Should Employees with High-Conflict Behaviors Be Given a Chance to Change?
Should Employees With High-Conflict Behaviors Be Given a Chance to Change? ©2022 Megan Hunter, MBA Is it advisable to keep an employee with high-conflict behavior? High conflict equals high disruption, and not the good kind. Dealing with the many dramas that make up high-conflict situations comes at a cost in terms of time, bottom line, and maximum frustration. One wrong email response can result in twelve hours of meetings with HR, managers and even with consultants. Is it worth it to keep trying? What if you’re dealing with a high-earner or in an environment where workers are scarce? Can high-conflict behavior change or at least be contained? Can the disruption be mitigated? High-Conflict Behavior At a recent training a participant asked why I was teaching them to learn new communication skills to use in high-conflict interactions. “Isn’t it advisable to let them go?” The audience broke out in applause. Of course! No one wants to divert time from revenue-producing activities. In a perfect world, people who produce and don’t cause issues would be preferred and retained, but it’s rarely a perfect world. The closest we get to that is a large corporation with tight policies, good hiring practices, and lots of structure. But in small business and often in not-for-profits and government, options aren’t as plentiful. The reality is that people with high conflict personalities are in our places of work and decisions must be made about their tenure. The audience had just listened to the list of behaviors that make up a high-conflict dispute: all-or-nothing thinking unmanaged emotions extreme behaviors, and the easiest to spot—blame This typically results in productivity reduction, divisions within teams and within the organization, grievances, complaints and lawsuits that tie up resources. Of course they weren’t keen on keeping staff with these behaviors, but here’s how I responded. It Depends It depends on whether your organization is prepared to invest in: providing the individual with skills coaching to give opportunity for change and improvement creating organization-wide communication and behavior policies teaching conflict communication skills such as EAR Statements and BIFF Response to everyone Skills Coaching: Personal Skills for Productive Relationships We created a coaching program focused on teaching 4 Big Skills that give the individual every opportunity to change—a chance to change. The person isn’t trying to be difficult—they just don’t have these 4 Big Skills that help them have good relationships and good conflict resolution skills. The coaching sessions are aimed at transforming the 4 high-conflict behaviors into 4 big strengths. In other words, the new skills should: all-or-nothing thinking into flexible thinking (more than one option, to reduce rigidity and holding one’s ground) unmanaged emotions into managed emotions (anger management; anxiety management; self-regulation; self-talk) extreme behaviors into moderate behaviors (stopping and checking themselves before acting impulsively on what feels like a good idea in the moment) blame into taking responsibility (this is huge!) The New Ways for Work® method gives people a chance to change. It’s worth the investment. Anyone who coaches employees or others in conflict resolution can teach clients/employees these important, life-changing skills. Communication and Behavior Policies Lots of large corporations and some smaller companies are proactive about acceptable communication and behavior. Having them creates expectation and structure, and ultimately gives HR, managers and others something specific to point to for correcting unwanted behavior, which keeps it from feeling personal to the individual. Conflict Communication Skills Communication is king and nearly everyone can learn to communicate differently. Bill Eddy, my co-founder at High Conflict Institute, created two important communication methods that not only de-escalate upset people, but they help to create a calm environment when used by everyone. For verbal communication, an EAR Statement™ that shows Empathy, Attention, and Respect, is helpful (required) to calm an upset person before engaging them in a debate or expecting a logical conversation. An EAR Statement is just one simple phrase such as “That sounds really frustrating”, which calms the reactive brain and helps the person gain access to the problem-solving brain. I like to think of it as CalmB4Think™ or CalmB4Engage™. For written communication a BIFF Response® will contain the back-and-forth and ultimately contain the conflict. A BIFF Response is a written communication that is Brief, Informative, Friendly, and Firm. It essentially extracts anything that will escalate conflict, even inadvertently. It’s like having a magic wand in your keyboard. Conclusion People who exhibit the four defining characteristics of high-conflict behavior aren’t bad people—they often succeed when given a chance to learn some new skills—and to change. New Ways for Work® training is available to coaches, HR professionals and anyone wanting to learn how to help people develop new skills. Back to the question at hand: Should employees with high-conflict behaviors be given a chance to change? Yes, in my opinion, they should, but only if the organization is willing to invest in coaching, policies and teaching everyone new communication skills. These aren’t old school tools — that’s why we call it New Ways for Work. In the past, we didn’t know what to do, but now we do. Will the skills work for everyone? No. Ultimately, the individual will demonstrate whether they have changed or not, and then the organization must be willing to make a decision. If even moderate change is evident, then you’ve accomplished something major. If the changes just aren’t there, and the behaviors are disruptive or damaging, then it’s likely time to go separate ways. But at least you’ve given someone the change to change. Read more in BIFF at Work: Your Guide to Difficult Workplace Workplace Communications. MEGAN HUNTER, MBA is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of the High Conflict Institute in San Diego, California. She is a keynote speaker and provides training on handling high-conflict situations in the workplace, at home and anywhere. She created the Conflict Influencer™ Certification and is lead author of the Conflict Influencer series of books. Megan is co-host of the podcast It’s All Your
