conflict questions

When coaching someone in conflict, use opposite insertion questions to encourage desired behavior. Instead of accusing laziness, ask how they will energetically engage with the customer. The same applies to conflicts between two people: ask how they will calmly discuss matters and engage thoughtfully. Avoid confrontations in the heat of the moment, as emotions will overshadow the conversation. Questions provide insight and promote self-awareness. In a personal example, asking questions helped resolve a conflict with an HR manager who misunderstood others' complaints. Calmly asking about her goal and commitment revealed the misunderstanding and allowed for a successful resolution. Now, when you think about conflict and you have to coach somebody, you know, one of the things that I always encourage people to do is use something called an opposite insertion question. If you have somebody who's lazy, as an example, you wouldn't say, quit being lazy, because that doesn't really instill inspiration or motivation. You would say, what are you going to do to energetically get back to that customer? What are you going to do in a very fast-paced manner to secure that XYZ, whatever it might be? You insert the desired behavior into your question. So if you have two people who are at conflict, ask them, what are you going to do to calmly discuss these matters? What are you going to do to professionally and thoughtfully engage with one another's views? It sounds weird, right? So when you ask questions, insert the desired behavior. Now, I go back to my favorite question, the self-actualized question. What are you going to do to successfully engage with that person? Now, if you're confronting or if you have conflict with someone, you can use the same principles. So you could address the issue and say, look, you know, you've been late a number of times to work. I want us to calmly have a conversation as to why. See, when you calm down, they get less defensive. They're more willing to have a palatable conversation. Now, if you sit there and pound your fist on the table and say, ah, I am so frustrated, what happens is their mind goes to a different place. It goes to a place of, I better come up with something that he likes to hear so I can get through this conversation so I don't get written up, so I don't get fired. And the thought of having a really good conversation around being late for work or whatever the conflict is really leaves the person. Use what questions? I always share with people, when you feel like there's conflict, don't have the conflict conversation in the moment where the conflict occurred, especially if your blood pressure is up, because people are going to focus on your emotions. They're not going to focus on what you're saying. Now, there are times you just get emotional, right? So remember, questions will give you insight. The whole format around questions is the following. The goal is to give you clarification and to have them develop self-awareness. So let me just share this with you. I had to confront someone where they were not supportive of something that we were doing, and it was actually an HR manager. And this HR manager had taken a conversation from two people who had not attended any sessions but were complaining about sessions. And I said, well, when you had that conversation, what was your goal? And she said, well, I just wanted to hear them out. I said, well, what was your commitment at the end? And she said, well, I told them I would look into it. And I smiled. And she goes, why are you smiling? I said, I'm wondering if they heard something differently. She said, what do you mean? I said, I'm wondering if they perceived that you agreed with them. She said, oh, I don't think so. I said, well, what's your understanding of their attendance? She said, oh, I don't know. What is it? I said, they've never come. And she went red. Now, if I had started yelling, especially being the outsider to the company, I could have been fired. My contract could have been canceled. And she said, oh, my gosh, I think I undermined you. I said, yeah, I think you did. It was a little bit unfair, right? Now, could I have taken it personally? Could I have gotten angry? To be blunt, I was a little angry, because now I have to rebound that situation. Questions will serve you well. Questions with calmness will help you have conversations of conflict successfully.