MANAGING DIFFICULT INTERACTIONS |
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Finding the Source of the Difficulty |
Use this worksheet to help you isolate the sources of difficult interactions you’re experiencing with someone at work. |
How does your perception of the situation differ from the other person’s? |
How might the other person’s motivations differ from yours? |
What do you find difficult about the other person’s work style? |
What do you find difficult about the other person’s communication style? |
Describe the issue at hand. What are your and the other person’s positions and interests regarding this issue? |
What experiential, cultural, or other differences may be contributing to the problem? |
Bottom line—what conclusions can you draw about the source of the difficulty? |
MANAGING DIFFICULT INTERACTIONS |
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Deciding Whether to Deal with a Difficult Interaction |
Use this worksheet to determine whether you should manage a difficult interaction or let it go. |
How would you characterize the importance of your relationship with this person? |
How will the difficult situation affect your ability to work with this person in the future? (Use a scale of 1–5, with 5 being the greatest impact) |
Not at all——————————————————————————Tremendously |
□ 1 □ 2 □ 3 □ 4 □ 5 |
If the two of you could successfully address the conflict, how much would it benefit your working relationship? (Use a scale of 1–5, with 5 being the greatest potential) |
No benefit————————————————————————Enormous benefit |
□ 1 □ 2 □ 3 □ 4 □ 5 |
How high are the stakes in your relationship with this person? |
□ High □ Medium □ Low |
Is your relationship with this person short term or long term? |
□ Short □ Long |
How likely is it that the relationship could be improved? (If one or both parties have deep emotional problems or a history of destructive behaviors with a wide range of people in many different situations, the relationship probably can’t be improved.) (Use a scale of 1–5, with 5 being most likely) |
Not likely at all—————————————————————————Very likely |
□ 1 □ 2 □ 3 □ 4 □ 5 |
What are the potential costs of addressing this difficult situation? |
What are the potential benefits of addressing the situation? |
Is the payoff worth the time commitment? |
□ Yes □ No |
MANAGING DIFFICULT INTERACTIONS | |
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Assessing Perceptions and Behavior During a Difficult Interaction | |
Use this assessment to define a difficult interaction from your perspective as well as from the other person’s perspective. | |
What is the situation? | |
What experiences, information, motivations, interests, and assumptions are causing you to see the situation that way? | |
How does the other person see the situation? | |
What experiences, information, motivations, interests, and assumptions are causing the other person to see the situation that way? | |
Difference | Resolution/Common Ground |
© 2004 by Harvard Business School Publishing. All rights reserved. Based on a tool created by Interaction Associates. |
MANAGING DIFFICULT INTERACTIONS | ||
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Discussing a Difficult Interaction | ||
Use this tool to assess how effectively you’ve discussed a difficult interaction with the other person involved. For each statement, indicate “yes” or “no.” | ||
During one or more interactions, the other person and I have ... | Yes | No |
1. Discussed our differing interests in the issue at hand. | ||
2. Acknowledged other differences, such as work or communication styles, motivations, perceptions about what’s critical, and experiential and cultural backgrounds. | ||
3. Agreed that we want to improve matters between us. | ||
4. Shared our impressions of what’s going on and the reasons behind our impressions. | ||
5. Described the feelings we’re experiencing as a result of our difficulties. | ||
6. Acknowledged concerns about self-image and meeting underlying needs that have cropped up because of the conflict. | ||
7. Acknowledged that no one is perfect and that everyone makes mistakes. | ||
8. Demonstrated active listening with one another—for instance, by asking questions, paraphrasing, and not interrupting. | ||
9. Resisted the urge to blame, accuse, or judge one another. | ||
10. Stated our individual contributions to the problem. | ||
11. Found ways to defuse intense emotions—for example, by taking breaks and then returning to the discussion. | ||
12. Framed the discussion in terms of differences, not character flaws. | ||
13. Focused on differing perceptions, not presumed truths. | ||
14. Worked to identify emotions hidden behind any accusations or judgments. | ||
15. Worked to remove barriers to our ability to deal with the difficulty—such as fear of conflict or the belief that the problem will resolve itself. | ||
On the basis of your responses, how effective would you say your interactions about the difficult interaction with the other person have been? | ||
Consider the statements to which you responded “no.” What actions might you take in a subsequent interaction with this person to improve your skills at managing the difficulty? | ||
MANAGING DIFFICULT INTERACTIONS |
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Creating a Plan for Change |
