Confronting people is one of the most difficult task I found in the past. Now, with some reading, training and experience I am able to say that I could confront to anyone. It was not easy and I know that I have to learn a lot more, but I am happy the 90% of the time I confront to somebody today. In the missed 10%, I am not happy, but I always leave the door open to start the confrontation in the future.
Saying that, and if you are in the same status, you really know the benefits of confronting people. The most important for me in one confrontation is:
- Respect
- Safety
- WIN-WIN goals
Now, after trying different approaches, my challenger is getting team members confronted with the same 3 points I just wrote down. Times to times I arrive to teams where the “constructive” confrontation does not exit at all.
As coach I always provide to team members with a framework to confront team members, I tried to keep it simple and motivate them to confront people inside the team and outside the team. Here are my tips:
Keep your mind positive or neutral about someone else
If you want confront someone, be sure you don’t have any negative thinking in your mind. Use always facts to build your story in mind before the confrontation.
Be sure that both part are comfortable with the situation and the way to aboard it
Control your voice is a big factor to be sure all are comfortable in those situations. Emotions must be out of any confrontation. You need to be sure you go directly to the issue/gap without lost the respect for you partner/college.
Be ready to fix issue/gap in a flexible way
Both side of the confrontation need to flexible at the moment of the solution/action will take place. You need to get agreement in this rule before you jump in any solution.
One of my tips is: keep in mind one win-win solution.
I hope this help you in your next confrontation. I strongly recommend “Crucial Confrontations” by Kerry Patterson
Feel free to share your thinking and comments.
I wish the best for 2013 to all of you!!!
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Thank you,
Omar Bermudez.
2 Responses to Confronting People
Thanks for this post. I agree that confrontation is important in dialog, and it is something many want to shy away from. You don’t say in the post though about what your technique of confronting looks like, only what the pre-conditions ought to be.
I find the most effective way to confront another person is by asking them questions, e.g. “tell me more about that”, and “why” questions, rather than offering my opinion. Using the former method can bring someone to a place where they are actually confronting themselves, and their own opinions. In the latter way, no matter how neutral or emotionless the confronter can be it is still opinion-based. Better to get past opinions altogether—and, I suggest, actually _into the emotions (drivers) behind those opinions and behaviors.
I’d like to hear more about how a confrontation dialog looks like to you. Cheers.
@Tobias, Thanks for your comment.
I shared general rules very useful when you confront somebody else. What you said about “tell me more about” and “why” are excellent ways to get people talk and feel comfortable. IMHO, when we need to confront somebody, we have to explain asap the situation we guess are an issue. Remember, always in an neutral positive way. As soon as you present the situation/issue, you need to continue depending in the reaction of your partner/group. Some times, you could jump directly to the gap and solutions/corrections. some times, you have to re-affirm that this is only to get better results and it is not a blame, some times, you need to talk about history, some times you need to re-direct the focus to other direction (good opportunity to use “why” and “tell me about” strategy) and a lot of option more. At the end, you should get one solution comfortable for both sides (win-win solution).
I didn’t finish to read all posts, but I saw also “crucial conversations” book as recommendation. It is a very good book to read.
I hope I help a little bit more.
Omar