Giving High Conflict Employees a Chance to Change
©2021 Megan Hunter, MBA Workplace conflict is challenging. It requires time, depletes morale, disrupts the workflow, and ultimately sabotages competitive advantage and mission. We typically give up on challenging employees, but what if we knew the strategies that would give them a chance to change? Before I go further, if you’re thinking that not all conflict is bad, I agree. Conflict happens all the time and most of it is managed without negative lasting fallout. High conflict is different because it involves blame, accusations, high emotion, and all-or-nothing solutions, which lead to frequent meetings with human resources, managers, up to the highest levels. People with high conflict personalities (P-HCPs) have lots of dilemmas and complaints that feel life-or-death in that moment. So they react right now because it feels that important right now. Most people stop before they act. P-HCPS don’t. If you’re smacking your forehead yet again wondering why this person keeps doing the same self-defeating and disruptive actions, you may be dealing with someone with a high conflict personality. If you have P-HCPs in your organization, you know how frustrating and time-consuming it can be, and despite your best efforts, you think you’re out of options. That is partially true. The strategies used in ordinary conflict don’t work well in high-conflict situations. New strategies are required but they’re not part of our usual skill set, so we often unintentionally make the situation worse. Instead, try these strategies and see if you can make some headway and gain some peace: Attention and Connection Giving someone a compliment on their shoes or asking how their weekend went can go a long way, especially when combined with a smile, eye contact, and a pleasant tone of voice. Most people are craving connection during the lockdowns and strange times we’ve experienced the past nearly two years, so this strategy works well for almost anyone (we’re all a bit stressed). Note the use of the term “craving” above. If you’re craving connection, multiply that by ten to begin to understand the P-HCP brain’s quest for connection. The HCP brain craves connection and attention, which to you may seem like giving in to them, but it’s not. What you’re giving is a gift that they can’t get on their own. Take the time, make the connection, and be authentic. Do it again the next day and the next. The time it takes has a positive payoff in the moment and in the long run. If they continue to bring complaints and dilemmas, you’ll have a better footing to set some limits and steer them in the right direction. Or make different decisions. Dilemmas and Decisions P-HCPs are stuck in a repeat cycle of dilemmas and crises to which they’re constantly reacting. These aren’t dilemmas about work product. They are dilemmas involving people and relationships — the hardest thing in the world for them. The next time someone brings a complaint or dilemma to you, ask them to take a pen and paper to write a list of options for addressing that dilemma – from the most ridiculous and extreme to the most reasonable and everything in between. This is part 1. The next step, part 2, is vital. Ask them to check each option for these four things and cross out any yes answers. What they’re left with may likely be the least high conflict option. Questions to ask about each option: Does it include blame or defensiveness? Is it all-or-nothing? Is it extreme? Is it coming from emotion? You will have to coach them through this the first few times and remind them to use it every time they have a dilemma. The main issue that you’ll want to help them with is to stop themselves and remember to do this. Their default is to react right away, so you’re teaching a valuable skill by helping them learn to stop themselves, analyze their options, and make decisions about their own dilemmas. P-HCPs want other people to solve their dilemmas, but when you do, it will typically backfire and your best advice won’t be taken. It takes time and practice, and you’ll need to remind each time they come to you with a dilemma to analyze their options. Tell them that any time they have a strong feeling, it’s a sign to pause and analyze their options. This helps them calm their emotions, shift into thinking mode, and gives them control over their decisions. If they ultimately make a not-so-great decision, at least it’s their decision and they’ve had a chance to think about it. Make sure you use EAR (empathy, attention, respect) in all conversations with them. BIFF Response® for Written Communication Again, because it’s hard for P-HCPs to stop themselves before doing something self-sabotaging, giving them a structured method for writing emails, texts, DMs or anything in writing will help. Teach them this simple method for both writing to someone and responding to someone. BRIEF: 2-5 sentences is all that’s needed typically INFORMATIVE: focus on facts and straight information FRIENDLY: use a friendly tone FIRM: close it firmly and if you need a response, offer two or more options for the other person to choose from Everyone in an organization should use BIFF as a matter of course for all email interaction. It calms everyone, whether high conflict or not, but it especially calms and contains the conflict when high conflict personalities are involved, and it saves so much time! EAR Statement™ for Verbal Communication Thinking about craving again, the HCP brain craves three things: 1. empathy 2. attention 3. respect It craves them because it feels lost without them. It craves them because it’s in react mode. It craves them because the feeling is intense and powerful. There’s nothing easier than giving an upset person an EAR Statement. It’s a gift. So, why don’t we do it more often? Because we’re also stuck in our own defaults of explaining, arguing, right-fighting, or we’re simply in problem-solving mode, failing to include