Use this worksheet to create a plan for addressing difficult interactions with a particular person at work. |
1. Describe the difficult situation. |
2. List the differences (in motivations, interests, work styles, and so forth) that have led to the conflict. |
3. List the potential solutions to the problem that you and the other person have discussed. Ask how well each proposed solution would satisfy both parties’ concerns and interests, even if partially. |
4. Select the one best solution. |
5. Clarify how you’ll implement the selected solution. |
6. Explain how you’ll measure success. (How will you and the other person know that the difficulty between you has been resolved?) |
7. Define ground rules for implementing the plan—for example, “Notify the other person several days ahead of time if we can’t make a scheduled meeting or discussion.” |
8. Clarify how you’ll communicate going forward. (Will you and the other person meet weekly to discuss progress on the plan? Will you check in with each other by e-mail periodically?) |
9. Describe how you’ll handle tensions or backsliding while implementing the plan, and how you’ll go about making needed revisions to the plan. |
MANAGING DIFFICULT INTERACTIONS | ||
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Resolving a Difficult Interaction Between Employees | ||
Use this worksheet to identify interemployee conflicts that merit intervention, to facilitate productive interactions between the individuals involved, and to identify strategies for coaching employees on better managing their difficult interactions. | ||
Part I. Deciding Whether to Intervene | ||
Statement | Yes | No |
1. The conflict is between an assertive employee and a timid person. | ||
2. The conflict is between two people of different rank. | ||
3. The conflict has broadened beyond the two people to encompass additional staff members. | ||
4. The conflict involves illegal conduct, such as sexual harassment or civil rights violations. | ||
5. The individuals involved aren’t aware that their difficulties are causing problems with productivity. | ||
6. The individuals involved are aware that their difficulties are causing problems, but they lack the ability to manage the difficulty themselves. | ||
If you answered “yes” to any of the above statements, you’ll need to intervene in the problem. Proceed to part II. | ||
Part II. Identifying People with Required Skills | ||
Date of interaction: | ||
Participants: | ||
Participant 1’s view of the problem (include feelings, motivations, interests, and underlying needs): | ||
Participant 2’s view of the problem (include feelings, motivations, interests, and underlying needs): | ||
Areas of agreement: | ||
Potential solutions (list how each alternative satisfies the disputants’ concerns and issues): | ||
Problem-resolution plan: | ||
Future meetings to check progress: | ||
Part III. Coaching Employees in Conflict Resolution | ||
Helping your employees to resolve a conflict is useful, but teaching them to manage difficult interactions themselves is even more useful. Below, identify how you will coach your direct reports to better handle difficult interactions themselves. | ||
Employee | Coaching Strategy | |
This section offers ten multiple-choice questions to help you identify your baseline knowledge of the essentials of managing difficult interactions. Answers to the questions are given at the end of the test.
Craumer, Martha. “Confrontation Without Conflict.” Harvard Management Communication Letter (June 2002).
Most of us are reluctant to confront a colleague about behavior that is distracting, unprofessional, or just plain rude. But avoiding the problem can affect morale and productivity. This article explains how to defuse potential workplace conflicts while they’re still manageable, and includes a sidebar on how to approach a difficult interaction.
Gary, Loren. “Becoming a Resonant Leader.” Harvard Management Update (July 2002).
After the events of 2001, leaders are being asked to act with greater integrity and to be more emotionally available to their employees. Leaders need to learn to adapt to this new work environment, using such tools as emotional intelligence, and to hone their ability to handle the emotional turbulence that comes with adaptive change.
Hackley, Susan. “When Life Gives You Lemons: How to Deal with Difficult People.” Negotiation (November 2004).
As William Ury, author of Getting Past No: Negotiating with Difficult People, explains, we all have to negotiate at times with difficult people. They might be stubborn, arrogant, hostile, greedy, or dishonest. Or they might be, for the most part, affable. But even ordinarily reasonable people can turn into opponents. For instance, your boss can be collaborative and understanding most of the time, but make unreasonable demands on a Friday afternoon. Learn how to turn your angst into approbation and get past “no.”
Harvard Business School Publishing. “Leading by Feel.” Harvard Business Review (January 2004).
Empathy, intuition, and self-awareness are essential to good leadership, but they can be tricky to hone and dangerous to use. In this article, eighteen leaders and scholars explore how to manage emotional intelligence.
Weeks, Holly. “Taking the Stress Out of Stressful Interactions.” Harvard Business Review OnPoint Enhanced Edition (March 2002).
