Organizations wisely create policies and procedures, including performance management systems, drug testing, written reviews, audits, exit interviews, 360 feedback, EEO policies, expense reports, and written warnings to set standards and hold people to them. If policies or laws are being violated, organizations need to act.

The media is full of stories involving fraud 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’ve resolved more than 120 very complex conflicts—some involving hundreds of people. Only twice was the situation not related to misunderstandings and hidden realities. In both of those cases the tension was the result of serious performance and ethical issues.

(In situations where one person is behaving in ways that harm others, and the individual can’t change, or chooses not to, I report my findings to my client and withdraw as a consultant. I recommend that the organization either goes forward with a coach who is also a clinical psychologist, or that the client uses his or her performance management process to begin leveling consequences for the offending behavior.)

In the other 118 situations there was a “baby in the backseat,” not malice, wholesale incompetence, or deceit. Therefore, I always enter conflict situations with the assumption that I’m dealing with negative reciprocity, rumors, system problems, and misperceptions. Until proven otherwise I give people the benefit of the doubt, and it’s seldom that they didn’t deserve it.

I’ve learned to behave this way from experience. However, most individuals don’t have the advantage of seeing scores of conflicts through to resolution. Consequently, when a colleague or supervisor witnesses an individual behaving in ways that seem irrational, most observers slip into blame-based problem-solving and searching for stupidity.

Almost always, the next step is subtle avoidance, followed by the modern attack behaviors. These two steps doom the chances of resolution. Like Ted and Rhonda from Chapter Two, if I’m avoiding the other person and undermining his or her reputation, the possibility of dialogue and problem resolution is nil. I never learn about the hidden constraints or pressures behind the other party’s behavior. Either one of us leaves the organization, or we declare a permanent stony “truce.”

The following stories illustrate the distorted realities that occur as people withdraw and speculate about the motives and the reasons behind other people’s reactions. Perceptions based on speculation and assumptions are worse than useless. They become part of the problem by drawing others in to validate the conclusion, and by feeding indignation and fear. People continue down their cloak-and-dagger path and their thinking becomes increasingly distorted as time passes.

This void of information is truly a tragedy, because as these stories show, once an individual learns the other party’s hidden reasons, contempt usually transforms into compassion and a desire to help.

A psychiatric nurse who attended one of my seminars came up to me on break and said, “Anna, I can’t overstate the truth of your message. What you’re saying reminds me of something I frequently experience at work. After I’ve had 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 these people! 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 this 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 of the patients have endured, and 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 the patients are functioning at all, and I’m 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 ignorance. I’ve witnessed this many times when I’ve brought feuding parties to the table and watched as they’ve heard each other’s hidden realities for the first time.

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, even attending 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 had 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 that Ben and Joni were both feeling anxious, depressed, and victimized by each other.

In my interview with Ben, a fidgety, high-energy employee, he explained that their relationship began to deteriorate shortly after their agency moved into a new office building. At the time, Ben had taken several personal days off to attend a family reunion. Unfortunately, his leave fell during the agency’s busiest weeks. Ben feared that Joni, who worked overtime to make up 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 shortly after the move to the new facility, Joni began working in her office with the door closed. Prior to the move they had shared an open work space. Ben interpreted her new isolation as proof that she was becoming inaccessible and remote. I knew there were many possible reasons for her behavior and asked Ben to inquire about her new habit at our next three-way meeting.

At our next meeting Ben told Joni his interpretation that she had become unfriendly and had withdrawn. He cited her closed door as “proof” of her unreasonable behavior. It was an astonishing moment. A look of disbelief crossed 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 it 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 she knew it would be added to the bottom of a long list of move-related requests.

One morning, Joni opened her door; walked to her desk, picked up the papers she needed for her meeting, turned and POW! Joni walked smack into the edge of her partially closed door. Rubbing her sore 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 had become concerned about their working relationship. He interpreted the closed door as proof that his supervisor was brooding and his career was unjustly doomed.

Ben also made two common mistakes in his interactions with Joni and his coworkers. First, he began to avoid contact with her. His withdrawal limited his opportunities to find out the innocent reason behind her behavior. Second, he started recruiting support from his coworkers and peers that Joni was an unreasonable, distant, and biased supervisor.

Joni noticed Ben’s sudden coolness, and when several of Ben’s coworkers told her about Ben’s campaign to discredit her reputation, she felt betrayed. As a result she became increasingly more guarded in her interactions with Ben. As her warmth toward Ben cooled, he panicked. During the subsequent weeks each of them continued to blame and obsess about the other person, and recruit allies to support their views.

Joni, Ben, and I participated in a series of brief meetings where they listened and reacted to each other’s history of inaccurate perceptions. Months of interpretations, assumptions, and speculations were aired, and the reasons behind their behaviors became clear. By the end of our third meeting it was clear that they could have avoided weeks of unnecessary drama and anxiety if they had had the courage and skills to talk to each other directly.

