5

Stories that Stick

“We dance around in a ring and suppose
But the secret sits in the middle and knows.”

—Robert Frost

Not all behavior is innocent. Addicts, con artists, and individuals with personality and character disorders are very real. Sometimes employees, presidents, or accountants are cooking the books. Laws are broken, innocents are victimized.

To protect themselves and hold individuals accountable, organizations wisely create policies and procedures, performance development systems, investigation protocols, drug testing, written reviews, audits, exit interviews, 360 feedback, EEOC policies, expense reports, inclusivity training, written warnings, and so on. If policies or laws are violated, organizations need to act.

The news is full of stories that involve fraud, mistreatment, and deception. However, the attention these dramatic accounts receive in the media often prevents us from seeing that often our worst fears are not realized.

Let's look at the numbers. I have successfully resolved more than 300 conflicts—some involved dozens of people. Only twice was the situation not related to misunderstandings and hidden realities.

In the other 290-plus situations, there was a “baby in the back seat,” rather than malice, wholesale incompetence, or deceit. Consequently, I always enter conflict situations with the assumption that I am dealing with negative reciprocity, poor processes, lack of skill, system problems, or misperceptions. Until proven otherwise, I give people the benefit of the doubt, and it is seldom that they do not deserve it.

I have learned from experience to go down this path. However, most individuals don't have the advantage of seeing hundreds of conflicts through to resolution. Consequently, when a colleague or supervisor witnesses an individual behaving in irrational ways, most observers slip into First Assumption thinking.

The following stories illustrate the distorted realities that occur as individuals withdraw and speculate about the motives and reasons behind other people's behaviors. Perceptions based on speculation and assumptions are worse than useless. As we saw in Chapter Two, they become part of the problem because they draw others in to validate conclusions and feed indignation and fear. As individuals continue down the shaky pathway of negative assumptions, thinking becomes increasingly distorted.

The ubiquity of avoidance is truly a tragedy, because as the following stories show, once an individual learns the other party's hidden reasons, contempt usually transforms into compassion and a desire to connect.

The exasperated RN

A psychiatric nurse who attended a seminar came up to me on break and said, “Anna, your message is totally resonating with me. What you're saying reminds me of something I frequently experience at work. After I have a few days off and return to the unit, I look at the new patients standing in the halls or slouched in the lounge and think, ‘Look at them! They are pathetic! Can't they shape up and at least take some pride in their appearance?’

“Then I go into the office for report. During the meeting nurses who are ending their shift update those of us who are coming on. By the time the previous shift has finished telling us the background of the new patients, I am humbled by the amount of trauma many have endured and I am embarrassed by my previous judgments.

“I go back on the ward, and my disgust has turned into respect and awe. I am amazed that many of these individuals are functioning at all, and impressed by their tenacity and will.”

I have often thought about this nurse's words. They are a dramatic testimony to the fact that contempt is often the result of lack of information combined with negative speculation.

I have witnessed this many times when feuding parties come to the table and are stunned by the other party's hidden realities.

The shut-out employee

Several years ago I helped resolve a conflict between a supervisor, Joni, and her direct report, Ben. For several years, they had enjoyed a close working relationship and even attended each other's family weddings and graduations. However, during the six months prior to my arrival, they had withdrawn from each other. Both of them invested considerable energy in complaining to human resources and to Joni's boss about the other person's lack of cooperation. The HR director told me both individuals were feeling anxious, depressed, and mistreated.

In my interview with Ben, a fidgety, high-energy employee, he explained that their relationship began to deteriorate shortly after their organization moved into a new office building. At the time, Ben took several personal days to attend a family reunion. Unfortunately, his leave fell during the agency's busiest weeks. Ben feared that Joni, who had worked overtime to cover for Ben's time off, held his absence and his commitment to family against him. He knew that if this was correct, Joni was discriminating against him, but he feared he didn't have adequate evidence to prove his case.

In our interview, Ben told me that prior to the move he and Joni had shared an open workspace, but shortly after the move, Joni started to work with the door to her new office closed. Ben interpreted her new isolation as proof that she was becoming inaccessible and remote. As we know, there can be many possible reasons for her behavior. I encouraged Ben to inquire about her new habit the next time the three of us were together.

