It can be difficult to feel valued and respected at work when your perspective has been rejected by your co-workers or supervisors. Their listening becomes especially important when you’re passionate about an issue. Yet in the world of constant communication, they might sometimes be unable to process any more input. You might take that personally and shut down in your own ways.
Feeling heard and validated is a universal challenge that I attempt to address in my first book, DIY Conflict Resolution. It’s also a big part of the work we do here at Third Ear Conflict Resolution.
Based on transformative mediation techniques, our process asks you to make Seven Choices before engaging with the people you feel aren’t hearing you. Only after you’ve created space for a collaborative solution do we recommend moving to the Five Actions. If you try to resolve a dispute while you’re still emotionally-charged, for example, there’s a good chance that you will say something regrettable. At work, it could get you fired.
We think there’s a better way to work, and it involves creating employment as a partnership toward achieving mutually beneficial goals. You want a paycheck, benefits, and opportunities to contribute your skills and experiences to something meaningful. Your employer needs to generate enough income to give you, its customers, and the government what they demand. These do not have to be competing interests, although it does take a little extra mental effort to align them.
The Seven Choices
Our human brains often generate fear responses when what we don’t get what we expect. The world seems unsafe to our brains when we can’t predict what will happen. But our brains are also playing tricks on us. Even when we think the world is predictable and therefore safer, there will be surprises. We build resilience by being able to let go of what we thought would happen and accept what’s so:
- Forgive Yourself. Acknowledge conflicts as a part of the human experience. Shame and blame will only delay the resolution.
- Acknowledge Yourself. Recognize the proactive steps you’ve taken to address the conflict. Embrace your role in finding resolutions.
- Forgive the World. Understand that conflicts are inherent in our world. Release any resentment towards external factors.
- Free the Emotions. Allow emotions to surface without judgment. Embrace the therapeutic power of emotional release.
- Clear Your Mind. Cultivate mental clarity by detaching from preconceived notions. Approach conflicts with an open, unbiased mindset.
- Assume You Know Nothing. Adopt a humble stance, acknowledging there’s always more to learn. Open yourself to different perspectives.
- Listen with Your Third Ear (h-EAR-t). Hear beyond words, capturing the essence of emotions. Listen for the hurts you can heal, and heal the ones you can.
In short, when you choose to be open to others’ perspectives, yours are more likely to be considered.
The Five Actions
Open to a wider range of potential solutions to workplace issues, you will be more effective in finding one. That seems easy enough for most people to understand, but in our experience, it’s more difficult to implement. I developed this five-step action plan for that purpose.
- Define the Conflict. Simplify conflicts by completing the sentence: “__________ and I disagree about ______________________.” Focus on manageable issues, setting the groundwork for resolution.
- Identify the Interests. Explore each party’s thoughts, beliefs, wants, needs, and wishes. Uncover unmet expectations, laying the foundation for understanding.
- Play with the Possibilities. Evaluate expectations against current possibilities. Craft scenarios for ideal resolutions, fostering creative problem-solving.
- Create the Future. Develop actionable plans with specific, measurable, individualized, likable, and easy goals (SMILE). Empower individuals to initiate change from Day One, removing barriers to progress.
- Stay on PARR. Plan, act, revise, and repeat the process persistently. Overcome conflict by maintaining resilience and adaptability.
Regardless of your job title, if you want other people to consider your perspective at work, DIY Conflict Resolution can help. Make empowering choices, take effective actions, and help create more peaceful and productive workplaces so everyone has a better work experience. That’s what employment partnership is about.