Getting a Feeling for Working Conflict

Years ago I was giving a Friday evening public presentation about conflict at an urban university. I had been invited by a forming community, with whom I was going to be working over the weekend. They were using the occasion of my being in town to drum up interest in their group, and the woman organizing the event had a clipboard on which she was diligently capturing the names and contact information of the folks she didn't know.

In the minutes before we got started, she approached one unknown young man from behind and tapped him lightly on his shoulder to get his attention, for the purpose of getting him to register on the clipboard. The man startled at her touch, turned around abruptly, and glared at her with intensity. In the spur of the moment, the woman decided that perhaps she didn't need his contact information that badly and chose to back away.

At this point, I have just described the entire history of interaction between these two people. If there were any words exchanged, it was less than a sentence each way. Shortly after the woman retreated to her seat, I began my presentation—blissfully unaware that there was a storm brewing in the audience.

Ninety minutes later I was in the home stretch of my presentation, explaining how everyone has the option to work on conflict unilaterally. While most of the time we prefer (naturally) to be met by the other player(s) in a good-faith attempt to resolve conflict, I was pointing out the possibility and potency of working solo when the door to joint work is closed.

It was at this juncture—only three minutes away (I thought) from ending the talk and inviting everyone to regather in a nearby reception for punch and cookies—that the young man became quite agitated and blurted out that it wasn't easy to work through distress all on one's one. Surprised by his comment, I slowed down and offered something like:

"I apologize if I gave you the impression that it's a simple matter to look inward, explore dispassionately how well your reactions serve you and consider the possible advantages of changing your feelings. I actually think that's hard work—though profoundly worthwhile if you're willing."

I was hoping that I'd deftly addressed his agitation and that punch and cookies were just moments away. No such luck. Instead, his agitation escalated and he appeared to be on the verge of punching the organizer in her cookies! Yikes!

Replying to me, he lamented, "How can you do that work when you're under attack?" Rising from his seat, he quickly closed the distance between himself and the woman with the clipboard. Towering over her, he accosted her with, "This bitch abused me and I'm not going to let her get away with it!" Uh oh. I hadn't a clue where this rage came from.

The woman's husband, sitting on the other side of the room, protested, "You can't talk to her that way!" "The hell I can't!" came back.

Upset and confused, the audience was wondering: why had Laird arranged this tasteless dramatization to end the talk? Laird was wondering: what in heaven's name was going on?

• • •

This is Part II of a series on conflict. Today I'm going to make the case for the primacy of working with emotions when addressing conflict. I opened with this chaotic true-life story to showcase the points I want to make.

1. People in distress often express themselves in provocative ways
When a person is in serious distress (never mind how they got there; they're there) I've found it helpful to think of them as a drowning person—where all they can think about is getting oxygen. In their determination to get air, they may have little to no awareness about how they may be hurting others in their thrashing about, and observations about about their behavior fall on deaf ears. They want a helping hand, not reflections on their overhand crawl.

In my story, the young man was clearly in distress, yet the cause was not apparent. Worse, he was being abusive in his efforts to let everyone know that he'd been abused. Very messy. His experience was that the woman had been provocative; everyone else experienced him being provocative. In his urgency to get support he was, tragically, pushing everyone away.

Taking a deep breath, I knew what I had to do. Without knowing where the story would lead, I nonetheless knew that we needed to start with the young man's distress—not the secondary distress stirred up by the way he was expressing himself. So I walked up to him (I wanted him looking at me, not the woman) and tried to make contact: "You're really pissed off. You feel abused by this woman and you're outraged. Do I have that right?"

Almost immediately, the man started to deescalate (not all the way to calm and serene, but his voice register dropped and his breathing slowed). Essentially, people want to be held and even though I raised my energy to meet his, it is calming to be heard accurately and without judgment. Unlike the gas-on-the-fire response he had to those who were (understandably) objecting to his aggressive language with the woman, I was offering a life ring, and he gratefully accepted it.

While in most cases there's no mystery what triggers an emotional response, in this case I was clueless (and somewhat apprehensive of what would come out when I opened that door). Still, I needed to make sense of his response and I didn't yet have enough information, so I asked him what she'd done that was abusive. He replied that she'd tapped him on the shoulder, violating his body.

While I'm familiar with this potential response when a man touches a woman, it's rare to encounter this with the genders switched. As tapping someone on the shoulder seemed pretty innocuous, I needed more still. Carefully, I laid out that it seemed to me that he had a particularly strong response to a tap on the shoulder; could he say more about why that was abusive? He shared that his mother abused him as a child and that he's now, as an adult, hypersensitive to touch by women.

OK, now I could connect the dots. I didn't need to hear details about what his mother had actually done. It was enough for me to be able to recalibrate events through his lens. While tapping a shoulder lightly (especially a petite woman touching a taller, larger man) is going to be socially acceptable 99% of the time, this was the one percent where that assumption failed. Just as women have rights to determine appropriate boundaries of touch, so do men and the woman had made a mistake. While the unlikeliness of the man's response allowed me to have sympathy for the woman, that had nothing to do with the legitimacy of the man's emotional response. My #1 job in that situation was to validate the experience of the distressed.