At our next meeting, Ben told Joni his fear that she had become aloof and withdrawn. He cited her closed door as “proof” of her unreasonable behavior. It was an astonishing moment. A look of disbelief flashed across Joni's face, and then she burst out laughing! Joni realized how ludicrous and distorted their standoff had become. She jumped up to show us what had actually happened.

Joni explained that when she moved into her new office, the door hung off plumb. When she arrived at work she would open the door and push it against the wall, but within a few minutes it would slowly swing half shut. She put in a maintenance report to have it fixed, but knew it would be added to the bottom of a long list of requests.

One morning, Joni opened her door, walked to her desk, picked up the papers she needed, turned around, and pow! Joni walked smack into the edge of the partially closed door. Rubbing her injured forehead, she decided to keep her door closed until maintenance could repair it. Unfortunately, this seemingly minor sequence of events happened at the same time Ben was feeling anxious about their relationship. He interpreted the closed door as proof that his supervisor was brooding about his inconvenient absence.

Ben had already taken the first steps of the nine stages of escalated conflict. First, he began to avoid Joni. Subsequently, his withdrawal limited the opportunities to find out the innocent reason behind Joni's behavior. Then through negative speculation, Ben started venting and recruiting support from his coworkers that Joni was an unreasonable, distant, and biased supervisor.

Joni noticed Ben's sudden coolness, and then more than one of Ben's coworkers told her about his campaign to discredit her reputation. Joni felt betrayed. Joni became increasingly more guarded in her interactions with Ben. As her warmth toward Ben waned, Ben interpreted her coolness as further evidence that his fears were correct. During the following weeks, they both continued to blame and obsess about the other person and enlist allies to support their views.

When I work with estranged employees, I first meet with each person alone to prepare an intensive, future-oriented conversation. Then the three of us sit down, and the two parties take turns presenting their concerns and reacting to each other's perceptions and requests. During our joint meeting, as Joni and Ben aired months of interpretations, assumptions, and speculations, the reasoning behind their behaviors became clear. By the end of our time together, it was clear that they could have avoided weeks of drama and angst if they had the courage and skills to talk to each other directly. This type of standoff—withdrawal, erroneous speculation, and recruitment of allies—occurs multiple times a day in almost all organizations.

Later in the book you'll learn to address sensitive issues in a way that is both safe and powerful. Never again will you have to worry what a person's behavior means. You will know how to open the dialogue and uncover the meaning behind other party's behaviors.

The missing supervisor

Sometimes the reason for puzzling behaviors turns out to be the opposite of what others assume.

I was working with an executive team at a high-tech manufacturing site when David, the VP of engineering, sought me out. He was at his wits' end over his lead supervisor's erratic behavior. Eddy had been a star performer for years, but lately he was coming to work looking haggard and unkempt. In addition, David was hearing complaints that Eddy had lengthy, unexplained absences from the floor.

Eddy's behavior was so enigmatic that rumors were circulating that he was using and perhaps dealing drugs. David began to fear the worst. He told me he had pleaded with Eddy, yelled at him, scolded him, and threatened to fire him. Nothing made a difference. Eddy remained tightlipped about his absences, and his puzzling behavior continued without a satisfying explanation.

David was desperate to find a resolution to the situation and asked if I would talk to him. Although I felt a little pessimistic that I would learn anything new, I told David I was willing to give it a try.

When I sat down with Eddy in a private room, he was evasive and cocky. But after chatting a bit about his work and personal life, he began to relax. I told him his colleagues and boss were concerned about his uncharacteristic behavior, and they were speculating about the cause. David was worried because Eddy had been his rock. I asked Eddy if there was some way we could alleviate David's apprehension. I gently warned him that without a quick turnaround, David would be forced to take disciplinary action.

Eddy and I discussed different ways we could handle confidentiality, and eventually, Eddy confided, “I'm being treated for hepatitis B. I haven't told anyone because people associate hepatitis B with dirty needles and illegal drugs. I'm embarrassed. I acquired the illness from a blood transfusion, but still, I don't want my condition known because it will just start rumors. I am a lead supervisor and should set a good example.

“The doctor told me the medication, which lasts for months, would make me violently ill. He advised me to take sick leave, but we're short staffed, and I want to be here. I can handle it most days, but sometimes I'm so nauseous that I have to find a remote place to sit down and rest.”

Eddy and I sat in silence for a few minutes. What had seemed like callous disregard for his crew and manager was really tenacious devotion. Eddy and I crafted a message for David that protected Eddy's privacy, but we were able to inform him that Eddy's absences from the floor had a legitimate cause, and would come to an end within a reasonable period of time.

