've seen for a long time. He's right, and that the higher we go in our careers, the more we grow in our careers and the more responsibility we have really collaboration just becomes more and more important, not less. Our relationships become more and more important and our decisions and our work becomes more and more collaborative in nature and team based in nature. We make fewer and fewer decisions in the vacuum and we don't have the luxury of being in silos and having our own little fiefdoms or whatever level in the C-suite are really even more and more so part of a team and work through processes of collaborative decision making and collaborative planning and influencing, which is we need to have strong relationships with colleagues and co-workers and bosses and employees and everybody. A lot of us, more and more in our careers, have responsibility without direct authority and that's where the influencing comes in. We benefit from others trusting us and feeling that we have credibility and being able to be comfortable sharing ideas and perspectives and concerns with us. So being able to resolve conflict and even prevent conflict is critical to career success on many levels, on a daily level and over years and within the course of our career, short and long term.
Speaker 1:I talk about conflict and managing conflict and being in conflict is such a time suck and it's such an energy suck. My client, one of my clients, sarah. I think I've talked about her before. She was so upset one day. She and I were talking and she's at the executive level, she's at director level, and it was about a year ago that she was working on a project and was having quite a bit of interaction with an executive assistant to the CEO of the company, and so she and she had to share a lot of information, have a lot of conversations, go through a lot of information and data and planning with the this, with her colleague, this executive assistant, and somehow they got crosswise. And, sarah, one day she and I got on the phone and it took her about an hour to calm down and I think you know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:Sometimes people just get so we I do myself get so engaged in a conflict and we're making assumptions about what this person is thinking and what this person's motivations are. And she was livid, absolutely livid, over the phone with me about she did this and her tone was this and she said this and how dare she disrespect me like that and I have no use for this woman. She was just like that and I have no use for this woman. She was just really overwhelmed by the negative emotions that were taking over and her inability to be able to move forward on her action items and when dealing with this individual. Within a week, sarah and this woman had made up and now they are just like the best of friends. Sarah and her colleague made up and resolved their conflict and now they've built a relationship and they are just the best of friends. So the reason I share that is it would have been nice if they could have gotten to that collaborative, friendly state faster. In the meantime, when they're in the messy middle of that conflict, the emotions are exhausting. The mind games and the energy around trying to figure out what's going on is exhausting and it can just take up so much time and so much energy that could be used for accomplishing goals and getting things done. So that is why we want to resolve conflict as quickly as possible so that we can move forward to having those great relationships and having success on our projects.
Speaker 1:So what is conflict? I've mentioned it's just differences of opinion and any difference of opinion. It doesn't have to be heated, but just any differences of opinion can really bog us down and keep us from moving forward on our goals, and it comes from differences in perspectives, values, experiences, knowledge. I've heard before that, as an example, five different people can see a car accident and five different people at five different locations on the intersection can see the same car accident and have five different perspectives of what exactly happened because they're standing at different vantage points and saw different things. And that's usually where conflict comes from is just from our experiences, from our vantage points, based on our values, based on our histories, based on our educations. We just have differences of perspective that ultimately lead to conflict, and a lot of the resolving conflict is about having open communication, participating in active listening so that we can understand and get clarity on these different perspectives, so that we can build alignment on how to move forward. That's what conflict is, and conflict resolution, in a nutshell, is about really unpacking all of those different perspectives, like I said, and using really great communication skills in sharing information, but also listening to unpack those differences so that we can pick out pieces of the differences to build the best possible scenario towards resolving the conflict and moving forward.
Speaker 1:My first tip for you today about resolving conflict is don't make assumptions. In the example I gave earlier, sarah was making assumptions about what this woman thought, what this woman believed, what this woman's personal agenda was, and all of that is really because we're not mind readers. We don't know unless we've asked and had that conversation. So we don't want to make assumptions. A lot of times we make assumptions that are negative and so if we're going to make assumptions at all, let's assume the positive. Assume this person's trying to help me. Assume this person, like me, wants the best possible outcome for the project and the company and the team. But if we're going to make assumptions at all, let's have them be positive. Have you read the amazing book the Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz? If not, I highly recommend it. It's.
