Workplace Conflict and Work From Home
While employees are beginning to return to the office, it’s a gradual rollout. Workplace conflict and tension remain rampant in the virtual workplace and work from home (WFH) environment, according to Jennifer Pieniazek in The Blow-By-Blow on Remote Work Conflict. Contributing factors include uncertainty, Zoom fatigue, and challenges balancing/separating work and home life, and especially isolation. “Months of social distancing have fueled a collective emotional rollercoaster of anxiety, stress, frustration, and fear,” says Christine Liu, in a revealing piece published in the Harvard Business Review.
Evidence from a study spanning nine industrialized nations shows that even before the pandemic and today’s virtual work environment, conflict was already triggering a waste or loss of work time of 2.5 hours per employee per week in a typical workplace.
Why the escalation in the virtual workplace?
The root cause of rising temperatures in the virtual workplace begins in the traditional office. In “The Collaborative Path” I describe how, by default, we use a debate-style model for conversations. This approach typically uses four steps that we associate with problem-solving and decision-making:
- Narrow a situation to a couple of options;
- Argue the pros and cons of each;
- Evaluate each thought and idea as soon as they’re expressed;
- Persuade/choose/decide on one solution or the other, arriving at a win/lose outcome.
This approach undermines productivity and harmonious work relationships. And it triggers conflict rather than preventing it.
That old debate approach requires early identification of the two sides and faith that one of them is the “right” decision. Its focus is on the solution, not the participants: the relationship is a marginal concern at most. When I say it’s our default, I don’t mean just for decision-making and problem-solving. This model has become the foundation of everyday conversations as well. That’s why we hear “but” or “however” within the first few words in so many exchanges. It’s why we continue to see low levels of listening to learn and high rates of listening to respond. This model (which I label “adjudicative”) is so ingrained in our society that it’s totally invisible.
Because the debate approach has always been our default and some have worked virtually for years without tensions rising to a crescendo, its connection with increasing workplace conflict is easy to miss even for astute leaders and managers.
Pre-COVID, the virtual office was mostly comprised of individuals or small groups distant from a center, hub, or headquarters. Even when working from home, the employee had regular access to personal socialization and human interaction. Periodically and routinely, they would be physically present in the traditional office. That interaction kept employees in touch with each other and their common humanity. The level of isolation is clearly higher in a COVID world.
Pre-COVID, fraught conversations were tempered by face-to-face contact which kept the human relationship element between participants alive. In a purely virtual world, the harsh, cold effects of this model are on full display without any mitigation or tempering. When people don’t have face-to-face interaction, the absence of any genuine relationship escalates the tension. It’s the equivalent of having an argument entirely on email and expecting the relationship to improve. We know how that scenario ends! In effect, the virtual office is exposing the inherent weakness of the debate-style approach which has always been there, just veiled. Workplace temperatures are rising, and our use of this old model for conversations, problem-solving and decision-making is a significant, yet invisible, factor.
With the vaccinations rolling out and a ‘new normal’ evolving, can managers safely assume these impacts are likely to be alleviated by a return to physical offices? Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. In fact, it’s quite likely that when you re-integrate your staff, increased tension and decreased trust will surface.
To illustrate this prediction, let’s examine the typical use and impact of team-building activities and exercises. These are often used when the group dynamic is significantly stressed. When deployed in this scenario, these activities actually decrease trust, not strengthen it. Trust didn’t deteriorate within the group in a day or an afternoon. Whether it wore down from repeated debate-style conversations or for other reasons, by the time team-building is offered, the participants experience it as artificial and disingenuous. Participants who were clashing with each other in the weeks before are now trying to be extra polite because that’s the leadership’s expectation. Often those exercises are superficial because they can’t address the core problems.
Transpose that example to a post-COVID scenario where months of cold, task-focused interactions have taken their toll on relationships. If team-building gatherings and socialization efforts were to be attempted in this atmosphere, there’s a strong likelihood that such efforts will equally be perceived as artificial and superficial. Suspicions, wounds and mistrust will flare. This reaction will be typical: “Why is Paul being so nice now, when he shot down my three ideas on the video call last week?” muses Kate.
How to fix the rising workplace temperatures
I offer a couple of pathways, one shorter term, one longer-term. The shorter-term one rests in starting with the values of the individuals and using them to connect with their common humanity. I refer to this simple exercise as the “Values College.” It’s easy to learn, easy to use and doesn’t require an expert to facilitate it, although a trained facilitator makes it easier.
Here are the step-by-step instructions for conducting the Values Collage exercise with your team:
- Bring everyone together in an area with chairs arranged in a circle.
- Give each person a large index card and a marker (more colors of both make it a better visual.)
- Introduce the exercise as an opportunity to reconnect after an extended period of isolation, using the individual values we bring to work and sharing those with others.
- Say something like: “Write on your index card the value you hold most dear in your workplace. Let’s take five minutes to reflect and write on the cards. Then, you each will have an opportunity to talk about what makes it significant to you. When you are done, put your marker down.”
- Then, in a round, ask someone to start and continue in either direction from there until everyone has spoken. (I often will use a “Pass” if someone is not ready, ensuring to return to each who has passed once others have spoken.)
- After everyone has spoken, have them affix the index cards to a blank wall space – either sequence works. Place a caption over it on a pre-prepared banner “Our Shared Values”, “Our Values Collage”, or something like that – no magic exists in the caption. Leave them up on the wall.
- Wrap it up by drawing the team’s attention to the connection between their values, and end with a remark about how the virtual existence during COVID makes it easy for us to lose sight of our connections. Express appreciation for their contribution to the conversation to reconnect as we reintegrate into the new norm.
Having completed this exercise, if you want to use some space for a coffee or a break for social interaction, the individuals in the group are far more likely to feel connected, to remember their common humanity, and to remember the values that unite them.
Why values? Because it’s pretty much impossible to speak of one’s core value without speaking from the heart. Listening to someone speak of their core value is engaging. Speaking from the heart connects us at a deep level. Sincerity overpowers suspicion. Values pull people up from mere existence toward aspirations for a better future. Values intertwine with other values and their resonating quality engages each who listens. I’ve used this exercise effectively in group workplace restorative processes where employees and their managers had become entirely disconnected on a human level. It’s tried and true.
What About the Long Term?
The longer-term pathway is to address the use of the debate-style conversation model in your workplace. Why not experiment with the collaborative model now? The first step is to explore the impacts of the adjudicative model and to consider whether there are advantages to shifting toward the collaborative one. Search out resources and tools for increasing collaboration at the interpersonal conversation level – not as an IT app or platform. What does the evidence and literature indicate about how to strengthen conversations? There’s lots of it out there and you can easily incorporate it into your management patterns.
If we continue to use the adjudicative model, we’ll continue to get what we’ve been getting: escalating tension and lots of productive time being wasted. Workplace temperatures are rising, and you can have an immediate positive impact by using the Values Collage exercise as a start. If you fully adopt the collaborative method, you can bank on stronger professional relationships, increased effectiveness and efficiency, and building a team that works together toward optimal solutions.
About the Author
Patrick Aylward recently authored The Collaborative Path: 6 Steps for Better Communication, Problem-Solving, and Decision-Making Hardcover. His career spans roles as a litigation lawyer, arbitrator, mediator, policy analyst, project manager and conflict management consultant. His focus is on creating a global culture of collaboration.