***The Gift of Conflict

Keys to learning and growing through tough times

© 2009, Doug Davin and Diana Morris
www.breakthroughskills.com
n[Featured Breakthrough Skill—Conflict Management: Keep cool in hot situations]

Conflict can sometimes strengthen us more than any other kind of experience. And the lessons we learn through conflict tend to stick because they come at emotionally-charged times. When we’re knocked down and frustrated, pride and easy answers have failed us, and we tend to be open and on the lookout for insights and solutions, anything that will help us make sense of the situation.

Often, these become the lessons that last a lifetime.

Jim’s storyr
With the ink barely dry on his architectural degree, fresh faced and optimistic, Jim joined a real estate development firm as a junior associate. Wide-eyed and excited, Jim wasn’t ready for his immediate supervisor, a demanding and unreasonable manager whose favorite comeback, “I’m not asking you. I’m telling you” Jim heard many times. This manager knew only one way to work: bully and belittle people into doing what he wanted.

Jim’s phone wasn’t ringing off the hook with job offers. The father of three children under five years old, fresh out of school, and living in a part of the country where opportunity was limited, he simply had to stay put, at least for a couple of years. He did his best to be upbeat and positive, but most days he left for work in the morning and came home at night in the same condition: jumpy, frustrated, and angry. After about six months, as Jim told it, “I realized nothing was going to change this man. This was a work style developed over many years and experiences, and (go figure), it worked for him. He was, by all financial measures anyway, very successful.”

Amazingly, in talking about this period of time years later, Jim called it “the most formative era of my professional life.”

“The process was just awful,” he said. “I went to work every day with my guts twisted. Fear of my boss firing me on the spot, something I’d seen him do a number of times, dominated my thinking, and I second- and third-guessed everything I did.”

But over time, something amazing happened: this mild-mannered architect, before this job afraid of confrontation and far more likely to give in to keep the peace, got tough. In his work, negotiation with contractors, atto
eys, and construction managers is a daily occurrence. “Working for that man toughened me. One day, I realized I was no longer afraid of abrasive people, and all that second-guessing I did for him trained me to think three moves ahead of anybody else.”

In the clear vision of hindsight, Jim sees this as a career high point of sorts. “Today, I can be in a room with six of the most hardened, demanding contractors and never back down or lose my cool,” he says. “Recently, I told a crew that if I found one more piece of equipment not shut down and locked up properly for the night, I’d start charging them $50 each. It never happened again. And I attribute that strength to working for one of the most unreasonable people I’ve ever known.”

Conflict, in this case irresolvable conflict, taught Jim things that might have taken him many years to learn. And it did something maybe even more important: it made him a better leader. “Knowing what it’s like to be dishonored and disrespected helped me understand know how important it is to treat the people who work for you right. Sometimes when you’re in a situation,” he concluded, “you don’t learn what to do. You learn what not to do.”

Growth spurt
Listen for a key theme in these stories: conflict sparked a growth spurt. Without exception and without hesitation, successful people answer, “Positive” to the question, “Looking at the long-term arc of your career, were the conflicts you faced a positive or a negative?”

Why?

“I learned never to accept that kind of behavior from a peer.”

“After that experience, I went into my next job knowing how to play to my strengths.”

“I knew I’d never again compromise in an area so important to the quality of the work I create.”

“I know now to trust my gut instinct when it comes to hiring and firing decisions.”

Are they successful because they saw conflict as a positive? Or are they positive because after the conflict, they ended up successful?

Doesn’t matter.

What matters is that in the final analysis, they were able to see the conflict as a stepping stone to higher ground. In each case, the process wasn’t fun, in fact in each case it was an energy-sapping, awful time, and it would be naïve and even unfair of us to pretend otherwise. You know the feeling: you go to work looking around corners, knowing that running into the person is inevitable. The phone rings, your email beeps, and if it’s from HIM or HER, your stomach sinks a little.

The process is awful, but the outcome—even if it doesn’t work out in your favor in the moment—can be positive. Conflict can’t hurt you if you don’t let it, if you refuse to see it as an obstacle or to make the loss (job, promotion, argument, rapport) a defining moment in your career, but instead dare to think differently about the whole thing. This is more than just making lemonade from the lemons you’re handed. It’s understanding that we’re strengthened in the fire, even if that only becomes clear in hindsight. It’s the knowledge that conflict is required for progress. And the courage to care enough about yourself and your career or business to remember this when you’re smack in the middle of a tough, irresolvable conflict.

Learn more in our book, Hot Situations, Cool Heads: How to Thrive When Conflict Arrives. Get your copy at www.breakthroughskills.com.