Helpful Conflict Mindsets
Hacks to feel fine about the jerk you’re in conflict with (and why to bother)
Because conflict can negatively impact how we feel, or think, about a person it is important to get better at having conflict conversations. If you are looking for help you can read more detail about how to do that here.
The best scenario is one where you already care about the person. In those cases, just have a good conversation. These hacks are for when you just don’t care about them.
Why bother caring about the jerk ?
Because conflict can be a dangerous thing for relationships.
We are more likely to feel worse about a human after a negative interaction with them rather than a positive one (a downside of evolution). While this might not seem like the end of the world if you are in conflict with a stranger, what if you’re in conflict with your spouse or best friend, or what if you’re in line at Starbucks with that stranger later in the day? What if you are in conflict with a customer, or a boss?
To save relationships, keep customers, and to be able to work together in the future, and sometimes frankly just to feel okay, it is important to be good at conflict and to have a helpful mindset about the person you are in conflict with.
The reality is in many situations (ie. customer service) you do not actually need to care about the other person. You need a tool to make it easier to behave as if you care.
What matters is their perception of you. The trick is that their perception is influenced by how you perceive them. Often this creates a vicious circle. These hacks will help you make a virtuous one.
Okay, but how do you feel good about talking to this guy?
How do you deal with this unreasonable idiot?
How do you still help this ridiculous person?
We’ve heard that context is king so give yourself some (even fictitious) context about the other person.
Essentially, you get your mind right.
Timing your mindset
It’s best if you can get your mind right before you start. But these tricks will still help during and after the conversation, just less. Remember, you are not bracing for a fight, this is not about being right, this is not proving your point. It is also not being walked all over, pushed down, or belittled.
You are having a productive conversation to get something done.
Okay, you’re good.
Now-
Focus on them, not you
There are two helpful ways (hacks)to think about the person you are in conflict with.
- Empathy/Sympathy: Something else in their llife is the problem
- Fascination: How do they function?
You may never know which is which, but both are helpful in how you approach the person.
How to find empathy² for the person.
Nice person, bad day
You might be dealing with a great person at their worst because of something beyond this thing you’re in conflict about.
I will never forget meeting this customer who I had to tell to stop swearing at, and belittling our staff or we would stop helping him. We had a really direct conversation during which he shared that he was going through a bad divorce, was incredibly grateful for our staff, apologized profusely to me an then to each of team member he’d been mean to. As an apology helater brought in copies of the album he was making. It turned out he was a really great, nice, friendly guy, who was also sad and temporarily broken.
We met him at his worst. We didn’t take his shit, but we were lucky enough to help him work through it.
And I mean lucky.
When you get the chance to give someone the gift of becoming themselves again you have given an incredible gift.
Start off assume the unreasonable person is a great person who you get to help get back to being themselves. This assumption makes it genuinely exciting to talk to upset humans.
You may never find out if this is the case, but it is a truly useful way to begin.
Of course, sometimes this assumption will be wrong (though less often than you think).
Bad person, regular day
The good news is that they have to be them and you don’t. You get to be wonderful you.
Just imagine how unhappy their lives are being them, how hard relationships and jobs are, how nothing ever works out for them, how hurt and broken they are. Ugh. It must suck to be them… and voila you have found empathy, or sympathy, or at least a way to rise above their petty bullshit.
You don’t have to live like them, but they do. Bummer for them.
Often this is enough to make working with a jerk, work.
Sometimes it’s not.
Sometimes neither of these tricks work.
If you can’t find empathy find fascination
Most people are awesome, but sure, some people just suck.
Sometimes trick number two still doesn’t work, and you just cannot sympathize, or empathize, or any thing, with this person. In that case choose to be fascinated at how they can possibly exist, think like they do, say those things, etc.
If you are in customer support/service fascination leads to most of the same facial expressions and helpful behaviour that empathy does. If you’ve ever slowed down driving past a traffic accident this is kind of like that. Does every who slows down care, or are they just curious? It doesn’t really matter and we will never really know.
Simple
The hack is simple: it is to find empathy, and when you can’t fake it with fascination.
Of course, sometimes simple things are hard to do.
¹Normal because of our mostly unhelpful flight or fight response system. Way to go evolution.
² Sympathy is also mostly fine. Empathy is recommended because it means understanding without taking on the feeling. But in most cases sympathy works just fine. In customer service scenarios we need to be careful that sympathy doesn’t create unfair exceptions.
Thank you for reading! If this helped you may be interested in reading about how to have a tough conversation, checking out these tips to consider before you get into one, or reading about Hell’s Kitchen and Performance.
If you have a comment, feedback, or idea add it below, shoot me an email, or send me a tweet.
Ian.
