No matter where you work or what level your role, conflicts on the job are pretty commonplace. Sometimes issues arise between teams. Sometimes an employee is upset with a manager. Sometimes there are disagreements between individuals who work closely together. So, if you’re a leader—whether you manage one person or a big team—it’s important to have some tactics ready for handling disputes.
And while any disagreement is going to have its own details or nuances, some aspects are universal. To find out the best way to smooth over clashes with one simple question, Parade spoke to Dr. Maurie Kelly, an instructor at the Harvard University Division of Continuing Education in Professional and Executive Development and an instructor in the graduate program at Penn State’s Smeal College of Business. Her work includes seminars and courses on complex negotiations, leadership development and conflict resolution.
Dr. Kelly shares with us a simple question that can defuse conflicts fast, along with some examples of workplace scenarios in which her eight-word question works. She also reveals some other tips for approaching disagreements and what to do when talking things through isn’t enough.
Even if you aren’t dealing with a workplace conflict right now or aren’t in a leadership position, these tips could also be insightful for other types of clashes you might come across in your life—whether with a friend or when you need to sort out an issue on your own.
Related: We Asked 4 Psychologists the One Phrase That Escalates Every Argument—They All Said the Same Thing
What Leaders Should Do Before Saying Anything in a Workplace Conflict
Before even trying to defuse the conflict, Dr. Kelly suggests leaders do something else first, and you might be able to guess what it is: listen.
“What I have found over the years is that when something is wrong and conflict occurs, people first and foremost want to be heard,” she explains. “So your first job isn’t to say something; your first job is to listen. Initially, what you will probably hear are positions: ‘I want this.’ ‘They did that.’ ‘This is what should happen.’ But those positions are usually masking something much more important: the underlying interests driving the conflict.”
Related: Want to Display Your Active Listening Skills? Try Using These 33 Powerful Phrases
A Simple Question: Why ‘What Matters Most to You in This Situation?’ Defuses Any Conflict Fast
After letting the person you are speaking with voice what happened and where they stand, it’s time to move the conversation forward with a simple question: “What matters most to you in this situation?”
“When you ask, ‘What matters most to you in this situation?’ you are trying to get beneath the position to discover what is really driving it,” Dr. Kelly tells Parade.
This means finding out more about why the person is upset or disappointed, as well as what they feel they are missing. Which leads us to…
Related: 7 ‘Sneaky’ Phrases People Use To ‘Sweep Conflict Under the Rug’
The Psychology Behind Conflict: The 5 ‘Core Concerns’
“Conflict often arises because something important to us isn’t being recognized,” Dr. Kelly states.
She points to the book Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate by Roger Fisher and Daniel Shapiro, which talks about five “core concerns” that “strongly influence how people react to one another.”
According to her, “Very often, one or more of these concerns is sitting underneath the conflict.”
They include:
Appreciation: Do I feel heard and valued? Affiliation: Do I feel like we are on the same team? Autonomy: Do I have some control over decisions that affect me? Status: Do I feel respected? Role: Do I feel that my role is meaningful and understood?How To Use the Question in 2 Common Workplace Scenarios
To see how “What matters most to you in this situation?” can be put into action, Dr. Kelly shares a couple of examples of workplace disagreements.
1. Two separate departments blame each other for issues with a project
In this example, two teams, Operations and Marketing, are having problems with a project and blaming each other: “Marketing says Operations is slowing everything down. Operations says Marketing keeps changing the requirements.”
Instead of a leader trying to determine which team is “right,” they can instead say to each group, “Help me understand what matters most to your team here.” In turn, they will likely be given two separate answers that are not actually in conflict with one another.
“Marketing may explain that they are under enormous pressure to meet a launch date. Operations may explain that they are worried that moving too quickly will affect quality and ultimately hurt customers,” Dr. Kelly explains. “Now we have something we can work with.”
Rather than the conversation being about blame, it’s now about how to “protect both the deadline and the quality of the product” with the goal being to “try to meet the needs of both sides fairly.”
2. An employee is upset after being passed over to lead a project
This example is about a conflict between an employee and a manager after the manager appoints someone else to take the lead on a project.
“The leader’s instinct may be to defend the decision by stating why the other person was a more appropriate choice,” Dr. Kelly states.
But rather than doing that, she suggests using a version of the key question and saying something like, “It seems like you are feeling frustrated. Help me understand what’s most important to you about this.”
