The Levels of Conflict Every Leader Should Know | 046

The Levels of Conflict Every Leader Should Know | 046

Welcome to Lean Leadership for Ops Managers, the podcast for leaders in Ops Management who want to spark improvement, foster engagement, and boost problem solving – AND still get their day job done. Here’s your host, Leadership Trainer, Lean Enthusiast, and Spy Thriller Junkie, Jamie V. Parker.
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“How can I fix them?” You know, in some variation or another, that is the most common question I get.
Leaders want to know how to get other people to do the things they want or need them to do consistently and effectively.
Operations executives want their leaders to address unhelpful behaviors and correct the things that too often just go unaddressed.
Well, listen up, ops executives and leaders today we’re talking about correcting unhelpful behaviors and the levels of conflict every leader should know.
You’ll hear what the conflict ladder is, what those levels are, why it matters, mistakes that are made and how things could be different.

So this is a scale that I developed and it goes from level zero to level four. But what I’m going to do is I’m going to talk about levels one through four first, and then I’m going to come back and talk to you about level zero. You can see a visual representation of the scale and actually download a copy of it by heading to our show notes. Remember, that’s https://processplusresults.com/podcast/ And then you’re looking for Episode 046.

All right, let’s dove in. For the levels of conflict every leader needs to know, I want you to imagine a ladder. And at the bottom, right, it’s leaning up against the wall and at the bottom is the ground level. So that’s going to be level zero is the ground. And then each time we go up a rung, we’re going up a level.
The context for this ladder is correcting unhelpful behaviors. Unhelpful behaviors, the things that just really don’t help the situation. So notice that I don’t say good behaviors and bad behaviors. I call them helpful behaviors and unhelpful behaviors because I’m really just kind of avoiding the judgment of good or bad.
But the unhelpful behaviors are something that leads to some impact that is not particularly helpful now.

Remember level zero we’re going to come back to that’s the ground level we’ll come back to it.

But we’re going to start with level one. The first rung up. Now, Level One is Simple Correction.
So these are the normal small course corrections. Everyone needs them. You need them. I need them. We all need them. Whether it’s because we’re learning something new or maybe we didn’t know. “I didn’t know that had that impact on you.”
These are simple to give. And if you do it right, people aren’t offended. It’s just feedback. This is just feedback. And it’s one of those things that, you know, is simple correction.
We want to normalize it. We want to make this just part of our everyday. So that’s Level One: Simple Correction.

Level Two, the next rung up, is a Pattern of Behavior. This is a pattern of the unhelpful behavior that has developed.
So maybe you tried to make a simple correction. You gave enough time for it to be corrected. You gave encouragement where it was needed, but the behaviors continued. So now we have a pattern.
At this point, it’s still not a major issue, but we do need to get the unhelpful behavior corrected at this level. We really don’t want it to progress any further. So we do want to address it. Level two is a little bit higher.

Level Three is a Broken Promise. So you asked the team member to adjust their behavior, you gave them an opportunity to be a part of the solution, to figure out what adjustment they wanted to make and how. You provided support.
But the commitment or promise that the team member made was broken.
And now it’s not so much about the unhelpful behavior itself as much as it is about the broken promise. So, yes, we still want the unhelpful behavior corrected.
But we kind of escalated at this point because the team member made this commitment. That other thing happened. And now I’m concerned.
Now it’s not just about the behavior. We also have a broken promise or broken commitment.

If we go up to the next rung, level four, Level Four is a damaged relationship. This is when you have multiple broken promises or you have a really high-impact behavior that goes against your organizational values.
Trust has been lost. Our confidence in our ability to work through issues collaboratively and productively is gone.
We’ve really reached this kind of situation that it’s really not even about the behavior at all. It’s now about this damaged relationship.

So now that you know these four levels.
Level One is Simple Correction.
Level Two is the Pattern of Behavior.
Level Three is a Broken Promise.
Level Four is a Damaged Relationship.

Now, let’s go back and talk about level zero. Level Zero is the ground level. These are Facts Plus Assumptions.
Things are happening. You’re hearing things. You’re seeing things. You may have some facts, and you also have assumptions.
You have automatic thoughts and stories you’ve told yourself. We’ve talked about this in previous episodes.
Your brain has filled in the blank where there is a gap in facts. Your brain has established an intent and set an intent where you may not know the intent.
And I know you didn’t mean to do it, but you did it. And it’s not because you’re a bad person or a bad leader, but because that’s how the human brain works. It fills in the gaps.
And so level zero is this ground level, which is kind of this combination of facts plus assumptions.
So these five levels now become the levels of conflict, the Conflict Ladder that every leader needs to know.

The thing is that leaders often take missteps on the conflict ladder, and there are a few different places that leaders take wrong steps.