When I met with David and shared the essence of what Eddy had told me, he was close to tears. I realized how deeply connected they were, and the depth of the respect and affection they had for each other was clear.

In public the two men were often crude toward each other, even a tad antagonistic, but when the chips were down, their commitment was unmistakable. Their mutual investment was evident in David's intense relief that Eddy would soon be back to his old self, and in Eddy's unwillingness to leave his boss shorthanded, despite his illness.

The brooding CEO

Peter was fairly late when he arrived at a public seminar. Then he spent the first ninety minutes oblivious to his surroundings. Instead of paying attention to what was going on in the session, he organized dozens of sticky notes in his calendar. Eventually, he finished his task, picked up his pen, and looked up. However, for the rest of the morning, he seemed only marginally attentive.

On break I learned that he was the CEO of a modest machine shop that was previously run by his father. Peter informed me that he had come to the seminar to learn something about conflict resolution, but he didn't say much more. I would learn later that he was truly a man of few words.

Two weeks after the seminar, Peter called me and asked if I'd give him feedback on a memo he had just written. I suspected that the memo was the tip of a very large iceberg, but I agreed to respond.

The memo was curt and to the point. Peter stated that shop employees started washing their hands before the bell rang for their fifteen-minute breaks. According to the memo, this was unacceptable, and the workers were to refrain immediately.

When Peter reached the end of the memo, he asked me what I thought. For a second I was tempted to assume there was something wrong with Peter. However, I canceled that thought and replaced it with an assumption that there must be a reason, a story, behind his odd behavior. I postponed giving my opinion of his memo and asked him a series of questions instead.

Peter had been CEO of the facility for six years. He had joined the company at his ailing father's urging, reluctantly leaving behind a lucrative job as CFO of another organization. At first, things had gone well; he started making improvements, and his rapport with the men had grown. But during contract negotiations, his forty-three shop workers unexpectedly went on strike.

After a three-week standoff, the workers settled and returned to work. However, Peter was furious. He started canceling the few simple pleasures that the crew had enjoyed for years. First he eliminated the doughnuts the company bought to celebrate birthdays. The next casualty was the company picnic. The letter he had just read to me was his third crackdown.

Peter was angry because every one of his contractions resulted in a pushback from the men, who matched his pettiness every step of the way. The workers prolonged smoke and bathroom breaks, ignored maintenance on the machines, and knowingly ran incorrect orders.

Without realizing it, Peter was engaged in the classic workplace power struggle where each side squares off, matches, and then “tops” the negative behavior of the other party. Behavior declines rapidly in these types of jostling matches. As we will see in Chapter Eight, reciprocity (the tendency to match another person's behavior for good or naught) is the most reliable predictor of human behavior.

At the end of our conversation I told Peter that, unfortunately, I didn't think his memo would help. I suggested that he and I work together to find the root cause of this standoff.

A few days later, I arrived at the plant. It was a run-down, dirty building filled with clutter and marred by neglect. Obviously no one paid much attention to working conditions. I would soon learn my assumption was dead wrong.

Peter took me on a tour. The further back we went into his facility, the more dilapidated the building became. In contrast to his fear that his workers were disloyal to him, I started getting the sense that they were one devoted, tenacious group of individuals who continued to show up for work despite the unpleasant working conditions.

After the tour, Peter gave me permission to interview eight of his crew individually and privately to hear their side of the story. One by one these proud and steadfast men sat on rickety stools in a barren office and told me why they were so unhappy.

When Peter's father had been president, the shop was like family to them. Over the years, they had found small but meaningful ways to take the tedium and monotony out of their day. They evolved into a gruff, tightly knit brotherhood.

However, since Peter had taken over, the financial health of the company had taken a significant downturn. There had been a freeze on salaries and pullbacks on benefits. After five years of stagnation, the men went on strike. When they settled the contract and returned to work they expected that Peter, like his father before him, would be standing at the door, welcoming them back and graciously relegating their tension to the past. Instead they discovered he had become a sullen, withdrawn, bitter man who cast a chill throughout the shop whenever he walked the floor.

The workers couldn't fathom his mood and resented his behavior. When they had gone on strike fifteen years earlier, the president had been pleased to see everyone back at work. The men felt they had exercised a legal right, played by the rules, and returned ready to make a go of it. Peter's behavior was unjust.

