Heatedly Arguing and Working Together Profitably
Anger doesn't have to ruin a professional relationship
Recently, two highly-successful professionals seriously disagreed with one another, hotly argued, which included name calling and yet afterward were reportedly ok with one another, at least as working partners.
One of them even said that, "I love winners and (name of the other person) has proven (that person again) wins — which helps ME win."
The question becomes is this a sustainable approach or does thorough work need to be done to prevent a fracture in the relationship that could poison or end it?
Professional Relationships: Arguing passionately yet respecting someone "enough" anyway and wanting to work together to greatly, mutually profit
“Part of being an adult is knowing how to play nice — but occasionally hard — in the sandbox,” says Bill Catlette, partner at Contented Cows, a firm that helps organizations develop a culture of leadership and employee engagement that builds their bottom line.
“No matter the titles involved, you respect others as professionals and humans. We do well to choose our words carefully, making sure that our frame of reference doesn't migrate from things professional to things that are personal — and when it's over, it's over.”
“You and the other person ultimately want the same things, your company to succeed,” says Brittany Betts, chief marketing officer at FloridaPanhandle.com. “You have to work with this person and you have to understand that just because there are a couple of heated debates, that doesn't mean that they don't care for you as an individual. It's business and things can get intense from time to time.”
“There’s nothing wrong with having disagreements with co-workers, even if they’re heated,” says David Lenihan, the CEO of Ponce Health Sciences University and the co-founder of Tiber Health. “The key is to not let these skirmishes become abusive or personally insulting.
“I find that interjecting humor into an intense discussion is really useful because it breaks the pressure and allows the other individual to take a breath and maybe even laugh.
“Focus on finding a solution and workable path forward in passionate interactions. Keep your eye on the goal and avoid gratuitous jabs that do nothing but cause unnecessary resentment, ill will and antipathy."
“I advocate for everyone, particularly leadership professionals, to learn conflict management skills,” says Kimberly Best, a conflict management expert, mediator, dispute resolution practitioner and the founder at Best Conflict Solutions.
“We can vehemently disagree and still remain respectful. We learn how to listen well, that is, listen to understand, listen for the underlying interests and needs.
“We learn to identify the problems to solve and not make the people the problem. We learn to find common goals and common ground and work together to find outcomes that are better than either your way or my way. These are tools that are transformative to communication, relationships and outcomes.”
“Heated conversations can be healthy when the parties share what they are feeling, as opposed to reacting angrily,” says Steve Lentini, an executive coach and management training expert affiliated with Positive Intelligence.
“It would sound something like this, ‘what you suggest has me feeling angry, disappointed, sad, whatever the feeling is, and I do agree with xxx and what I am angry about is xxxxx.
Or ‘I agree with this part of what you suggest and I suggest we add this xxxx.
Or ‘when you say xxxx, I notice it triggers me and I want to take some time to think about it and get back to you when I can share objectively… can we discuss this later today at 4?’”
This communicates something smart to the other person, he asserts,
“Parties that respect each other also set boundaries beforehand knowing they have strong opinions about a topic or challenge.
“‘I have strong opinions about this and I am sure you do as well… let’s agree to the goal of spending this time to solve the issue and listening to each other fully without interrupting and then objectively looking at each of our suggested solutions… How does that sound to you," Lentini recommends.
The quote, "I love winners and (name) has proven (the person) wins – which helps ME win,’ elicits different responses from observers. It’s not communication that “wows.”
“From a professional and personal standpoint, you are a team,” Betts says. “If one person wins, you all win. If one person makes a mistake, it reflects on all of you and all of you have made that mistake. You are either here to win together or lose together. I agree with that.
“You hold each other accountable, you communicate, you work with each other each day. Your end goals are aligned with hitting the company's overarching goals.”
It can be determined to be reckless.
"Gotta be honest here, I find that quote to be pretty stupid,” Lenihan says in disappointment. “Racking up short-term wins resulting from in-office battles may feel satisfying but if they don’t benefit the mission of the organization, then they’re useless and possibly damaging to the team. I’m more interested in seeing how someone pivots when they stumble…”
A lack of competencies can change how we view sharper-edged disputes.
“Objectively, without conflict management skills, we live in a world where we often see only 2 choices – your way or my way. The truth is there’s countless ways that lie between those two poles,” Best says.
“My favorite lesson about win-lose: ‘If I insist on winning, I have to make someone lose. If they insist on winning, they make me lose. Can we care enough to not make someone lose?’ No one likes to lose and it’s an unnecessary stress on relationships. There is always a way that there doesn’t have to be a loser.