An Interview with Bill Eddy: Calming Upset People with EAR
An Interview with Bill Eddy: Calming Upset People with EAR ©2021 Bill Eddy, LCSW, Esq. 1. What does “EAR” stand for and why did you develop it? EAR stands for Empathy, Attention and Respect. In working on high conflict disputes in families, the workplace, and legal cases, I realized that people were constantly upset and needed help calming down. I specifically developed the technique we call “EAR Statements” as described in the book, as a quick and easy way of calming people who were in an increasingly intense conflict. It is especially useful with people who are stuck in high conflict and can’t get themselves out of it. After one or two or three EAR Statements, most (probably more than 90%) calm down at least enough to start working on solving problems instead of just blaming each other. 2. How can we avoid “catching” other people’s strong emotions? Emotions are contagious. Our brains are designed this way to help us work together or save our lives through group action in dangerous situations. Upset emotions are particularly contagious because they tell us there is an urgent problem that needs to grab our attention. Emotions activate several parts of the brain, including the amygdala, which is particularly sensitive to upset emotions. If someone is anxious or afraid or angry, the amygdala tells us to get ready for fight, flight or freeze. It can happen in less than a tenth of a second. The more anxious a person is, the more likely they are to catch other people’s strong emotions. Another aspect of the brain is our mirror neurons, which tell us to imitate the behavior that we see other people doing. This can be positive or negative. For example, if you see a group of people running away from the ocean (probably to avoid a tidal wave), there’s no time to waste thinking about it. Your body just immediately starts running before you have time to really analyze the situation. Likewise, with strong emotions, if someone nearby is angry, it’s very likely that you will get angry too—either at the same target of anger or at the person who is angry. This is the nature of mob behavior, which may be totally emotional and people join in without any knowledge of what the issues are that are driving the mob. To avoid catching others’ emotions takes some training, which we do with High Conflict Institute. We teach people to focus on giving an upset person an EAR Statement, rather than reacting with the same emotions. We also teach people to give themselves EAR Statements to help them manage their own emotions and avoid getting “hooked” emotionally. For example, you can tell yourself “It’s not about me,” when someone calls you names or yells in your face in a way that’s totally inappropriate. By regularly reminding yourself that such behavior is “Not about me,” you can maintain calm and avoid getting “emotionally hooked.” With High Conflict Institute trainings, we give people practice exercises with someone being upset and angry, and the other person responding as calmly as possible with an EAR Statement. It takes practice and no one becomes perfect at this, as it is still hard-wired to some extent in our brains. But people do get better and better at this. And it can be positive emotional contagion, such as when you give someone else and EAR Statement and it helps them feel better. 3. How are EAR statements different from the reflective/active listening that counselors often use? Reflective listening and active listening are great tools and everyone should learn to do them. But they focus on only reflecting back what one has heard, including the content and emotions. Counselors help their clients become more self-aware by using reflective listening or active listening. But EAR Statements in daily life are designed to give a little bit more of yourself by making a statement that gives the other person your empathy, your attention and your respect. EAR Statements were originally designed for situations in which someone is dealing with high conflict people, who are generally more intensely upset than the average person. So we developed EAR Statements to do more than just reflecting back what someone is saying and feeling. For example, a reflective listening statement might be: “I hear that you are aware that I arrived late and you are angry about that.” An EAR Statement might be: “I hear that you are aware that I arrived late and you are angry about that. I have a lot of empathy for the awkward position I put you in.” Or: “I’ll pay attention to your concerns; tell me more.” Or: “I hear your frustrations about his problem and I have a lot of respect for your efforts to solve it.” These statements all show more than reciting what you have heard. They show an investment in the other person by giving empathy, attention, and/or respect. 4. How can EAR statements transform contentious relationships? In making an EAR Statement, a person needs to listen to what the other is saying and find something that they can show empathy for, listen to more, or show respect for. This focus on connecting with a positive intent immediately reduces a contentious relationship from the point of view of the person giving the EAR Statement. But since emotions are contagious, their EAR Statement often is very pleasing for the other person to hear and it reduces their anger or defensiveness, so that they may feel neutral or positive toward the person who gave them an EAR Statement. It may seem complicated, but it’s really about each person shifting themselves into a positive state of mind rather than staying in a negative state of mind, regardless of how negative the other person may be. 5. Do these statements always work to calm people down? From my experience and other High Conflict Institute trainers and staff over the past dozen years or so, they calm people down at