This type of standoff, based on withdrawal—and its twin—erroneous speculation—is not unusual. When tensions increase, the most commonly cited reason individuals do not reach out to each other is the fear that any contact will make the situation worse.

In Chapter Nine 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. Rather than resorting to uninformed and inaccurate speculations, you will know how to ask the other party for help in understanding his or her behavior.

If we respond to frustration with anger and self-righteousness, not only will we frequently misinterpret behavior, we won’t consider that we might be part of the problem. We’ll assume that we feel frustrated because we’re stuck in a chaotic, insane world full of aliens and idiots, and seldom link our irritable mood to our own behaviors. We will overlook possible causes of a situation, and thus overlook potential solutions.

Recently, a participant in a seminar told me a hilarious story that clearly makes this point. Her best friend’s husband, Roger, hates to fly, and on a recent business trip his dread was exacerbated when he learned that all the aisle seats were taken. He reluctantly flopped himself in the middle seat. Minutes later, he groaned silently when his in-flight neighbor turned out to be a very large person, who couldn’t help but take up some of Roger’s precious space. Resigned to a miserable flight, Roger buried himself in a book.

Not long after takeoff, Roger began getting whiffs of a terrible odor. This was too much—his neighbor STUNK! Roger finished the flight in a foul mood and stormed through the terminal flooded with self-pity and indignation. Stomping toward a cab, he thrust his hands into the pocket of his coat.

“Hmmm, what is this?” he wondered. To his embarrassment and chagrin he pulled out the plastic bag (and its contents) that he had used that morning when he had walked his dog in the neighborhood park!

Many times negative speculation is humbling and embarrassing when the real reason for someone’s odd behavior is revealed. A client told me the following story:

“I was attending an awards banquet when I noticed a man come into the hall with a very beautiful woman.

“Throughout the evening the couple stayed locked together and several people at my table commented on how they were ‘attached at the hip.’ Their close physical proximity seemed to take a ludicrous turn when he went up to the podium to receive an award and his stunning companion accompanied him!

“Several of us rolled our eyes and nudged each other. However, a few seconds later, our ridicule turned into mortification when the recipient passed our table and we realized he was blind.”

Sometimes the actual reason for puzzling behavior turns out to be the opposite of what people 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 wit’s end over a lead supervisor’s erratic behavior. Eddy had been a star performer for many 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.

Rumors were circulating that Eddy was using and dealing drugs, and David began to fear the worst. David told me he had pleaded with Eddy, yelled at him, scolded him, and threatened to fire him. Nothing had made a difference. Eddy remained tight-lipped, and his enigmatic behavior continued without a satisfying explanation.

David was desperate to find a way to resolve the situation, and asked if I’d talk to the tight-lipped supervisor. I told David that I might not be any more successful than he had been in learning the causes of Eddy’s behavior, but I was certainly willing to meet with him.

At first, Eddy was evasive and cocky. Eventually he began to relax and he became more straightforward. I told him many people were concerned about his uncharacteristic behavior and they were speculating about the cause. I told him about David’s concern and asked if there was some way we could alleviate his apprehension. I shared my concern that without a quick turnaround, David would be forced to take a disciplinary action against Eddy, even though David dreaded the thought that he would have to reprimand one of his most senior star performers.

Eventually, Eddy revealed his hidden reality. “I’m being treated for Hepatitis B,” he admitted, “which I contracted from a blood transfusion last year. I haven’t told anyone because most people get Hepatitis B from dirty needles while taking illegal drugs.” I sat quietly waiting for Eddy to go on.

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

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. We found a way to protect his privacy and let David know that his absences from the floor had a legitimate cause, which would soon be coming to an end. When I met with David and shared the information Eddy had given me permission to release, David was close to tears. I realized that these two tough and burly men were actually deeply bonded and had tremendous respect and affection for each other.

Despite the fact that their public behavior was often crude, even antagonistic, when the chips were down, their commitment to each other was unmistakable. I could see their mutual appreciation for each other in David’s profound relief that his employee would soon be back to normal and in Eddy’s unwillingness to leave his boss short-handed.

This level of commitment to work and people is not uncommon. Over and over I’ve found that defensive or aggressive people aren’t necessarily acting out of malice when they misbehave. They have been hurt. They have concluded that their opinions, commitment, or trust has been unappreciated or misused, and the resulting pain is expressed as cynicism and bitterness.

The following is another story of loyalty, misconstrued as selfcenteredness.

Sharon, a warm and highly competent human resource director, asked me to resolve a simmering and costly conflict between the managers and workers of a large coal burning power plant. During private interviews with executive team members they told me that relationships between management and crew were at an all-time low.

