What comes first? Resolve conflicts or create cooperation?
In the first meeting with management, I was asked to build a workshop that deals with conflicts within the team. The team is made up of professionals from different disciplines, and there are conflicts. Maybe simulations? They said, in short, do something that will help.
Beyond the content of what to do, the first question I asked myself was related to defining the essence of the workshop. True, for many years we have used this language in the field of organizational consulting and workshops, to mark the problems in order to solve them. This is how it is done in the world of management as well, and this is generally the language – there are conflicts, let’s do a workshop and it will solve it…
As someone who has been in the field for many years and sees that it is not really being resolved, I wonder about the focus conveyed through the title of the workshop to the participants. This title will create certain expectations even before the workshop, and it will also affect the energy with which the participants will enter the room and the process. When we inform the participants that this is a workshop for resolving conflicts or dealing with conflicts, they enter with all the conflict inside, feel threatened and attacked, or come to fight for their own. Some will say that this is good, maybe. As the saying goes, let’s touch on the painful problems and deal with them…. This is definitely a possibility if we really touch on the real problems, the ones below the surface, whose expression in reality is conflicts of this and that, but the essence… lies elsewhere. Power relations, intrigues and powers, distrust.
A different angle and a change of perspective in personal and group training
I come at this today from a slightly different angle. One that advocates that through the presence of goodness, quite a few problems and certainly conflicts are resolved.
My suggestion was, let’s work on connecting the team, getting to know each other better, each other’s needs, establishing better trust in the team. Let’s create a foundation for a different kind of discourse, more attentive, more open, about life itself. A discourse that is not concerned with being right, nor is it looking for the solution. A moment before, let’s connect the people.
It is clear to all of us that where there is more understanding and acceptance, there will be fewer conflicts, and even when there are, they will be dealt with quickly and to the point. In contrast to places where there is no connection between people, there is unspoken resentment and anger bubbling beneath the surface and coming out, among other things, under the guise of “principles” or “it’s not personal, it’s because it’s right,” “for the good of the system,” and the sentence that annoys me the most is “there’s nothing to be done, they won’t change anything.” Where listening expands out of a sincere desire to understand and act together, the team has a much greater chance of reducing the scope of conflicts. The possibility of understanding the other even if you don’t agree with them, the possibility of hearing additional voices without being trampled on or feeling that there is no room for it, is important and significant and allows the team to grow and develop towards more cooperation. And no less important, the number of conflicts is reduced, and even if there are some, people simply resolve them, as in life.
Did it work?
Here are some things that were said at the end of the meetings:
- The greatest importance is giving the entire team time to talk about the team, the relationships, the challenges, and the dilemmas, not about the customers.
- There is a great team here with good intentions, and for it to be better for all of us, we must continue to work on communication between us.
- The team is open to changes and new ways to do good. The meetings allowed me to get to know people I knew less about and less about from a more personal perspective.
- The time to talk is welcome. Perhaps it will be possible to continue this and give space to the team. Following the meetings, there is a chance that we will be able to talk more openly about the relationship in the future.
- The importance of language and the way we communicate, and the impact it has on what happens to us, is more understandable, and it is important to give it expression and attention.
- The meetings made it possible to see something else, it comes back to us, what we do for ourselves.
- The importance of a meeting place that includes everyone is also in the ability to transfer knowledge. Because in the current situation, communication is fragmented and things do not go through in their entirety, which causes difficult feelings. Such meetings greatly help with communication continuity and a better feeling for all of us. It is not always pleasant to ask what happened and to whom, which is why it is important.
- The importance and courage required of us as a team to show a little more vulnerability, and what this allows us to do and how it affects our relationships, was very significant in the meetings.
- The meetings allowed for some pause and reflection.
- The meetings allowed for interpersonal rapprochement within the team.
