Getting past conflict avoidance and building a TACTful workplace
Conflict avoidance isn’t kind. It corrodes trust between individuals and amongst teams. So we have to get past it, but how?
First, some definitions . . . .
In a nutshell, when one (or a team) avoids conflict, they push difficult or potentially awkward conversations under the rug.
Conflict avoidance is not:
immediately escalating egregious or blatantly obvious incidents of explicit bias, racism and other bigotry, harassment, etc.
whistleblowing
avoiding situations where one feels physically or emotionally unsafe (which is different from feeling the normal discomfort of addressing a disagreement)
The opposite of conflict avoidance is also not:
seeking out and instigating conflict
seeing colleagues as competitors instead of collaborators
“every man for himself”
venting or even addressing at all every single frustration (some you can and should let go)
immediately addressing an issue without regard for when, where, with whom, and in what tone it should happen
being aggressively blunt (instead of being transparently direct and candid)
being mean or rude
In other words, “conflict avoidance” isn’t a great term, because, while we don’t want to be conflict avoidant, we’re also not trying to seek out conflict. The opposite isn’t exactly “conflict comfortable”. More on what we are aiming for in a bit . . . .
So why is conflict avoidance bad for trust?
Conflict avoidance is a silent trust killer. It seems more comfortable, even “nicer”, on the surface. But, underneath the surface, it is masking broken, inefficient, or opaque:
decision-making habits and processes
information-sharing and communication
performance reviews, direct report-supervisor collaboration, and feedback loops
intra and inter-team collaboration
All of that leads to symptoms of conflict avoidance in the workplace that undermine trust, such as:
gossip
hallway “chatter”
moving on quickly, as an individual or as a group, from awkward situations or decisions that went wrong
awkward or avoided performance reviews
always avoiding the “elephant in the room”
going straight to someone’s boss when that someone is frustrating you
venting to colleagues when someone or something is frustrating you instead of going straight to the source
your direct reports expecting you to intuit their needs, read their moods, memorize their duties and accomplishments, etc.
If we’re not supposed to avoid awkward conversations but we’re also not supposed to be aggressively blunt, then what are we aiming for?
What we are aiming for is a workplace that is “TACTful”: Transparent, Accountable, Candid, and Trustworthy.
Breaking that down further . . . .
A Transparent workplace is characterized by:
Clear decision-making systems that:
Are documented and followed.
Utilize RACI matrices (mapping out who is Responsible for implementing the decision, who is Accountable for making the decision, who should be Consulted before the decision is made, who should be Informed that a decision will be made, and who should be Informed about what the decision was).
And inclusion in the RACI is determined by competence, relevance, and capacity, not by place in the org chart, seniority, ego, or “feeling like I should be in on it”.
Utilize project management tools, at the appropriate level of complexity.
Are distributed across levels, employ true delegation, and aren’t bottlenecked.
Make it clear how input will be used, how meetings will be used, how deadlines are set, etc.
Close loops: every decision that gets made, no matter how small, goes out to the relevant people in writing.
Leave no one surprised or confused by what the decision was or how it was made (even if there isn’t universal agreement on what the end decision was).
Clear, documented, equitable, and market-competitive pay transparency, pay scale, starting salary, cost-of-living raise, performance raise, bonus, and promotion policies.
Clear, documented roles, responsibilities, and decision-making authority for each position and each level that appropriately match actual titles and salaries.
An Accountable workplace is characterized by:
No immunity for any individuals or groups is from being held accountable for enabling or promoting unhealthy workplace culture habits or for violating HR policies — including the CEO, Board members, top donors, and top fundraisers.
Every staff member bearing responsible for promoting healthy workplace culture — the buck isn’t passed upward.
Board members, volunteers, and staff all abiding by internal values that frame the workplace culture (in addition to the org’s external Values Statement).
Dropping donors that do not align with the organization’s external or internal values, and refusing donations from unaligned prospective donors.
Real, substantive attention to employee well-being, not performative.
A Candid workplace is characterized by:
Collaborative, ongoing performance feedback, including:
goals that are set mutually between direct report and supervisor at the beginning of the year;
explicit ways that the supervisor will be held responsible for supporting the direct report in reaching their goals;
ongoing, real-time feedback and collaboration;
regular check-ins not just on progress but on jointly tackling obstacles and challenges; and
no surprises in annual reviews (and even maybe no annual reviews at all).
De-personalized post mortems when a decision goes sideways, instead of failures or challenges being pushed under the rug or scapegoats being blamed.
Colleagues directly and empathetically addressing their disagreements, rather than immediately escalating them, gossiping and venting about them, or expecting their boss to fix it.
A Trustworthy workplace is characterized by:
Regular “temperature checks” on workplace culture and employee well-being, using anonymous surveys and anonymous feedback tools.