Stressful interactions are unavoidable in life. In business, they can run the gamut from firing a subordinate to, curiously enough, receiving praise. But whatever the context, stressful interactions carry a heavy emotional load. Indeed, they cause such anxiety that most people simply avoid them. Yet it can be extremely costly to dodge issues, appease difficult people, and smooth over antagonisms; avoidance usually only worsens a problem or a relationship. Using vivid examples of the three basic stressful interactions that people bump up against most often in the workplace, the author explains how managers can improve those interactions unilaterally. To begin with, they should approach the situations with greater self-awareness. Awareness building is not about endless self-analysis; much of it simply involves making tacit knowledge about oneself more explicit. Knowing how you react in a stressful situation will teach you a lot about your trouble areas and can help you master stressful situations.
Weiss, Jeff, and Jonathan Hughes. “Want Collaboration? Accept—and Actively Manage—Conflict.” Harvard Business Review (March 2005).
The fact is, you can’t improve collaboration until you’ve addressed the issue of conflict. The authors offer six strategies for effectively managing conflict: devise and implement a common method for resolving conflict; provide people with criteria for making trade-offs; use the escalation of conflict as an opportunity for coaching; establish and enforce a requirement of joint escalation; ensure that managers resolve escalated conflicts directly with their counterparts; and make the process for escalated conflict resolution transparent. The first three strategies focus on the point of conflict; the second three focus on escalation of conflict up the management chain.
Goleman, Daniel, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee. Primal Leadership: Learning to Lead with Emotional Intelligence. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2004.
Drawing from decades of research within world-class organizations, the authors show that great leaders excel not just through skill and smarts, but by connecting with others using emotional intelligence (EI) competencies such as empathy and self-awareness.
Harvard Business School Publishing. Dealing with Difficult People. The Results-Driven Manager Series. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2004.
Concise, action-oriented, and packed with invaluable strategies and tools, this guide will help managers hone and polish skills for dealing with difficult people: avoiding conflicts and negativity, fostering positive behavior, and motivating underperformers.
Harvard Business School Publishing. Harvard Business Review Management Dilemmas: When Good People Behave Badly. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2004.
What would you do if one of your star performers mistreated other workers; your best manager “lost it” and humiliated a colleague in public; or a coworker began to exhibit strange, even frightening, behavior? This guide explores ways to handle a wide range of complex behavioral issues that affect employees and managers.
Rosenberg, Marshall B. Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life. Puddledancer Press, Encinitas, CA, 2005.
This book is a practical toolkit for helping people speak and listen to each other as allies, not adversaries. Rosenberg, a psychiarist, describes how we have grown up in a culture of violent and defensive communication, and that we can get back to what we truly want—connection—by learning the language of feelings and needs. This book is a both a call for nonviolence and a step-by-step guide along the path to caring for ourselves and each other as human beings.
Harvard Business School Publishing. Coaching for Results. Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing, 2000.
Understand and practice how to effectively coach others by mastering the five core skills necessary for successful coaching:
Through interactive role-playing, expert guidance, and activities for immediate application at work, this program helps you coach successfully by preparing, discussing, and following up in any situation.
Harvard Business School Publishing. Managing Difficult Interactions . Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing, 2001.
This program will help you understand why disagreements occur and help you build conclusions collaboratively. These productive dialogue skills will lead to a more accurate, shared understanding of the information exchanged in your daily interactions. Managing Difficult Interactions examines techniques for approaching and handling difficult business interactions. The program explores how mental models influence our private thinking and, thus, our behavior. It presents the Left-Hand Column exercise as a technique for unveiling and examining our internal thought process. It also examines five unproductive thinking habits that many people fall into during difficult interactions, and offers five productive alternative ways of thinking. By examining your own thinking habits and actively seeking more productive mind-sets, you can learn to approach difficult interactions with confidence, avoid blaming, overcome defensiveness, and make better business decisions.
Harvard Business School Publishing. Productive Business Dialogue. Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing, 2002.
This program shows managers how to craft interactions that are fact based, minimize defensiveness, and draw out the best thinking from everyone involved. Productive Business Dialogue introduces the Ladder of Inference, a tool that helps participants in a dialogue understand the distinctions among fact, interpretation, and conclusions; and how making these distinctions clear can dramatically enhance the productivity of meetings and discussions. Through interactive, real-world scenarios, you will practice shaping interactions that maximize learning and lead to better-informed decisions.
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