2. One at a time
While I think groups should protect opportunities for everyone to be able to clear their distress relative to how the group's functioning, everyone can't go first and it doesn't work to have everyone go at the same time. It's generally best to start with the person who's the most upset and go from the there, with everyone getting a turn. (Note: it may not be that easy to tell who's in the greatest distress, because people vary so widely in how they display it. Just because someone is yelling and turning purple doesn't necessarily mean their upset is more severe than another person who shuts down and turns catatonic.)

That Friday evening, I started with the young man and stayed with him until he acknowledged that I had understood the essence of his experience. Then I asked him if it was OK to switch focus and offer the woman the same attention he'd just received. After getting his acceptance, that's what I did. She was shaking from being attacked and not sure what to do. She was shocked and dismayed by how badly her tap on the shoulder had landed.

3. Emotions first; stories second; context third; problem solving fourth
There's a sequence to working through conflict. Strong feelings are invariably linked with distortion (while there's considerable individual variation, the basic trend is that increased distress is associated with increased distortion), and that it's advisable to start with bridging to the distressed person's feelings. As the distortion will effectively undercut the efficacy of anything you attempt in the way of problem solving, it's paramount that you reduce the distortion before doing anything else. By this, I mean demonstrating to the distressed person's satisfaction that you have understood their emotional experience (first) in response to an event (second).

While these two steps can often be done simultaneously, so many people are uncomfortable or unfamiliar with emotional articulation that they'll avoid or bypass naming their feelings unless you're firm about the request.

After that, it often helps to set the context (what's at stake; why does it matter that the players repair their relationship?), followed by a request that each person make an effort to move toward the other by offering an olive branch. At this step, I'm looking for a measurable action that honors what the other person wants yet is completely within the values, ability, and personality of the person making the gesture. It's about reaching out, not selling out.

In the case of the Friday night fight, the two protagonists were ships passing in the night. While they had in common a curiosity about community and attendance at my lecture, they were not going to have an ongoing relationship—they had a fleeting relationship, not the more substantive connection of being in the same fleet. Thus, I settled for getting apologies both ways. The woman apologized for assuming permission to touch him, and the man recognized that the woman didn't mean to be abusive and apologized for being abusive in expressing his upset.

Then we went for punch and cookies.

The essential point that I'm making today is that you'll be far more successful in working conflict if you start with a focus on emotional experience—which approach can be effective even if the two people have almost no commitment to one another and you're taken wholly by surprise. At the end of the day, we all want to be held, and if you authentically contradict the isolation that people typically experience when in distress, you'll be well positioned to repair damage and to turn corners that stay turned.

Intimacy Redux—Encore on the Dance Floor

Yesterday I received this comment in response to my blog of last Wednesday, Not Getting Stepped on During the Dance of Intimacy:

I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on one area of asymmetry in the interaction that you described. Recognizing that your description is condensed, it struck me that Chris is shown to have made several choices and suggestions, generally aimed at meeting both personal needs and Pat's. When problems are voiced by Pat, Chris makes an effort to find a solution that might improve things for both of them.

Pat is described as protesting/criticizing Chris's choices, and demanding that Chris earn forgiveness. Pat is not shown as looking for mutual solutions. If Chris is lucky, s/he may be able to get back to a neutral position, in Pat's eyes.

I think this pattern is reasonably common (and in some couples, partners may exchange roles on different topics). I'd like to hear your thoughts on how to improve communication in relationships, where the couple usually begins working on a problem only after one partner makes it clear that the other partner is already in the doghouse.

I like this question. While I'm extrapolating beyond what I know about the couple that was modeling the Pat & Chris dynamic in Wednesday's blog (where Ma'ikwe & I were essentially playing the hand we were dealt), I agree that some couples do not start engaging on tough dynamics until reservations in the doghouse have been confirmed.

What can be done? In the example I gave three days ago, both Pat & Chris were in distress, and unhappy at how the other was responding. As this is typically the hardest dynamic to handle, let's assume that's the case. To borrow from Abbott & Costello, the opening challenge is who's on first? That is, who receives focused attention first?

When I teach facilitators how to work with fulminating conflict I suggest they start with who's bleeding the most, by which I mean who's in the greatest distress. In general, the person with most upset is the one who's least able to hear accurately what's being said and is the least able to reach out to the other. While I've found this works pretty well, there can be nuance to it. How, for example, do you compare the upset of someone who'd enraged and yelling, with the distress of someone who's clammed up and not speaking at all? Where does sarcasm and provocative goading fit in? The calculus on this can be tricky to compute.

If neither partner is willing to hit the pause button long enough to attend to the other's distress, it doesn't take a psychologist's perspicacity to predict gridlock. Then, on top of not getting the attention they're seeking, both protagonists are susceptible to having their upset compounded by a sense that their partner really doesn't care that much (or else they'd be willing to listen and try to help sort it out). In the presence of a patterned struggle to get attention (and let's face it, how many couples do you know that are good at this shit?) some learn the nasty habit of amping up their distress just to make sure that they get to go first. (I don't recommend this—if you want theatrics, I suggest a movie instead.)