Regular Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Justice, Accessibility, and Belonging (DEIJAB) trainings, including Implicit Bias, Bystander Intervention, etc. and purposeful inclusion of lessons-learned into every day practices and policies.
A robust Code of Ethics by which all employees, volunteers, and Board members must abide.
A sense of collaboration over competition.
The near absence of gossip.
The absence of cliques and favoritism.
Mindful attention paid to how difficult conversations need to happen to make them safe and productive:
when — maybe right this second isn’t the time;
where — maybe the conference room or the boss’ office isn’t the best place;
with whom — maybe not the whole group at once;
and in what format and tone — maybe not a weekly team meeting and maybe not too formal.
Clearly, getting past conflict avoidance as a team involves deep, widespread, intentional work on building a TACTful workplace. To help that stick, it is also critical to work as individuals on overcoming conflict avoidance.
Struggling with conflict avoidance as individuals is the main reason why team-wide conflict avoidance takes root so deeply — because everything about building a TACTful workplace involves emotional labor and some crunchy conversations, and, as humans, we’d often rather just avoid all of that.
It can be really helpful to reframe difficult conversations in general — whether you have some negative feedback for a direct report, you’re feeling hurt by a colleague’s tone, or you’re frustrated by your boss’ micromanagement.
Approach with curiosity, not critique. In every single case, you do not know the whole story. Go into the conversation with the mindset that you are curious how this difficulty can be overcome, not with your anger, frustration, or critique at the top of your mind. You’re in listening mode, not soliloquy mode — even when you’re the one bringing it up and even when you are absolutely certain that Sue screwed up.
Allow people to be themselves. Differences in personalities, backgrounds, cultures, life experiences, struggles outside of the office, neurodiversity, emotional triggers, mental health, etc. all mean that we communicate and approach problem-solving differently — we don’t even all agree on what is a problem and what isn’t. There is no single “right” way for any of it. Don’t expect people to bend to your ideal. Let Sue be Sue, and move on to the heart of the matter — you just need to work effectively with Sue, not marry her.
Give others grace – often, at least at first, the source of their seemingly frustrating behavior is a stressor that has nothing to do with you or even the workplace. The more you connect with colleagues as humans, the more likely you are to give people the benefit of the doubt. So when you know Sue’s dog just passed away, you’re far more likely to check on her after she seems curt in a meeting, rather than grumble about her to your work friend.
View the issue as something you need to solve with the other person as a team, not as a problem with or fault of the other person. Whatever it is you’re disagreeing about, it takes at least two people to make anything happen. De-personalize the issue and find out how you can help, not assign blame or prove Sue was the problem.
Practice not venting, not focusing on it, not expecting perfection, etc. Venting is fine every now and then (especially if it’s to non-work friends and loved ones), but when it becomes a regular habit, we end up stewing in our negativity and pessimism, making it near impossible for us to see Sue as anything other than a daily headache. That type of negativity is also contagious and corrosive in a workplace. (No, we are not preaching toxic positivity.)
Don’t just assume that engaging directly with the person is pointless. Too often, we think that there’s no point talking to Sue because she simply won’t listen. See what happens when you practice all of the above before you approach Sue. Giving up at the start does a disservice to you, Sue, and your colleagues who have to suffer the consequences of you and Sue not working effectively together.
Now that you’ve reframed, try these conversation starters:
“I get the sense that I might have frustrated you when I _______ – how can I help us get to smooth sailing moving forward?”
“What I hear you saying is frustrating you is _______ – did I understand correctly?”
“It looks like ______ didn’t quite go as we planned – what do you recommend we do to address it, if anything, and how can I help?”
“Normally you’re totally on top of _____, and I’ve noticed it slipping the last few weeks. Is everything ok? Are you running into any issues I can help with?”
“I noticed _____ was done a different way from usual. Can you help me understand the strategy behind that so I can make sure I’m supporting you the right way?”
“It seems like communication is a little rockier between us than it usually is. I think I’m probably failing to match my delivery with my intentions. Have you noticed that too, and is there anything I can do to make it better?”
Taking this from the blogosphere to IRL . . . .
Reframing and changing how you start the conversation all apply whether you’re leading a group post-mortem on a decision that went sideways, providing feedback to a direct report, or trying to figure out why Sue seems mad at you all the time. It also frames the general ethos around creating a TACTful workplace.
If you have a feeling that your workplace is conflict avoidant, as a first step, share this blog. Shared learning gives teams shared language to bring up and address challenges, and it gives people the backing to bring up the fact that a challenge exists — which, ironically, is extra important when conflict avoidance is the challenge. As a second step, start modeling how you are shedding the conflict-avoidance habit yourself. After that, start laying out your plan to bring the whole team in on it . . . .
Van Waes Consulting can help diagnose team culture and decision-making challenges, provide training*, and facilitate team discussions around solutions to those challenges.
*All of our work and training is DEIJAB aligned and mindful; but for DEIJAB training specifically, we can help you find the right expert.