So one example, the first example to give you is that leaders will often jump off the ground level – level zero – and onto the conflict ladder too quickly or without separating the facts versus the assumptions.
We let those assumptions, the stories, the automatic thoughts take over and we jump into correcting an unhelpful behavior before we really understand if it’s even true. Right.
We just jump straight to dealing with it, straight to addressing it, even though we’ve made some assumptions.
And not only do we want to know, like, is this true? But if it is true, what are the actual impacts and what are the factors that may be causing or contributing to it?
So we just want to better understand the facts and assumptions at Level Zero before we decide to get on the ladder. Before we jump onto the ladder.
Before we jump into conflict, while we’re still on the ground, we need to have some conversations. We need to try to better understand. We need to ask and listen.
So before we jump into telling, because conflict feedback is telling, right, feedback is going to be telling, I’m telling you.
Before we jump in to tell while we’re on the ground, we want to ask and listen.

Second, one of the other mistakes I see is that leaders wait until things reach level three or four before they address the issue. And I’ve seen this countless times in my work experience and in organizations I’ve consulted with.
Here’s what happens when you’re a leader. Right?
So you call an HR partner and you say, “Oh my gosh, you won’t believe what he did. We have to terminate. This is just ridiculous.” And you go through this long list of grievances.
And then the HR Partner starts asking you questions, trying to understand the situation. And it turns out those grievances weren’t addressed, not through the formal performance management process and certainly not through a more appropriate and informal leadership conversation.
So instead of addressing unhelpful behaviors at level one or two, you let them just fester. And now we’re climbing the ladder and the issue, we just keep climbing the ladder.
The conflict gets bigger and bigger and higher and higher. There’s more at risk now if you fall off this ladder, right. There’s more at risk.
But we do that because we don’t address it at the level one or level two. You let them fester. So that’s another misstep that leaders will make on the conflict ladder with the different levels of conflict.

Another mistake that leaders will make is they they’re addressing issues at level one or two, like it’s an unhelpful behavior or simple correction or pattern of behavior. So it’s at level one or level two. But they act like it’s a level three or four conflict.
Let’s sit down. We need to talk to you in my office. Let’s close the door. I may use a really concerning tone of voice. I’m going to go on and on about how much impact there is from this behavior. And when you do that, it has this impact and that impact. It has to change. This cannot continue. You have to change. You must do this.
And we make a big deal out of it. And so the behavior, the conflict, is actually at level one and two. But the way you show up as a leader is you show up as if it’s a level three or four, which now escalates the conflict unnecessarily.
Guess what?
The team member feels attacked. They respond defensively in kind. And sure enough, now the whole conflict comes up and we’re having a conversation about what you did and what you did. and that’s not what happened or that is what happened. And now you don’t trust me. What we’re talking about.
We’re talking about trust? I thought we were talking about, you know, coming back from break on time. What’s going on?

So those are a few mistakes that individual leaders misstep, that individual leaders will sometimes make when it comes to these levels of conflict.

Now, organizations will also make mistakes when it comes to addressing conflict at the right levels. And I’m saying organizations make mistakes. Obviously, people right? Organizations are made up of people. So people are behind this. But it kind of becomes this group situation here.
So sometimes what happens is an organization outsources all of the conversations to HR. So, hey, all of these conflict conversations, all of this correcting unhelpful behavior, anything that is uncomfortable or that addresses a behavior, it’s going to HR.
And while HR may be a support partner, especially when you get up to level four conversations or maybe when you’re working through progressive performance management process and you’re on to, you know, whatever level you’re at, definitely you want a partner like that that can help you navigate that.
But it is not HR’s job to give correcting feedback to operations team members. It is the operations leader’s job, whether that’s a team lead, a supervisor, a plant manager, a director, the leader is the one with the relationship.
So, leaders, you are building relationships and part of that building of a relationship includes giving feedback on unhelpful behaviors.
We want to make sure we don’t outsource too much to HR and I don’t just mean the activity, outsourcing the activity. I also mean outsourcing the responsibility.

The responsibility. As a leader, as an operations leader. Listen up, plant managers. As an operations leader, you have responsibility for your team. Don’t try to outsource that responsibility to someone else.

All right, another mistake organizations make is trying to control the conversation so much that they push everything through the formal performance management process.
So, hey, if you’re having a conversation, if you’re giving any sort of feedback, you’ve got to document it on this form. And this is a verbal one, a verbal two. And then you’ve got to have a written one and a written two. And this is the process, and we need you to follow the process exactly.
And so now managers are afraid to have real conversations outside of that process, and they’re documenting every time they give feedback to a team member.
And guess what? You’re giving a level one simple correction, right? Level one simple correction. You’re on the first rung. This is normal. This is every day.
I do things that are unhelpful all the time. And somebody needs to tell me so that I can change it. And all I need is I’m just waiting for you to tell me because I didn’t know.
And instead of you just telling me, you’re telling me AND it’s now this, you know, documented thing.
It sure doesn’t feel like a simple correction anymore.

We have to understand that there is a difference between leading somebody and having a conversation, giving correcting feedback, making simple corrections, having conversations about patterns of behavior and helping someone adjust their unhelpful behaviors and do more of their helpful behaviors.
Right. That is leadership.
And in general, leadership, day to day leadership does not necessarily fall within your performance management process. That’s a separate process that’s reserved. That’s really a legal process more than anything. Right? It exists for legal and compliance reasons. It exists for legal protection, both for the team member and for the organization.

