Don't Take Sides In Internal Conflicts

The moment you take side you're setting yourself up for trouble.

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“It’s all IT’s fault!”

If I had a nickel for every time I had heard a client blame the IT team I’d have, well, a few dozen nickels today.

Colleagues blaming each other for problems within an organisation is relatively common in consultancy projects.

It’s important you don’t take this side when this happens though. For example, imagine if someone is criticising the IT team and you respond with something like:

“I totally agree. Your IT team is one of the worst I’ve seen. If they could stop making so many mistakes, we would have completed this weeks ago!”

Now you have just taken a side in an internal conflict which had nothing to do with you.

You might win temporary favour with the contact, but it will come back to haunt you later.

Don’t Take Sides In Internal Conflicts

There are plenty of reasons never to take sides in a conflict.

1. You can find yourself in uncomfortable situations. Imagine sitting in a client meeting where your contact points to you and says “Rich said you’re one of the worst IT teams he’s ever seen”. Not only have you lost the respect of the IT, but you’ve also lost the respect of everyone else in the room too. What else have you been saying behind their backs? The odds of that client ever working with you again are slim.

2. You can’t resolve issues if you’ve picked a side. You can’t make peace if you’ve positioned yourself on one side of the conflict. Resolving conflicts usually resolves compromise. How are you going to bring about compromise if you’ve told your contact you believe you’re right?

3. You’ve only heard one side of the story. I’ve spoken to dozens of IT teams who complain about constantly changing priorities, a lack of resources, and a failure of colleagues to properly consider the IT implications of what they’re being asked to do. Every conflict has two sides - and everyone thinks they’re in the right.

This isn’t about IT teams, although they seem to be everyone’s favourite punching bag. It’s about handling conflicts in general.

Any benefit you feel you might gain from agreeing with your contact’s assessment will be massively outweighed by the costs you will incur later.

Luckily, there’s a better approach.

Don’t Pick A Side, Empathise!

Whenever a situation like this arises, I’m there to listen and empathise. I don’t agree or disagree with the assessment. I’m not the judge of who’s right or who’s wrong. I’m simply there to listen and try to figure out the best path forward.

The best approach in these situations is to empathise.

“I can imagine that’s incredibly frustrating”.

When people express an emotion to you - it’s a gift. It’s a gift you can repay by showing them empathy. That’s how you truly build a positive relationship - a relationship built on mutual respect, empathy, and honest communication.

It’s also relatively common in these situations for the person complaining to realise I’m not passing judgement either way and back to backtrack with a comment like:

Sorry, I’m sure you feel I’m being incredibly harsh on them. And I probably am. It’s just been so difficult working with them over the past few weeks.

By not taking sides you can help lower the temperature instead of raising it.

Suddenly the person is in a more self-reflective tone and we can explore if there are positive pathways to move forward. You can ask questions like; what would improve the situation? What do you think they need from you? What would you need from them? Are there any barriers which are preventing a direct conversation?

It’s important to realise that sometimes people just want to vent to an outsider who will listen.

What’s The Best Path Forward?

None of this means you need to pretend an internal conflict isn’t happening or downplay its importance. It’s often simply one of several issues you need to address in the project.

I was once giving a client workshop where two colleagues engaged in a shouting match before one stormed out of the room.

We all felt a little awkward. It would’ve been silly to pretend that didn’t happen.

But the way to address it is always with empathy and a view to figuring out the best path forward. At the time I simply said:

Obviously, there are very strong feelings about this and the dynamics at play which we can’t solve in this single workshop today. But what we can try to do is make sure we listen to all points of view and come to some alignment on the problems or decisions which need to be made if not the solutions. Let’s take a ten-minute break and then come back to figure out the options.

This gave everyone the opportunity to opt out of the workshop if they were feeling stressed about it - while also changing the atmosphere for the return. It also let the word pass to the HR team about what had happened so they could take action.

Most importantly though, all but one person returned to complete the workshop. The issues highlighted by the dispute proved useful in highlighting the decisions which could be made at our level and those which needed to be resolved at the senior level.

Whenever a conflict arises, look for the best path forward.