As evidence, they cited long and protracted contract negotiations; the fact that shortly after negotiations concluded the CFO’s car was vandalized in the parking lot; the lack of plant attendance at their monthly all-staff meetings; and most recently, the discovery that a large generator had been found running, drained of oil. If the generator had seized and overheated in their old plant, which was filled with coal dust and ancient wooden beams, the results could have been catastrophic. The last discovery had chilled management to the bone.

The executive team was mystified and offended by the disloyalty shown by the plant operators and responded by withdrawing. They felt the operators were hiding the perpetrator of the drained generator, and in retaliation for their hostility, the top administrators began canceling the social events where the shop and office staff had traditionally mingled.

I set up a series of one-on-one, confidential interviews with a cross-section of plant operators, and their hidden reality began to emerge. The operators agreed that the contract negotiations had dragged on painfully. However, in contrast to the assumptions of the executive team, almost all of the operators expressed satisfaction with the final results. The crew was concerned when they heard about the keying of the CFO’s car, but they were insulted that management assumed it had been an act of operator retaliation because his car was parked in a public lot.

However, the biggest contrast to manager’s assumptions was their reactions to the drained generator. The operators told me privately that they weren’t hiding the perpetrator, they were afraid of him. Although several of the men had suspicions about who had drained the generator, they had no proof, and they were disappointed that management hadn’t done more to identify the perpetrator.

More than one operator pointed out a glaring inconsistency in the management team’s speculations: if the generator had overheated and started to burn, the people most at risk would be the operators, not the office staff.

When I met with the CEO and CFO to give them a summary of the interviews, they were incredulous, slightly embarrassed, and similar to David and Eddy from the previous example, flooded with relief.

I set up a series of face-to-face meetings between members of the executive team and the plant supervisors, which became frank, and often startling, discussions. During the next few meetings we resolved many long-standing issues that had driven wedges between the two groups. The CEO assured the plant workers that their safety was critically important, apologized for underreacting to the drained generator, initiated a formal investigation, and took steps to provide more security.

As I wrapped up my work, I was aware that the energy of indignation had blocked curiosity, sparked inaccurate speculation, and short-circuited the natural desire for connection and understanding.

These stories are moving, but not uncommon. We’ll cover a few simple skills in Chapter Nine that will allow you to reach out and find what’s on the other side of withdrawal, anger, or hostility. With respect and humility you will earn the privilege of glimpsing other people’s realities that are currently out of view.

A client e-mailed me the following story after attending one of my seminars:

“I work as a professional photographer and I agreed to photograph weddings only reluctantly, because they are the most difficult and complex assignments I receive.

“On the wedding day, despite our hard work and planning, one shot after another was being ruined by the scowling father of the bride. My anger was increasing with every frame, and I started resenting his obvious disapproval. I kept thinking, ‘What is his problem? Maybe he opposes the wedding or dislikes his new son-in-law, but can’t he slap on a happy face for his daughter’s wedding? He can complain about her poor choice of husbands later.’

“I almost said something to the father, but fortunately I held my tongue. A few weeks later I found out from a mutual acquaintance that the bride’s father had died from cancer. It turned out that his illness had been causing him a great deal of pain—hence, the frowns. The father had begged his doctor to discharge him from the hospital long enough to walk his beautiful, grieving daughter down the aisle, but he had been unable to completely mask his pain.

“When I heard the rest of the story I was touched by the devotion and love of the family, and learned an important lesson about the futility of judging others.”

Although there are many additional stories from my work, I’ll close with the following. It’s another story of devotion, which was misinterpreted by the uninformed.

Butch arrived late at a public seminar and spent the first hour and a half oblivious to the material. Instead of paying attention he organized dozens of Post-it notes in his calendar. Eventually, he finished his task, picked up his pen, and started participating. However, throughout the morning he only seemed marginally attentive.

On break I approached him and learned that he was the CEO of “Stamp-It,” a small machine shop that had previously been run by his father. Butch 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 Butch called me and asked if I’d give him feedback on a memo. 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, of course. In it Butch stated that shop employees had begun washing their hands before the bell rang for their 15-minute break. This, according to the memo, was unacceptable and the workers were to refrain immediately.

When Butch 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 Butch. However, I assumed 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.

Butch had been CEO of the facility for six years. He had come to his father’s company, “Stamp-It!” 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 and respect with the men had grown. But during contract negotiations, his 43 shop workers unexpectedly went on strike.

After a three-week standoff, the shop workers settled and returned to work. However, Butch 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.

Butch 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, Butch 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. Reciprocity (the tendency to match another person’s behavior for good or naught) is a very reliable human response.

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

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

Butch took me on a tour. The further back we went into his facility, the more dilapidated the building became. Rather than think his workers were disloyal to him, I got the sense that this was one loyal, tenacious group of people who continued to show up for work despite the unpleasant working conditions.