The way out of this box canyon, I believe, is to have a conversation about the dynamic before you're in it, where the couple discusses what constructive responses might look like. In particular, I think each needs a guaranteed opportunity to tell their story—with the feelings clearly delineated—and you agree (this is important) to not switch over from Alphonse to Gaston until Alphonse is satisfied that Gaston has understood the heart of Alphonse's experience—both sequence and emotional response. This is not about Gaston agreeing with Alphonse; it's about accurately hearing Alphonse. Then Gaston gets a chance to be the teller, and Alphonse does the active listening.

Don't get drawn into a pissing contest about who's in the greatest distress. Just make your best guess and move on. The key here is constructive, reciprocal responses—not who gets to speak first.

Going back to Pat & Chris, in the dynamic we explored it was Pat who presented in the greatest distress, and thus it made sense to start there, with Chris setting aside their story to listen first to Pat. Because, in that instance, they weren't able to complete that part well (Pat was right back in distress when Chris proposed having a beer with someone else while waiting for the food to be prepared), they never got to the part where Pat listened to Chris' story.

While the stories and emotional responses may be wildly different (to the point where it's hard to believe that both were in the same room at the same time), this approach should lead to a significant deescalation, rendering attempts at problem solving much more tractable.

There are two main ways that I find this approach provides significant leverage on stuck dynamics. First, most of us are scared of working with strong emotions. Few have experienced it going well and we've mostly learned that it's dangerous. If you start to have better results, then it won't be so frightening and you can get off the merry-go-round earlier. In particular, you don't have to freak out that someone (your partner) is freaking out. I'm not talking about being cold or condescending; I'm talking about being curious and caring. I want your attention to be heightened when your partner is in distress, but not your blood pressure.

Second, I think it's helpful to let go of the expectation that people won't be triggered, or that their personalities will change to be less triggering for you. I think it's healthier (and far more realistic) to expect partners to continue to be triggered as they have in the past, and to focus instead on altered responses. This is not about anyone selling out or suddenly becoming a different person; it's about hanging in there and being emotionally available when your partner is hurting—knowing that you'll get a turn receiving attention in proportion to your giving it.

Dance with the one you're with, not the person you hope they'll become.

... But They Started It

A lot of my work as a process consultant is helping groups get out of the ditch, where there's interpersonal tensions among members and the group is at a loss about how to untangle the mess. Often, though not always, events follow a sequence like this:

Step 1) Person A (let's call them Adrian) says or does a thing that pisses off Person B (let's call them Jesse). It's typically an action that Jesse feels is egregious or a patterned behavior that is consistently inconsiderate or inappropriate. The offending action is viewed as something clearly over the line of acceptable behavior and Jesse feels disrespected.

Step 2) Jesse then responds from their place of hurt or outrage, which is meant either as an expression of their feelings or a quid pro quo push back that they believe Adrian deserves. Typically, Jesse will acknowledge that their response contains some bite (by which I mean, is not all bark), yet their view is that this is no worse than what Adrian has done to them.

Step 3) Not uncommonly, Adrian had not been aware of Jesse's upset (or at least not the full extent of it) and their first inkling is that something is amiss is the sting they experience from Jesse's response. Now Adrian's pissed that Jesse used a biting response to express upset rather than coming to them directly with it. That is, now Adrian feels disrespected, and we're off to the races.

While the above sequence is certainly not a one-size-fits-all description for how every conflict develops, it's nonetheless a story line that adequately describes a numbingly high percentage of them. What's interesting about this pattern is that both Adrian & Jesse have the story that the other person started it, and that somehow this affords them each a free pass to indulge in the escalating steps they've both subsequently taken. (Kind of like finding yourself in a car accident, and then not caring what damage is done by your vehicle once you've convinced yourself that it's the other person's fault—where is the compassion and sensibility in that?)

Amazingly, Adrian & Jesse's internal stories are both that they have been defending themselves from an unfair attack and disrespectful treatment. The good news is that once this has been pointed out, it tends to help calm everyone down (since it's easy to get all parties to agree that being attacked and treated disrespectfully is not what anyone wants to be doing or experiencing).

The key log here is getting Jesse to see the possibility that Adrian didn't intend their actions to be provocative. Essentially, this means getting Jesse to see how Adrian's actions were a reasonable choice from Adrian's perspective. That doesn't mean that Jesse has to like what Adrian did; only that Jesse can see how Adrain's actions can be explained without assigning Jesse bad intent.

Going the other way, you can ask Adrian to understand Jesse's response as having come from a person who was upset and felt attacked—rather than as the actions of a provocateur. If you can get them each to see how the precipitating actions in Steps 1 & 2 are explainable without assuming ill will, that should give you the breakthrough needed to get things unstuck—where you can start to work creatively and productively on how to handle things better in the future.

Of course, when working with groups, conflict doesn't always neatly sort into a nice clean dyad. Often there's a multi-car accident and you have to figure out where to start. Hint: just like an ER nurse, use the principles of triage to work first with the person who appears in the most distress and yet is still responsive to ministrations. Then work you're way around the room until the bleeding stops.

In the end it doesn't matter to me who started it. I want to know who's willing to end it.