05 May Leading Teams Through Conflict by Matt Mashburn
Nobody enjoys conflict management. But if you can resolve conflict within your staff, it eliminates challenges that you don’t need on top of all the other challenges you can’t avoid. Conflict is not always bad. Sometimes it helps us find better ways of doing things.
In my career, I’ve found that almost all conflict is the result of some type of misunderstanding. I group these into four categories:
- Misinterpretation of what someone does or says. Often, we interpret based on where we are, not where they are in life.
- Incorrect third-party information. Someone tells us something another person said or did, but they didn’t get the facts quite right.
- Context confusion. When, how, where, who, or why something happened.
- A lack of underlying knowledge about a topic. Someone doesn’t know or misunderstands the details of a situation.
I’m not going to sit here and preach Matthew 18 to you, Pastor. But I do want to take a moment to break it down because it’s not always as simple to apply as we might think. Let me give you three scenarios.
Scenario 1 – Matthew 18:15 says if your brother sins against you, go alone and tell him his fault. If he listens to you, you’ve gained a brother. Sometimes this is all staff conflict is. It’s just a problem between you and someone else. For those of us in executive roles, we have to deal with things and make decisions. It’s critical that we seek to understand before being understood. If we’ll do that, we’ve disarmed potential conflicts right away. I believe a key to this is well-worded questions. When we word questions well, we can disarm emotion and bring the conversation to a place where each party is seeing truth instead of feelings.
Emotions seldom lead to reconciliation. Emotions tend to be raw, so you have to consider the timing of your confrontation. It probably won’t be when you feel like doing it. Often, timing is key to the resolution. Here are five things to think about as you consider the questions you’ll ask:
- Well-worded questions are not accusatory.
- Well-worded questions are to gather facts, not to make a case.
- Well-worded questions are not confrontational.
- Well-worded questions must be accompanied by listening well.
I suggest you take notes. Anytime someone takes notes about what you’re saying, you feel like they’re paying more attention. You know this, Pastor, because when you look out and see your member taking notes, you know what you’re saying is making an impact.
And listen, please don’t try to answer your own question. That’s a diatribe, not a question. When you start answering your own question, you move into lecturing.
A great rule of thumb is that when you’re in a conflict and trying to have a critical conversation, say the last 10%. What I mean by that is once you get into the conversation and it starts going well, you’re prone to want to let things end on a good note. The problem with that is if you don’t hit the last thing in your meeting, you will be hitting it at a later date. It’s not going to go away. You’re just going to have to deal with it later.
Another rule I find helpful is to keep short lists. When I first came to Faith Family Church, I talked about this and one of the pastors misunderstood me. He thought I meant that he shouldn’t have a lot of things on his to-do list. Finally, I called a time out and told him, “That’s not what I meant. What I meant was if you have a conflict with someone, address it right away.” Don’t let the problems build up and create a long list of issues.
Pastor, require your staff to go through this step of meeting one-on-one with the “offender” before bringing you into the conflict. It’s easy to become the mediator. It’s easy to bring two people together and think you’re going to sort it out. But teach them to do this part on their own. Require them to say, “I’m going to get with so-and-so and make an effort.” The only caveat to this principle is if a personal confrontation would be emotionally damaging to someone based upon the topic or their unique situation or because their positions are so unequal that a resolution is not likely.
Scenario 2 – Verse 16 says, “But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.” If you are coming in as an intermediary, you must be the neutral arty. You’re responsible for managing both sides of the conflict, not picking a side. Even if you think one side is right, it’s important that both sides feel cared for so that we do not end up with a winner and a loser but a win-win scenario. That’s the goal.
Pastor, make sure you train your staff how to do this. It’s a valuable thing to teach because then you don’t have to be the intermediary every time.
Thoughts I have on being the intermediary: Don’t try to “express lane” the conflict. Don’t try to put the fire out and move on quickly. That’s hard because in ministry you have to keep things rolling! Follow the formula. If you feel rushed, save the meeting for another time. And don’t go into mediation uninformed. Don’t just walk in asking people to tell you their sides and then trying to figure things out. Meet with the parties separately first, and ask well-worded questions. I’ve seen conflicts end in the individual conversations because one party realizes when they say it out loud that it sounds different than when they said it in their head.
When I mediate, I ask each party individually what reconciliation would look like for them. If you don’t know what a win looks like, there’s no way to go in and create one for both sides. If either party has no interest in reconciliation, you have more work to do individually before you bring them together. Now, if they just absolutely won’t reconcile, that’s a different conversation. That’s a staffing conversation because we have to have unity.
Coach your leaders on the right language to use. First, talk about the issue, not the person. Everybody’s heard this in marital counseling. It’s the same thing here. Don’t talk about the person; talk about the issue, what happened, what was said, what caused the problem. Stay focused on the current issue to prevent rabbit trailing. And be kind. I know that sounds obvious, but it’s a good reminder. You have to remind people that it’s not a negotiation but a reconciliation. Negotiation is different, and it can be discussed at a different time. Listening is probably the best language to use. Not words coming out of you but words going into your ears that you’re considering strongly.
I like to ask each party to put their thoughts in writing after our conversation. I want to make sure that I’ve been clear to them, so once I’ve defined the issue, I coach them how to handle the discussion and then decide a good time and place for a meeting. It needs to be a neutral location. I provide ground rules at the start of our meeting. And then, I make sure each party knows they have the ability to call for a break at any time without debate. I reserve the right to end the conversation if I feel emotions are running high or personal attacks are beginning. If we’re not going where we need to go, we can come back together later to try again. They have to agree to that before we begin.
Scenario 3 – Verse 17 says that if after all of this, he refuses to listen to anyone, tell the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, “let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” Now, I don’t think we’re called to take someone in front of the whole church body on a Sunday and work out a conflict. I think that it was referring to taking someone before the leadership of the church. That might be elders, staff, deacons, board members.
Here’s the responsibility of the church: unreconciled conflicts cannot be ignored. That’s a short path to disunity. Part of the responsibility of leadership is to make a decision when parties cannot agree. Leaders have to act quickly and clearly. They must deliberate as many and speak as one. Discussions like this happen behind closed doors. Determinations are shared behind one podium. So we as leaders may disagree in the meeting room, but when we leave the room, we are saying one unified thing.
If a conflict gets to this stage, the governing body must provide clear consequences if the determination is not followed. It can’t just be, “Here’s what we think,” with no consequences. These are difficult meetings as someone may be removed from leadership or the church altogether.
Once the leadership team has made a decision, they have to stick to it. You can’t waffle on your decisions. You have to follow through as a group. I try to provide clear boundaries and expectations, and then it’s up to the person to determine the outcome. I don’t decide if people are going to have a job or not; I simply tell what is required and let them decide if they’re going to be employed or not.
Conflict avoidance is conflict encouragement. The fact is, if you avoid it, you’re encouraging it. That’s what gives me the energy to deal with things when I’m tired or just don’t want to right then. I don’t want to be guilting of allowing conflict to continue.
It’s not easy leading teams through conflict, but if you will equip your leaders to handle what they can one-on-one and train them to play intermediary for one another if needed, you will minimize the number of conflicts you have to mediate and nearly eliminate conflict escalating to the leadership team level. And not only will you successfully navigate conflicts sure to arise because people are involved, but you’ll also experience far more wins as a team as your staff learns to find common ground and compromises that build relationship and teamwork.
This blog was created using content from the webinar Leading Teams Through Conflict.