INsight/ When Perspectives Conflict

Photo by Jean Wimmerlin on Unsplash

Manila, 8 April 2020 — What do you do when perspectives conflict in the workplace?

Last week in Grow3Leaders, we kicked off our April theme of Perspectives by exploring Three Bias Traps that leaders want to avoid. These traps are about being stuck in our Personal World as being self-centered, in our Social World as being people-centered, and in our Observed World as being systems-centered. Each of these three biases will prevent us from being integrally informed, which is what we want to be so that we can understand what’s really going on in every situation we are in and then make our best contribution. 

This week we look at three challenges that came up in our conversations with members about the times when perspectives conflict. Here are the highlights, in three points, about perspective-taking and misunderstandings, stress, and leadership hygiene.

#1 Misunderstandings Happen Daily

As leaders, do we see those daily misunderstandings for what they are? As colleagues or partners, we tend to assume like many other people, and mostly in our subconscious, that the people we are meeting and working with have the same perspective as we do. Mostly we are wrong.

People who work together, including in project teams, will discover sooner or later that they look at the project and work to be done through different lenses. Sometimes very different. Often, these perspectives clash, until someone can make sense of the situation, acknowledge the different styles, and bridge the divides.

As leaders, we want to discover this sooner rather than later, and be as proactive as we can in reconciliation. That points to some leadership skills we need to learn. In Grow3Leaders, one method we use for this is to Work In All Colors to become aware of different and conflicting perspectives and develop the awareness and communication ability to help people connect, build trust, and collaborate.

For example, we can use the colors (and the worldviews they represent) to help Millennials bridge their divide with Boomers (an example we referred to last week). This week, we discussed a clash between a results-driven manager’s perspective and that of a team member who wanted to spend more time on the process and the possible options to get there. Those conflicting perspectives can be reconciled with the right skills. 

What we as leaders want to do is to spot the different worldviews and their languages early and quickly as they come up in our discussions at work, often in teams, and also in 1:1 meetings. This is fundamental to creating high-performing teams. 

#2 Stress Shrinks POV

In these stressful days of WFH as we cope with all the uncertainty brought by the Covid19 pandemic, solving conflicts between perspectives in the workplace takes on some extra dimensions.

What often happens during times of stress is that people become less tolerant and will retreat to a narrower worldview that offers them a greater sense of safety and security. Our Points of View (POV) tend to shrink as a result, and misunderstandings can get blown out of proportion more easily and rapidly than in ‘normal’ times. Furthermore, subsurface conflicts that were once controlled can now come to the surface more easily and unexpectly.

We can see this happen in our workplaces and in the discourse we observe in the media. And we ourselves are also a part of that—how is our self-awareness of how we manage our relationships and conversations in these stressful times? Are we allowing our more limited self-awareness to project our stress on to others? What language is coming out of our mouths these days?

Patterns we can easily discern are when team leaders and managers (and we ourselves?) will revert to a more directive style. And when discussions take on an us-and-them dynamic.

Social media are nowadays full of perspective conflicts, such as when people who actively (and entrepreneurially) pursue opportunities for improvement during the crisis are attacked by those who accuse them of lacking in solidarity and empathy. The us-and-them dynamic shows up frequently, including at the highest levels in some governments. Such perspective conflicts can flare up quickly and with unpredictable levels of aggression.

As leaders (influencers of positive change in the workplace) we want to be mindful and understanding of such patterns in order to make sense of situations and then show up with effective leadership behaviors to defuse tension, build bridges, and create alignment.

Similarly, of course, when colleagues show up with positive behaviors and helpful initiatives, we need to excel in our skills to acknowledge them for making their positive contribution to the situation and for modeling the way to enable collaboration.

#3 Leadership Hygiene Matters

What we also discussed in our community this week is how important it is during this crisis period to practice what we called Leadership Hygiene. Some of that, especially in our Personal World, may sound counter-intuitive at first when it comes to making sleep a central part of our leadership.

The more stressful our situations at work (WFH) become, the more important it is for our leadership to prioritize quality sleep. The work by sleep researcher Matthew Walker, author of Why We Sleep, was mentioned. Some of us shared how focusing on quality sleep had been the first step to dealing effectively with stress on the job.

Likewise, healthy food, exercise, and time management are prerequisites for showing up at our best in these challenging times. Without these... well, you get the picture. As leaders in our Personal World perspective, we will want to prioritize quality sleep and healthy habits. 

Leadership hygiene is also critical in our Social World during these stressful times. It is more important than ever to be mindful of our communications and to remember that we have two ears and one mouth. Active listening, and shifting our narrative from I and Me to We and Us is imperative and can help to bring out the magic in our pressured teams. 

Also in our Social World perspective, it’s critical to remember that empathy is more easily conveyed when meeting physically in the same room than in the online meetings we are now pushed to specialize in as quickly as possible. Emotional check-ins are equally important in online meetings, yet need (much) more time there to become effective. New skills are needed to handle this.

In the perspective of our Observed World, good leadership hygiene in these Covid times includes that we make sure that our short-term goals and results are relevant, and conveyed appropriately, in the context of our crisis today. It’s a good time to review what will work better and best to meet the demands of the situation.

In short, exercising leadership hygiene in our three worlds (Personal, Social, and Observed) is more important now than ever. We should excel in such hygiene and help our colleagues do the same.

Engaging Multiple Perspectives

Our conversations this month in Grow3Leaders will continue on how we can practice taking multiple and new perspectives while WFH in our workplaces. We take the time to share these in our regular live conversations in #LEADhop. We use Crowdcast in our community events as our private discussion space with video and chat.  

Last year, we co-created Grow3Leaders as a private community of leaders from countries around the world who are committed to learning and practicing effective leadership behaviors  ‘out loud’ and together to create positive changes in our workplace. Joining is free of charge—not free of commitment. Send us a request if you feel that you are up to the Grow3Leaders challenge and would like to join together with three of your colleagues.