Only after I returned to Peter with a confidential (all the identifiers removed) summary of the operators' concerns did he reveal the rest of his story.

For the first time, his behavior made sense. I was humbled and touched by the hidden reality behind this quiet man. I learned what “baby” was hiding in the back seat.

However, if we were going to restore trust and communication, the rest of the crew needed to hear his rationale too. When I shared my reactions with Peter he agreed. The two of us hatched a plan.

The following week, Peter closed the plant at noon. Everyone gathered at the private dining room of a neighborhood restaurant that had been a place of celebration for company events in more affluent times. We shared a delicious (but uncomfortably quiet) meal, and when we finished, I asked the guys to help rearrange the furniture.

We put a table in the middle of the room, and the crew pulled their chairs in a circle around the table. Peter and his accountant sat on one side of the table, and across from them sat Steve, the union representative, and Lou, one of the more articulate operators.

After setting ground rules, I asked Steve and Lou to begin. I asked them to tell Peter what they had told me about how shocked they were about his recent behavior. The operator, union representative, and I had rehearsed their statement and it was respectful, void of assumptions, factual, and curious. True to his habits, Peter listened, but said very little.

Then it was Peter's turn. For the first time in their six years together, all forty-three shop workers saw a side of this enigmatic man that was unknown to them.

He talked about his early days at the shop, the camaraderie and friendly teasing he had enjoyed there as a kid, and how the experience had shaped his character and interests. For the first time he revealed the reluctance he felt about returning as CEO, and that his personal interests were overridden by a sense of duty to his father. Peter shared that his father would have had no retirement income if the plant closed.

Peter disclosed that the first thing he learned as CEO was that the economic repercussions from the first strike had been the reason his father never upgraded the facility. His father had owned a prime piece of property in an industrial park where he had planned to rebuild. However, after the first strike, his dad sold the land to make payroll.

When Peter became CEO, his long-term goal was to acquire enough equity to rebuild the crumbling facility. But he also learned that the company was precariously close to bankruptcy.

Throughout the next six years, Peter used every strategy he knew as a former CFO to turn the company around. He was nearing his goal and was preparing a mortgage application when the union president told him the men had voted to strike. His dream, and six years of struggles, went up in smoke.

Peter knew the loan officer would ask two questions: “Do you have a union?” and “Have they ever been on strike?” He knew that if he answered yes to the second question, his chances of getting a loan would vanish. Without a modern facility and new equipment, Peter knew the company would continue to struggle.

When he received the call from the union president, Peter felt betrayed that the crew had not done what they had in previous years: refuse the contract but continue to work.

As Peter explained the reasons for his frustration and disappointment, the room became totally still. The crew's anger and indignation were gone. What had previously seemed like his selfishness and brooding callousness was really unfailing devotion to the business.

Steve, the union representative, respectfully explained to Peter why they had made their decision. The operators had met on a Friday night to vote on the contract. The union president gave them two choices: either accept the contract or go on strike. It was Steve's first year as their company's union representative, and he was too green to realize they had a third option: to return to work without a signed contract and continue to negotiate. He took the union president at his word and encouraged the members to strike. Of course, the employees had no idea what was at stake.

The conversation in the restaurant was the first time they heard each other's reasoning. Everyone slouched in their chairs. The enemy evaporated. What remained was misconstrued loyalty, misunderstanding, and the tremendous sense of loss that comes when one realizes that their self-righteousness was not only unwarranted but had become the biggest barrier to resolution.

We took a break while everyone regrouped intellectually and emotionally. When they came back, we spent the next two hours brainstorming how Peter and the operators could address the chronic issues they needed to resolve in order to optimize their chances of success. For the first time in months, they were working together as a team.

I stayed in touch with Peter during the next few weeks, and then checked in every year or so, just to see how things were going. Together, his company created process improvement teams, and relationships between management and operators were at an all-time high. Peter's voice reflected the joy of working together in alignment, despite tremendous odds. Later he sent me a letter: “Thank you. You saved the relationships and probably the company.”

As these stories show, when we face frustration, we make an assumption. Either our aggravation is caused by someone's incompetence, our own idiocy, or there's a pressing constraint or pressure hidden from view.

When we move to the third option, we become curious, and only then are we emotionally primed to reach out and begin a conversation—perhaps the very conversation that will save your company or team.