5 Steps to Masterful Confrontation

Handled appropriately, confrontation done well allows you and your team to consider differing opinions, ideas, and assumptions with passive aggressive or victim-y behavior less likely to come into play. This, in turn, leads to greater buy-in and accountability.

Still, you are so trained to avoid confrontation that you probably haven’t taken many chances to practice it.  If you’re rusty on your confrontation skills, here’s how to confront issues and assert yourself without completely alienating everyone:

1. Be humble enough to know that you only have part of the story. When you decide to confront an issue, realize you may not have all the information and that you will learn more as you talk to the other person(s).  While the information you have may be troubling or disappointing, remember that you have interpreted the information you gathered and created a narrative in your head that is consistent with the way only you see the world.  There may be missing pieces that add a completely different spin on the issue.

If the information you have initially makes your blood boil, take at least a day to cool off and focus on the actual facts you have with the idea that the purpose for confronting this issue is to make sure you are seeing the issue from angles other than your perspective to round out the story.

2. Open with the facts.  As you start the confrontation, and after the usual “thanks for meeting with me today”, open with the facts.  These facts may come from your own observations, collected data, or from others’ reports or complaints.

Facts are different from your interpretation and include who, what, when, where, and how.  Starting with facts will help you set forth the context the issue surrounding the issue, the words and deeds of those involved, and the resulting impact those words and deeds had on the company, the team, customers, or others.

When you open with the facts, you need only recite what has transpired. This simple starting point helps you get over the awkward speed bump of what to say first and is grounded in concrete information that isn’t merely your opinion or hyperbole. Also, the facts focus the other party’s attention on exactly the issue at hand, which tends to cut off his/her options for deflecting blame.

3. Test the facts. After putting forth the facts you have, turn over the conversation to the other person with a question, like “Do I have this right?” or “What was going on?” or “Did this situation go as planned?”  This allows the other person to agree with the facts you have, add more, or tell you they experienced the situation differently.

4. Listen for others’ reactions.  As the other person talks, instead of listening for how you can argue back, listen for what’s at stake for him or her or any commitment that comes through. You may find that what you thought was a big issue, isn’t. Or if there is indeed an issue to address, you can then use the information provided to help paint a bigger picture for the other person, so you can both get on the same page. From here you can renew or establish commitments to each other.

5. Agree on a plan of action and follow up. Before you leave the confrontation, schedule a future meeting to follow up on the issue and any commitments you made to each other.

Confrontation does not need to be an angry exchange.  Healthy confrontation helps clear up misunderstandings or misinterpretations and get those involved back on track.  When you master confrontation, you increase understanding among co-workers, which increases the ability to work together productively.

Why Confrontation is the Secret Ingredient of Success

You dream of working easily and seamlessly with colleagues with little or no contention.  Who really wants to work in a contentious environment? Surprisingly, little or no disagreement/conflict is a sign that your group is not as good as you think.  When there is little if any open disagreement about matters of importance (mission, values, projects, and goals), your nice and easy culture is in trouble of complacency and of becoming irrelevant.  The group becomes vulnerable to “group think” without the ability to thoroughly vet ideas and does not adapt quickly and strategically to changing conditions nor does it evolve rapidly enough to face handled new challenges. And you know without little outward disagreement your colleagues are expressing disagreement and discontent out of the light of day among themselves.

“Easy” working relationships and interactions tend to be superficial, Stepford-type communications that present a good face while hiding what you and your colleagues really think and feel. When you don’t express your real thoughts and concerns, interactions in the workplace are coated with the waxy build-up of unvoiced concerns, resentments, passive-aggressive behavior, disengaged employees, gossip, and scapegoating others.  This sets you up for poor decisions based on untested beliefs and untried assumptions, which in turn increases stress, smothers innovation, derails growth, and allows incompetence to go unaddressed.

The result is a toxic culture with low trust even though you and your colleagues are outwardly nice to each other while putting down each other behind your backs.

The secret to turning this around? Confrontation.

Whoa!  You have been raised to be non-confrontational.  How can confrontation be good?  Confrontation can be done in a respectful way where the emphasis is on really digging into the content of what others are proposing rather than attacking others personally.

Confrontation doesn’t need to be loud and forceful. It isn’t about making someone else wrong while you are right nor is it about winning.  Instead, confrontation done right is about using the data that is known to question a process, a decision, an opinion, performance or behavior. Confrontation done right highlights other possible perspectives or interpretations without demeaning others. By confronting the completeness and interpretation of existing data, you stand a greater chance of having deeper, more meaningful discussions while de-personalizing the issue at hand.

Disagreement is natural when interacting with others because we don’t all think, believe, or act the same.  Sadly, whether you’re trying to be PC or whether boat-rocking in general makes you queasy, the idea of confrontation gets a bad rap, mostly because you have seen it done badly for so long.  The typical scene that pops into your head when hearing the word “confrontation” probably involves someone losing her cool by yelling, pounding a fist on a table, and/or even throwing something. That’s not the type of confrontation that is productive.

Handled appropriately, confrontation done right allows a department, work group, business unit, or team to vet differing opinions, ideas, and assumptions, which leads to greater clarity before a course of action is chosen.  The result?  A collegial climate in which you feel you can be transparent and vulnerable because the focus is on the good of the group rather than on protecting your ego by looking like a hero. Healthy confrontation creates an atmosphere where people are willing to forego the short-term relief of staying in a familiar rut in favor of long-term, meaningful impacts that will enable your company to adapt and thrive.

And that is why confrontation is the secret to your success.



WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR NEWSLETTER, BLOG OR WEBSITE? You can, as long as you include this information with it: Beth Strathman is the advisor for senior leaders who get an edge on the competition by staying sharp and adaptable to increase productivity and profitability. Learn more about her company Firebrand Consulting LLC at: bethstrathman.com.