Most people don't enjoy facing the difficult situations that sometimes occur with co-workers in the workplace. Such situations may arise from honest disagreements over design or engineering issues, personnel or benefits matters, management decisions or actions, or from any other situation where human impressions and objectives differ.
There could be double the trouble for engineers who are more likely to feel at home with electrons and bytes, and behave in highly predictable ways, than with coworkers, who often appear arbitrary and capricious. For those of us who have internalized the strict and measurable rules of the physical world, dealing with other people can be both disappointing and frustrating.
Yet how you manage situations of conflict with your coworkers could have a significant impact on your career, often even more than your engineering prowess or your design skills. Those who deal successfully with potential conflicts are far more likely to receive added responsibilities and promotions, in ad-dition to the pay increases and respect that come with them. On the other hand, not dealing successfully with conflict can potentially relegate you to a career backwater, with technical challenges and high pay passing you by.
Why is dealing with conflict an important skill today? It's primarily because there's more of it now than in the past. Workers of all types are more likely to speak up for their own ideas or actions, rather than follow the dictating corporate chain of command. Conflict also sometimes arises as a result of unclear company goals, or when those goals aren't shared equally by all. Rather than working for a single common good, employees and managers seek individual goals, such as promotion, job security, experience, money, and even the proverbial free lunch.
Not only is actual conflict greater today, but even the potential for interpersonal conflicts in the workplace is far greater than at any time in the past. One reason for this is increased time-to-market pressures. The need to rapidly make decisions, establish an engineering direction, and meet project milestones adds elements of tension and stress to an already difficult endeavor.
This makes the workplace a potential minefield for interpersonal conflict. It's especially apparent to an engineer in a position of responsibility, like a project leader or an engineering manager. For an engineer who must work with others to complete a project, the need to manage conflict can spell the difference between success and failure.
In many instances, much of the conflict going on could be avoided if one planned properly. In other cases, it can be managed. Here are some ways to prevent conflict when possible, and manage it when it's inevitable.
Be prepared for potential conflicts. Disagreements with your coworkers shouldn't be a surprise to you. The possibility for conflict exists in many different types of interactions, so if you think ahead, you can anticipate where conflict might arise. Confrontation can start from virtually any decision made that affects others, and it should be anticipated.
If you believe that there's a potential for conflict at an upcoming meeting, take some time beforehand to get together with individual participants and hear out their positions. Try to reach a tentative accommodation. This can be a time-consuming process and may seem like more trouble than it's worth. But it will pay off in better-organized and more-productive meetings, buy-in and support for critical decisions, and a favorable reputation for you in the company.
If you think there may be a disagreement between yourself and another team member on an aspect of your project, perhaps on a design decision, sit down with that person and discuss the facts of the problem. While it may not always lead to a meeting of minds, at least it enables each of you to explore and understand one another's positions. Plus, this makes it more possible to reach some common ground.
Don't personalize disagreements. One of the worst re-sponses to a conflict or disagreement on a decision or opinion is to interpret it as a personal attack and respond in kind. You end up arguing the emotions, rather than the subject at hand. This type of response not only makes the situation even more unpleasant and difficult to resolve, but also leaves bad feelings that could be impossible to repair.
Instead of automatically viewing criticism as a personal attack, you would do well to focus not on the tone of the disagreement, but on the facts of the argument. Listen carefully to what the other person is saying, rather than how he or she is saying it. Take time to think through your position, and address each of the points that person raises in a calm and rational fashion.
In fact, the other party may appear to be personalizing it, either through an inability to properly express any objections, or simply because he or she wants to be insulting. Rising to this challenge will only make the situation worse. Instead, by ignoring the tone of the disagreement, you'll defuse a potentially bad situation and possibly strengthen your position even further.
Reprints
