Conflict Management Training
You’re invited to a mandatory conflict management and progressive disciplinary training! I can hear the groans now. Even I sink a bit lower in my chair thinking about the painful however many hours I am going to have to endure. But reality is, the ability to deal with conflict and hold people accountable through disciplinary action is a critical part of being a leader. And this isn’t something you’re taught in school.
I’ve gone through many iterations of conflict management and progressive discipline training in my tenure. It started with the typical boring training where I drone on for an hour or so about all the things you should and shouldn’t do. That was before I had to sit through conversations with employees about their behaviors. Before I talked to the single mom that was late to work every day because daycare opens at six thirty and it takes her an hour to get to work. Before I mediated an argument between two women that had lasted months causing all sorts of chaos. Before I got that two-page email about sexual harassment. And before I got the call that I needed to help get someone to a hospital after a mental breakdown. A boring do this, do that training does nothing to prepare you for these types of conversations and situations. Something had to change. So, I started to experiment.
I decided to put together a deck of slides with scenarios and let the leaders tell me what they would do. In groups, we could talk through the different situations and talk about what worked and what didn’t work, what was legal and what might be questionable. It opened the floor for people to bring up really challenging cases they’ve dealt with in the past and it helped managers build connections with other managers, creating more space for collaboration.
Today I want to share my slides with you and give you an easy walk through of how I lead the session. The slides can be changed to fit your industry and the things you typically deal with. Right now, I work in a retail space so the scenarios I create are about situations that we would typically deal with. But when I was in waste management, the scenarios were a bit different. I like to start out easy but then make them more challenging as we go along. So here we go, enjoy!
When I open the training session, I always like to make people feel comfortable. I don’t do any ice breakers, although I do love a good laugh. I just like to make small talk before we start. I ask if anyone has any fun plans, or I talk about something silly I did recently. It helps set a more relaxed tone for the conversation and gets people geared up for actual conversations, not just sitting and listening. Once everyone is a little more relaxed and I’m ready to kick off, I walk them through the idea that this is a set of scenarios I’ve created that we are going to talk through. There is no right answer. The point of the session is to hear how people handle these different types of situations and learn from one another. This is critical because it isn’t about telling people they are doing something wrong it is about building confidence in leaders to act and hold people accountable. If you scare managers, they are never going to want to take action and that will only decrease engagement and force your most valued employees to look for other opportunities.
OK, scenario one….let’s jump into it. I’ll read the scenario out loud. Make sure you practice this because you’ll want to emphasize certain parts of it with your voice. “You have a new hire that has been on your team for just two weeks. The person you assigned to train the new hire is having a hard time. The new hire is getting frustrated with the material and in turn frustrated with the trainer. The trainer’s short temper doesn’t make it any easier. You’ve noticed the spats but neither party has come to you to complain. What do you do?” And now you wait. This is the first one so there is going to be some silence unless you have a rowdy group. But don’t let that silence make you too uncomfortable, it is necessary. Eventually someone will chime in, and the conversation kicks off. If no one speaks then pick on someone. If no one replies to the first comment ask another person, so and so what do you think? Eventually they will get the hint and start talking.
What you want to do with this scenario and the rest is make sure you have a few things to hit on during the discussion. For the first scenario, I would touch on empathy and coaching your employee that is doing the training. I would talk about mediation in a constructive manner between the two but not giving in too quickly and assigning a new trainer. This scenario is great because everyone will eventually have a new hire and if you’ve been in HR for any length of time, you’ll know that new hires bring all kinds of drama with them. If the conversation veers a bit, let it. The point of the training session is to talk about lots of different things, not just the specific scenario. Just make sure you keep your eye on the time and when they’ve exhausted enough time move on to the next scenario.
Scenario two is really interesting because here I am bringing up a situation where another manager outside of the team is creating issues. Now the manager is having to deal with conflict between their team member and a peer. This is challenging and may not be something many people have to deal with, but it is important to include a scenario where there is peer to peer conflict that needs to be managed professionally. I always get a little giggle out of this one too because most of the managers in the training paint a rainbow and butterfly picture of how they would handle it. They say oh I would just go talk to the other manager and work things out, they would understand. Let me tell you this is your prime opportunity as a trainer to throw a wrench into their beautiful little plan. Ask them, what if the other manager pushes back and says their employee is stupid. They say how can you even work with this person; they literally can’t even spell their name right. Now what do you do? Oh, the room gets quiet. But again, this is the point. Relationships are messy and hard. This is a critical moment and right now they can talk through these situations without any real backlash.
Scenario three was one I added after I went through a legal session where a lot of time was spent on the idea of “a manager should have known”. A lot of responsibility falls onto a people leader and as unfair as it may seem a leader can be held accountable for actions happening on their team that they should have been aware of. In this scenario there is yelling that the manager can hear. You may want to just ignore it but as a leader, you can’t. This is real conflict that many of us will deal with at some point in time. Again, there really isn’t a right answer for this. Make that clear. But also make sure you have the points you want to touch on. This is a great scenario to talk about mediation. It is also a good opportunity to talk about giving in to behaviors. One of the typical responses is just to separate them. That isn’t right. You’re just creating more of a problem. Think about how you want to address comments like that and be prepared to help managers walk through feeling uncomfortable being in the middle of such arguments.
Finally, the fourth scenario. I only do four because you’ll spend a lot of time talking through each one. I like this one because it involves external customers. And it includes the very scary word, harassment! Here you can get into a little bit of legal discussion. It is also important that you take time to make leaders feel empowered in this situation. I am certain your managers will have a lot to say about this scenario. Again, you can throw a few what ifs into the mix. What if the customer is the company’s largest customer? What if this is the second or third time you’ve received a complaint about this person? These additional questions always help to drive more conversation.
By this point, you’ve probably already touched on all of the basics in the final slide. This is just a good time to reiterate what you’ve discussed. If anyone had any really great points during the conversations, bring them up again. Ask people what they took away from the discussion and if they found value in the time they just spent with you. I’ve only ever received positive feedback from this training session and hopefully you do too.
Good luck on your endeavors and feel free to make this your own. I believe that people drive an organization forward and we must do our best to support them through all of the challenges they face. Conflict management and discipline is hard and really can only be learned through experiences. It is a necessary evil that we all must perfect. When you give people the opportunity to talk through scenarios in a safe space you build trust and help empower your managers to do the right thing for their people and the business.
