GWS #6: Myth Busting at Work — Tough Conversations & the Merits of Disagreement
The sixth GoodWork Society event, and the first in a series of myth busting at work, explored tough conversations and the merits of disagreement in the workplace with an intimate group of professionals from various industries.
As an icebreaker and provocation, we asked the group for the reasons they avoid having difficult discussions at work, providing a framework for our debate ahead.
People noted a variety of reasons, from having to address poor work performance, to sensitive identity politics, to not having any confidence that having a tough conversation will result in any change at all.
While these all seem like “reasons” at first glance, they’re actually the conversations we’re trying to avoid, which illustrates how deeply we repress the cause behind our avoidance.
An attendee, for example, initially thought she avoided these types of conversations due to a perceived hierarchy (when there is none) but the real reason, when she dug a little deeper, was her own insecurities.
A quick and effective way to get to the core of a cause is to repeatedly ask “why?” until you are left with the real reason for your actions or lack thereof.
From this provocation, a natural debate followed where we discussed the deeper reasons behind dodging tough conversations as well as our own conflict styles, in pairs.
We used the Thomas-Killmann Conflict Mode Instrument to illustrate where our attendees fall on a scale based on assertiveness and cooperativeness.
The interesting insight that emerged from this exercise was that we all have a combination of different styles, however, most professionals agreed that they’d like to find themselves in the Collaborating block.
“When collaborating, an individual attempts to work with the other person to find a solution that fully satisfies the concerns of both.”
Next, we focused on our listening skills, because a key tenet of managing or resolving conflict actually relies on hearing the other party out, whether you agree or not.
In order to practice this skill, we had attendees pair up again and interview each other, uninterrupted, for 7 minutes about their limiting beliefs around conflict.
If this sounds like a long time to listen to someone without speaking, you’re not the only one who think so — an attendee, for example, asked why it was necessary to listen to the other for so long on end. The reason is that most times we are simply waiting for our turn to speak; while another’s voicing their views what we’re really doing, instead of listening, is formulating our response.
This obviously won’t do in resolving conflict and can do more damage than good, pushing you towards the Competing block on the Thomas-Killmann Conflict Mode Instrument.
The final exercise had us intentionally dig for disagreements and while this may seem counterintuitive, this type of activity actually serves to normalise good conflict.
Split into groups, attendees had to debate a topic and collectively choose a stance on it. Then, each person had the opportunity to play the devil’s advocate by sitting in a chair designated for this role, supporting an opposite or conflicting idea.
By allowing our attendees to have an opposing view, everyone expressed themselves clearly and others listened to what was being said, asking thoughtful questions instead of shouting their opinion.
This activity can be repeated in many ways where the chair assumes a different role each time, e.g. The Customer or The Optimist, exposing you to voices you might be missing in the conversation.
Closing off, our attendees expressed the need to delve even further into this topic at work, something so many of us struggle with on a day-to-day basis. With this interest in mind, we’ll be extending this theme around conflict at work and having tough conversations to our next event — stay tuned for the date!
If you’d like to continue this discussion online, please join our group on LinkedIN. To assist you, we’ve prepared a reading/listening list on the theme to get you thinking about this topic:
