Douglas E. Noll, Esq.
January 2005
“Doug, I need some
peacemaking help right now!” John said over the telephone.
John was the CEO of a software development company employing 50 people.
“What’s the situation?” I asked.
“My Chief Information Officer and my Marketing Manager are not speaking
to each other. The CIO is fine, but the Marketing Manager is
really angry,” John said. “I’ve tried to get it worked out, but you
really need to step in.”
“Are both of your people willing to speak with me?” I asked.
“Yes. They both respect you and think you might be able to help.”
“Good. When do you want me over?” We set up a time and
ended the call.
At the appointed hour, I entered a company conference room and
introduced myself to the managers. I asked if they knew who I was
and what my presence was all about. They knew who I was and what
I was there to help with. I laid out some ground rules and
explained how I wanted to proceed. When they concurred, we
started.
“Who wants to start by giving us a perspective?” I asked.
Mary, the Marketing Manager, said, “I’ll start.”
“Good,” I said. “Tom, listen carefully as I will want you to
summarize Mary’s perspective.”
The story concerned the creation and publication of short biographies
to be used in the company marketing materials. Mary had asked
Tom, the Chief Information Officer, to hold off publishing several
employee biographies on the website. Tom said he would do so and
wait for an update from her. Several months later, under pressure
from the senior vice president to get the biographies up on the site,
Tom used what he had from Mary.
When Mary discovered what happened, she was furious. She went to
the Human Resources Manager to complain. The HR Manager told her
not to talk to Tom. The HR Manager said he would talk to Tom.
The HR Manager met with Tom, found out what happened, and told Tom to
avoid Mary and let her cool down some.
Mary, not hearing anything further, just got angrier. She felt
especially disrespected because Tom, formerly a good friend, seemed to
be avoiding her.
“And that’s where we are today,” Mary finished.
Tom’s perspective tracked Mary’s perspective. He looked at her
and explained that he was under pressure to get the website
complete. Further, he had completely forgotten about his promise
not to use the material without updating her. He apologized for
that error. He also explained that he was put off by the HR
Manager’s direction to avoid Mary, but followed the suggestion.
“I would have preferred to talk to you directly, but was told not to,”
he said.
As the stories unfolded, the classic nature of the conflict became
clear to all of us. Apparently fearful of an emotional
confrontation, the HR Manager separated Tom and Mary. The result
had the opposite of the intended effect—escalation instead of peace.
When Tom and Mary saw the entire picture, they laughed ruefully.
Peace and their friendship were quickly restored. They agreed
that having lunch together would be the fastest way for the rest of the
company to see that the issue was behind them.
The lesson they and John, the CEO, learned was that avoiding conflict
by separating people is not a good solution. Avoidance usually
creates further misunderstanding, a sense of disrespect, and further
anger.
Conflict in any situation creates anxiety and fear. We fear loss
of control, unpleasant emotional outbursts, and perhaps even violence
in extreme situations. Our natural inclination is to reduce the
anxiety and eliminate the fear by separating the parties in
conflict. If they don’t talk to each other, the conflict seems to
go away. Of course, we all know that the conflict does not go
away, but usually gets worse. Asking parties to “forgive and
forget” or avoid the dispute simply pushes it under the surface.
It will erupt somewhere else.
The secret to true peace in these situations is in creating a space
where the employees in conflict can have a safe, protected, and
well-moderated conversation about the problem. The person doing the
moderation should have some training in basic peacemaking principles
and be able to withstand some emotional outbursts calmly. When we
provided a calm, balanced space for Tom and Mary to talk with one
another, the entire problem took 20 minutes to resolve. Not all company
conflicts will be as easy, but putting people face to face is usually
the most efficient path to peace.
Douglas E. Noll, Esq. is a lawyer specializing in peacemaking and mediation of difficult and intractable conflicts throughout California. His firm, Noll Associates is based in Central California. He may be reached through his website and email at doug@nollassociates.com
© 2005, Douglas E. Noll