After the tour, Butch gave me permission to interview six or seven 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 Butch’s father had been president, the shop was like family to them. Over the years they’d found small, but meaningful ways to take the tedium and monotony out of their day. They evolved into a gruff, tightly knit brotherhood. When the founder retired and Butch came on as CEO, they recalled stories and fond memories of the days when Butch had worked at the shop to help pay for his college tuition.

However, since Butch had taken over, economic times hadn’t been good. 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 Butch, like his father before him, to be standing at the front door, welcoming them back and graciously relegating his hostility to the past. Instead they discovered Butch had become a sullen, withdrawn, bitter man who cast a chill throughout the shop when he walked the floor.

The workers couldn’t understand his mood, and resented his behavior. When they had gone on strike 15 years earlier, the president had been happy 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. Butch’s behavior seemed both irrational and unreasonable.

It wasn’t until I went back to Butch with my summary of their perceptions that Butch revealed the rest of his story to me. For the first time his behavior made sense.

I was humbled and touched by the hidden reality behind this proud man. I finally knew what “baby” he had hidden in the back seat. However, the rest of the crew needed to hear his rationale if we were going to restore trust and reestablish communications. When I shared my reactions with Butch, he agreed. The two of us hatched a plan.

The following week, Butch closed the plant at noon. Everyone met at the private dining room of a popular, neighborhood restaurant that had been a place of celebration in more affluent times. We shared a well-prepared, but uncomfortably quiet meal, and when we were finished I asked the guys to help me rearrange the furniture.

We put a table in the middle of the private dining room, and the crew pulled their chairs in a circle around the table. Butch and his accountant sat on one side of the table, and Steve (the union representative) and Lou (an operator from the shop floor), sat on the other.

After setting ground rules I asked Steve and Lou to start. I asked them to tell Butch what they had told me about their resentment of Butch’s recent behavior.

Then it was Butch’s turn. For the first time, all 43 shop workers saw a side of this private man that had previously remained hidden.

Butch 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 had felt about returning as CEO, and how it had been overridden by loyalty to his father who had no retirement income if the plant went out of business.

Butch revealed that the first thing he learned as CEO was that the economic repercussions from the first strike had been the reason his father had never upgraded the facility. His father had owned a prime piece of property where he had quietly planned to rebuild. However, after the first strike he was able to remain solvent only by selling the land to pay the bills. When Butch became CEO his first goal was to acquire enough equity to rebuild the crumbling facility.

When Butch took over he also learned that the company was dangerously close to bankruptcy. Over the next six years he pulled every trick he knew from his CFO hat to turn the company around. He succeeded brilliantly and was preparing a mortgage application when the union president told him the men had voted to strike. Butch’s dream, and six years of hard work, was destroyed.

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

When he received the call from the union president, Bruce felt betrayed and angry that the crew hadn’t done what they had done in other years—refuse the contract but continue to work.

As Butch explained the reasons for his frustration and disappointment the men became totally still. Slowly, the crew’s anger and resentment dissipated. What had previously seemed like Butch’s selfishness and brooding callousness was bulldogged devotion.

Steve, the union representative, respectfully explained to Butch 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 union rep and he was too green to realize they had a third option: they could 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. The employees had no idea what was at stake and how their decision would affect the viability of the company.

Sitting in the restaurant that day was the first time each side heard the other’s reasoning. Everyone slouched in his or her chairs. The “enemy” evaporated. What remained was misconstrued loyalty, misunderstanding, and the tremendous sense of loss that comes when one realizes that self-righteousness was unwarranted and self-defeating.

We took a break while everyone regrouped intellectually and emotionally. When they came back we spent two hours brainstorming how Butch and the operators could address the chronic issues that needed to be resolved 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 Butch during the next few months and then checked in every year or so just to see how things were going. Together, his company created process improvement groups, and management/crew relationships became the best they had been in years. His voice reflected the joy of people working together in alignment, despite tremendous odds.

Later Butch sent me a letter which stated, “Thank you. You saved the relationships and probably the company.”

As these stories show, often the other person’s hidden reality is humbling. Each time you face one of your 750,000 frustrations, you can make one of three assumptions. First, you can assume that your frustration is caused by someone else’s stupidity. This will likely make you feel angry and irrational as you search for the source of the stupidity, and then attack the other party’s reputation or standing.

Secondly, you might assume that your own stupidity is causing the problem. This is likely to make you depressed and lethargic.

Finally, you might assume there’s a reality hidden from your view: and, if you knew it the other person’s behavior would make sense. If you make the third assumption, you will become curious, and perhaps concerned. Only then will you be inclined to reach out and begin a conversation—perhaps the very conversation necessary to save your company or team.