Speaker 1:The third agreement is don't make assumptions. And Don Miguel Ruiz writes we have the tendency to make assumptions about everything, and that's true. The problem with making assumptions, he writes, is that we believe that they are the truth. And that's where my client, sarah, was that day. She was just like this woman's trying to undermine me. This woman doesn't understand, this woman doesn't value this project, and All of those were assumptions. And what's more is, sarah was taking them personally and believing them to be the truth. Don Miguel Ruiz continues he says we could swear they are real, these are facts. We make assumptions about what others are doing or thinking and then we take it personally, Then we blame them and react by sending emotional poison into our word, and that's when we get really into trouble, because that's when we can escalate a conflict and make it even worse.
Speaker 1:So, number one, let's not make assumptions. Let's just back away from that. Ask clarifying questions, be open to information, make sure that we're unpacking others' points of view for clarity, and to do that, we don't want to make assumptions. Number two when we're talking, communicating, listening. Number two when we're talking, communicating, listening, asking questions, not making assumptions. We want to find common ground, find something that you do agree on and start from there as you build clarity and develop your solutions.
Speaker 1:So what's common ground? Maybe we agree on the ultimate goal of the project or the activity or the task, or we agree on the, the business goal, the initiative, the strategy, the desired outcome of a project or a strategy or a change initiative. Find that common ground. Maybe the common ground is look, we all want this company to make money. Look, we all want to successfully implement this new regulation at our company. Build that alignment, define it, articulate it. Let's get everybody on the same page with what it is that we can agree on and then start there. So find that common ground. Maybe it's we all want to keep our jobs, we all want employment security, we all want to be good leaders, we all want our employees to succeed. Whatever that common ground is, identify it, clarify it, build that agreement and then proceed from there. That just builds a lot of goodwill and gets everybody into a place of collaboration and cooperation.
Speaker 1:Before we move forward on building agreements around, whatever we're about, what it is that we're doing and that prepares us for the third step, which is be ready to collaborate, let's get everybody in alignment on what we can agree on. We know what we can't agree on. That's the conflict. Let's identify what we do agree on. That's the common ground. And now let's get ready to collaborate. And let's identify what we mean by collaborate. It really is a process of negotiation through communication and just taking one step at a time to see what people think, weigh the pros and cons. Where do we agree, where do we have differences? How are we going to negotiate around that and communicate and share and listen so that we can move forward. And that's what I mean by collaboration, being willing to negotiate, be open to new ideas.
Speaker 1:We all in these situations need to be able to let go of that whole my way or the highway idea. I need to be not married to my idea of what is going to happen. I need to let that go and be open to being influenced and think about how I can influence others while at the same time being influenced. Focus on the big picture. Think about what is the greater good for your desired outcome, for the company or the team or whatever. So in being open to negotiating, to being open to collaborating, you really have to let go of being attached to certain outcomes that my idea is the best idea, or the way we've done it before is the best way to go, or what we already agreed to is what's going to happen, without any new ideas coming to the table. We have to be able to let go of those positions and surrender a bit to the power of the team, to the power of the discussion and the power of collaboration, to be able to result in an even better outcome than any one individual has had. Believe in the power of the team.
Speaker 1:It is my goal to help you accelerate your success in every way. Whether you are addressing symptoms of imposter syndrome, which I talked about last week in my podcast, or you're dealing with conflict resolution, I want you to get to what success looks like for you as quickly as possible. Let's accelerate your success. I don't want you stuck in a rut or not living up to your potential. I want you to reach peaks of success based on your potential and your goals and your dreams. So, when it comes to conflict resolution, you are not going to make assumptions. You are going to find common ground and collaborate for the greater good and success. That's speedy, speedy success. So next week I'm going to be talking about your next best job. What would be the next best job? What would be the next best job for you? So many of my clients come to me and they'll say I know I need a change, but I don't know what to change to. Let's talk about that a little bit next week in the podcast and in the meantime, we talked today about conflict resolution.
Speaker 1:One of the hardest things I see with conflict resolution is just managing the emotions around the conflict and really staying cool so that we can manage our thoughts and show up in a way that we want to show up, being credible, being professional, being poised, having confidence.
Speaker 1:I've got a free article for you today. It's five simple ways to keep your cool during work conflict, and I have a secret for you this will actually work on your personal conflicts too. So it's five simple ways to keep your cool. It's a freebie. You can download it today. The link is in the show notes. I look forward to hearing what you think about it and if maybe you have some tips that I don't have in this list. Are you dealing with a conflict today that is in your life right now? Send me a message about it. I have a link to how you can message me in the show notes and I'll look at the information that you share and get you a recommendation, get you some tips that you can use, personalized for you and for your situation. So that's it on Melt the Glass Ceiling and I'll see you next week.