“We know life to work better if we collaborate. When we think it’s them or us, we are thinking small, from a place of survival and scarcity. Data shows that when we make someone lose, there will be a price to pay.”
The challenge is navigate professional relationships professionally and skillfully to where they are not unhealthy and dangerous to ethics, outcomes, mental health and reputation.
“Understand the person that you have these debates with: get to know their triggers and their thought process and look at it from a different perspective,” Betts recommends. “Look at it from their shoes. Don't look at these situations too harshly.”
The reason being is that “It starts to become unhealthy if either party is genuinely hurt without apologies,” she adds.
Setting up clear rules together can prevent a lot of unwanted surprises and pain.
“Not unlike a cage match, it sometimes helps to privately agree on the rules for a particular discussion in advance,” Catlette says. “I've often suggested use of the acronym, PAC, for Point Absolutely Clear in tight, vigorous discussions.
“Out of respect for one another, if one of us feels that a line is being crossed, we can simply utter the acronym as a time-out whistle to change the nature of discourse. Then, it's up to both parties to be adults.”
It’s advisable, he points out, to occasionally include others.
“Such conversations are at times held in the presence of bystanders or other meeting attendees. Recognizing that there may be some fireworks in a particular discussion, it's sometimes beneficial for the jousting parties to remove themselves, have the argument in private and report out on the resolution at a later time.”
When the emotional heat is becoming overbearing, that too can be addressed.
“Sometimes it's necessary to fire a shot across someone's bow to interrupt verbal berating,” Catlette says, going on to provide an anecdote.
“I sat in a board room one morning with a well known founder-CEO and his senior team. Every fifteen minutes it seemed, the CEO was climbing down the throat of one particular senior vice president. On the fourth such public whipping, the SVP quietly packed up his meeting materials, put them in his briefcase, stood, donned his jacket, turned to the boss and said, ‘I'm too old and too rich to put up with this stuff’ and walked out. He stayed home cooling off for a day or two and then came back to work. The two were fine thereafter. I suspect there was an apology from the boss,’” Catlette remembers.
A different challenge can present itself when there is a power imbalance.
"This depends on where you sit in relation to the individuals,” Lenihan says.
“If you’re their subordinate, it’s difficult to navigate such skirmishes. The best way to survive them is to not take a side, even if you want to and to keep reminding the combatants of what the strategic end is and how team members could assist in achieving it. If there’s any mutually beneficial overlap between the two diverging POVs "(point of views), be sure to point this out.
“If you’re their superior, also remind the team members in question to stick to the strategic vision and offer your input to help them flesh out their paths forward. Then decide which option would be best for your organization.
“Be sure to explain why you made your choice. If possible, find a way to include elements of the option that you didn’t choose if they would enhance, strengthen, and optimize the one that you picked,” he says.
Being the boss of our better thinking increases the likelihood of moral, successful interactions.
“I talk about learning to program our minds and not believe our minds,” Lentini says. “Most people believe their thoughts and react.
“To train our minds, the first step is to observe who-and-what triggers us. When we learn to overcome the tendency to react by recognizing the repeated patterns, we can respond in a new way.”
The science shows this, he points out.
“Neuroscience researchers suggest that the more we prune old reactions we create space for something new to sprout, new neural pathways open up when we respond in a positive way to the people and events in our lives,” Lentini says.
It’s useful to remember that to maximize our well-being that including others in a positive manner in our efforts to solve our discontent is helpful.
“In all relationships it’s important to work to help others win and control our tendencies to want to be right,” Lentini says. “We forget that making others wrong is a monologue… the story we tell ourselves. A dialogue is defined as a jointly created reality. That is the goal I ask my clients to consider in all of their relationships.”
Personal development can build our capacity to be stronger within emotional disputes.
“Conflict management training transforms how we see people and how we treat people,” Best says. “It gives us options and skills that most of us have never learned.”
She details what those can come to be for us.
“We learn to communicate effectively. We learn problem-solving strategies and negotiation skills. We learn our tendencies and responsibilities in conflict. We learn assertiveness instead of aggression. We learn collaboration skills through empathy, adaptability and flexibility.”
This is invaluable and wise because of life’s reality.
“We will step on each other’s toes sometimes because we are human,” Best offers as a cold reminder. “Conflict management skills teach us to work through that and not be the cause of grudge build-ups, resentment or the start of a wall between us.
“The skills we learn will not only serve us well at work, but also in our personal relationships.”
Communication Intelligence, the Newsletter is an accompanying publication of Communication Intelligence magazine.
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