“The employee may explain that it isn’t really about this one assignment. They’re worried that their career has stalled or that their contributions aren’t being recognized,” she goes on.
As you can see, these issues fall into the “core concerns.”
With the real issue out in the open, “the manager and employee can talk about recognition, professional development, and future opportunities instead of arguing about one decision that has already been made.”
Related: Leaders Who Haven’t Matured Emotionally Often Display These 6 Behaviors Without Realizing It, Psychologists Say
3 Other High-Impact Phrases Leaders Can Use To Defuse Conflict
When solving a dispute, Dr. Kelly says the goal is to get someone to move from a “reactive mode,” which means conflict and agitation, to a “reflective mode,” which allows for problem solving. Outside of using certain phrases, she emphasizes the importance of the tone in which the person attempting to defuse the conflict is speaking.
“When people are in conflict, they tend to speak faster and more intensely. Leaders often unconsciously match that energy and suddenly everyone is escalating. Do the opposite,” she urges. “Slow down. Lower your voice. Leave some space between thoughts. It’s surprisingly difficult to maintain a high level of intensity when the person you’re talking to is operating at half your speed and intensity.”
Once the tone of the conversation is in a place where progress can be made, leaders can try these phrases:
1. “Tell me more about what’s going on and how this is affecting you…”
This phrase is a clear way of showing curiosity about the other person’s needs, wants and feelings.
2. “What would a good outcome look like for you?”
This simple question puts the focus of the conversation on problem-solving when the time is right.
3. “Here’s what I’m hearing… Do I have that right?”
By asking this, leaders can make sure that they actually understand what they’re being told and let the employee know that they are being heard.
“You can also label the emotion you think you’re hearing: ‘It sounds like you’re feeling frustrated because you don’t feel you’ve been included in these decisions,'” Dr. Kelly says. “And give them a chance to respond. The important part is that you’re not telling someone how they feel. You’re checking your understanding and giving them an opportunity to correct you.”
“I think everyone just wants to know that they have been heard, they have had the chance to state their case, and there has been a meaningful discussion about it,” she adds. “Even when the final decision might not go their way, at least they had the chance to play a role in the situation and contributed their thoughts.”
Related: 11 Phrases To Use Instead of Automatically Agreeing With Someone—When You Actually Disagree, According to Psychologists
How To Handle Workplace Conflict When a Phrase Isn’t Enough
“Many workplace conflicts can be reduced when leaders intentionally create cultures that address the five ‘core concerns’ and regularly have interest-based conversations with their employees,” Dr. Kelly notes. “But sometimes talking isn’t enough. When the same conflict keeps resurfacing, leaders need to step back and ask whether the conflict they’re seeing is actually the problem or a symptom of something deeper.”
She suggests a tool she learned from author and negotiation expert William Ury called “going to the balcony.”
“Imagine that instead of standing on the stage in the middle of the conflict, you move up to the balcony of the theater and look down at everything happening below,” she explains. “You can see the people, relationships, pressures and patterns that are difficult to recognize when you’re standing in the middle of them.”
“From the balcony, a leader can ask: What is the core problem at hand in this situation?” she continues. “Is it bad communication, people feeling disrespected or excluded, unclear expectations, under-defined roles and responsibilities or are our organizational processes or culture contributing to the conflict?”
Leaders also may need to look inward and ask themselves, “What am I contributing to this situation?”
Outside of talking through it and using these tools, sometimes other types of help are needed. Jobs “may need to provide additional training, coach employees individually, or bring in a neutral facilitator to help resolve a particularly difficult conflict.”
“The goal isn’t to eliminate conflict. Healthy organizations have disagreement. In fact, disagreement can lead to better ideas and better decisions,” Dr. Kelly states. “The goal is to create an environment where people can disagree productively without damaging relationships.”
On top of that, she adds: “There is a longer-term benefit to handling conflict by using these tools and approaches: You aren’t just helping people resolve the problem in front of them—you are modeling and teaching them how to handle the next one.”
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Related: Psychologist Says the 1 Phrase That Instantly Shuts Down a Confrontational Person Isn’t What You Might Think
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Dr. Maurie Kelly is an instructor at the Harvard University Division of Continuing Education in Professional and Executive Development and an instructor in the graduate program at Penn State’s Smeal College of Business. Her work includes seminars and courses on complex negotiations, leadership development and conflict resolution.Hence then, the article about the simple question that leaders use to defuse any conflict fast was published today ( ) and is available on Parade ( Saudi Arabia ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
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