What you’re doing as a leader every day, though, is you’re building a relationship and you’re having conversations. And so if we have an organization where everything has to go through that process, then either it’s an it’s not just an uncomfortable conversation, it’s a big deal or leaders start to avoid it and they don’t have it because they don’t want to go through that process or they’re afraid to or they don’t know it or whatever it might be.

Now, organizations also misstep here because they will often fail to develop their leaders’ capabilities to have the difficult conversations about unhelpful behaviors. And to do so in a productive way.
We all know it happens.
You promote the best operator to be the team leader, but we don’t help that operator, now team leader, develop leadership skills, having conversation skills.
The team leader who can drive the best results, push the best numbers, gets promoted to supervisor, often without real consideration of their leadership capabilities. And so we’re not investing in their leadership skills and developing how they interact with people, helping them to do better, to be better at telling and asking and listening, because they’re going to do all three in their role.

And because we don’t develop them, guess what happens?
You’ve got it.
Those mid-level managers swoosh down and handle too much of the conflict and the difficult situations.
And then what happens?
Well, the relationship between supervisor and lead or lead and team member is potentially damaged, definitely isn’t strengthened.
The cycle continues.
The mid-level manager, the plant manager, the director of operations is sucked into all these conversations and is sitting there saying, “Jamie, I don’t have time to do my job.”
It happens. Know you’re not alone. If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone.

So here’s how the levels of conflict this Conflict Ladder I talked about can help.
When we’re thinking about it:
Level Zero is your ground level, which is your Facts Plus Assumptions.
Level One is Simple Correction.
Level Two is the Pattern of Behavior.
Level Three is a Broken Promise.
Level Four is a Damaged Relationship.

And so here’s how all this can help. By teaching your entire operations leadership team this Conflict Ladder, you can start to have real conversations about what level of conflict the situation is at.
What rung are we on?
What steps did we take before we got here?
Does our plan of action match the level we’re at?
What kind of conversation? Let’s role play the conversation.
What do you plan to say?
Talk me through it, pretend like I’m the person, and then we can give feedback about whether that conversation matches the level of the conflict, the level of unhelpful behavior.

Those conversations give your senior leaders and plant managers one of the structures they need to then develop how their department managers and supervisors think about conflict.

Now you have the framework to build better skills and to give feedback, both reinforcing feedback and correcting feedback to the leader to help the leader improve.

Of course, you know, we also want to develop the leaders’ competencies, right?
We also want those supervisors in those department managers and the plant managers – we want them to build better skills.
They need to learn what their triggers are that caused them to be the problem and conflict. That caused them to react in a destructive way.
We want to help them manage their own thoughts and stories so that they can choose productive responses. So that they can be intentional about what they want out of that conversation and that their actions can match their intent.
They need to learn how to avoid inflammatory language that escalates conflict and use inclusive and inviting language instead.
To improve their abilities to conduct high impact listening to really be present and empathetic while giving those derivative responses that really help you understand the other person’s perspective.
So all of these skills are important.

And the Conflict Ladder levels are levels of conflict.
This is a great construct to start with because now you in your organization, you can have this construct.
This ladder can help you be more purposeful in how you develop your leaders to have productive conversations and conflict by creating a common language for discussion.

In my Productive Conversations and Conflict programs that I do with leadership teams, we tackle the beliefs and the behaviors and the systems that are needed to shift your leadership team so that they can stop ignoring the hard conversations and improve the organization through meaningful, productive diversity of thought, perspectives and learnings.

Look, if you want a Lean culture, then you need productive conflict. We need different ideas. And so we need leaders who are both competent and confident in having conversations.

OK, what’s your next step?

I want you to head over to the show notes for this episode where you can actually download the Conflict Ladder.
Remember, you can find that at https://processplusresults.com/podcast/ and then find Episode Number 46.

And then here’s what you want to do:
Download the Conflict Ladder. Print it out or send it virtually and engage your leadership team.

So if you’re an executive, engage your operations managers or/or your peer team.
If you’re a supervisor, engage your other peers, your other supervisors that your peers with.

Engage your leadership team in a conversation about the different levels of conflict.

Ask yourselves questions like these:
What missteps do you tend to make as an individual?
What about as an organization, what have you noticed happens in our organization?
What existing conflicts or unhelpful behaviors are out there that need to be discussed, that we need to have a productive conversation about and what rung, what level would you put those on?
Why would you put them there?

Start to have a conversation.
What’s happening in our organization, what’s happening in our team, what’s happening with us individually as leaders?

And then also be sure to tune in next week, because I was asked an interesting question recently about if I had a magic wand and that kind of ties back to today’s episode topic a little bit as well.

So those are your next steps. Remember, you can go to https://processplusresults.com/podcast/ Find episode number 46 to download the Conflict Ladder.

And remember, if you lead a team of leaders and you want to develop their capabilities to have the hard conversations they avoid or to improve their skills so they have those conversations more effectively, then schedule a call. Just head over to. https://processplusresults.com/ and click on the “Schedule a Call” button.

We’ll have a no pressure conversation about your desired future state, your current state and the obstacles standing in your way.

Until next time.