Help! I’ve got a lazy colleague who doesn’t pull his weight. The only deadline he’s interested in is 5.30, when he’s out the door, leaving the rest of us to finish his work. He seems busy and is on Teams all day, but he doesn’t do much – except maybe nailing our Work/Life Balance core value. It’s ridiculous and I’m seething. When I try to talk to him about it he tells me to chill and not be so intense. I should flag it up to our manager, but I hate rocking the boat in case it comes back on me. Why am I so frightened of difficult conversations?
Conflict avoidance is very similar to people pleasing. It stems from the same fear of upsetting people if you say what you need. If you are brought up in a home where difficult conversations never happened, then it’s natural to develop a belief that you will be rejected if you rock the boat. You bury your feelings under the carpet and try to stifle your resentment somehow: food, alcohol, drugs, excessive exercise, shopping, social media, unhealthy relationships, workaholism. Have I missed anything?
Researchers David Watson and Ronald Friend described conflict avoidance as Fear of Negative Evaluation (FNE). People who scored high on their FNE scale are anxious about social approval and badly want to conform. This can lead to submissive behaviour, not standing up for themselves, inability to set healthy boundaries and subordinating their own wishes to suit other people.
Healthy conflict is good for business
Apart from the damaging effect to individuals, unresolved conflict at work creates bigger cultural issues such as decreased problem solving, reduced collaboration and distrust. There’ll always be conflict between people: pretending there isn’t causes more problems. Dealing with it in a professional, honest way creates high performing teams. Amy Edmondson’s concept of psychological safety is sometimes misconstrued as ‘are you OK, hon?’ fluffy stuff, burying issues. It means the exact opposite: feeling safe to call out and tackle issues constructively.
If they don’t feel safe, people will change the subject when given an opportunity to speak up. Ineffective or unpleasant managers will remain in role if no one flags up their behaviour. When organisations hit the headlines for toxic behaviour it shows a culture of ignoring problems, rather than speaking up about them.
It’s unacceptable for the people at the top to plead ignorance. You can’t assume everything is ok. If you don’t ask, you won’t know; asking lots of questions is how you create a culture of psychological safety. By asking, I mean conversations, not a lengthy survey by external consultants that’s six months out of date when you finally get it.
How to have a difficult conversation
Start it! State the problem professionally and don’t make it personal. Don’t make it about the person, it’s about the consequences of their actions (or inaction in this case). My client used the project management system to show the unequal output. She calmly explained the effect this was having and presented her plan for redistribution of work. It was up to her manager to decide how to handle his reluctant contributor.
Lazy co-workers
This is the bad behaviour I hear about most often: people whose performance has tailed off. Are they actually lazy, or is something else going on? That’s next month’s article and I’d love your opinions in the meantime.
How can I help you?
Talk to me about my executive coaching and leadership programmes for your existing and aspiring managers. I combine business school best practice with practical skills. No fluff, no judgement. We’ll work on realtime business problems so you see instant impact and much better questioning capability.
Here’s my speaking brochure, including my ever popular Crazy Busy for leaders and all-hands sessions and my latest topic, Everyday Emotional Intelligence.
Zena Everett
Speaker, Author, Leadership Team Coach
www.zenaeverett.com
zena@zenaeverett.com
+44 7968 424650
Books: Mind Flip and The Crazy Busy Cure are both available on Amazon. The Crazy Busy Cure is also available to order from your local book shop or whole team orders (40% discount for 10 + copies) from me