On conversation

Right now I'm in a little 12 seater prop engine, somewhere over northern Manitoba, thinking about the last two days.  And the power of conversation.

When we first met Sally and Ben yesterday morning, we knew that we were going to be earning every penny of our fees.  After meeting with both of them privately it was clear that they were miles apart in their perspectives and totally at odds in terms of their respective assessments of the root cause of the difficulties between them.  They were unwaveringly convinced of each others' spiteful motivations.  They were unable to allow for the possibility that another, equally valid perspective or experience could exist beside their own.

But things in the workplace had to change.  Morale in the unit was as an all time low, with the tension between Sally and Ben leaking out and poisoning the work team.  Staff were bickering and gossiping.  Some staff were threatening to quit.  Ben and Sally were openly accusing one another of disrespectful behaviour.  Sally said Ben was undermining her authority as manager.  Ben said Sally was a bully.

Yesterday afternoon, we risked a conversation.  No.  They risked a conversation.

With our help, they spent the rest of the afternoon and most of today talking about several moments from the past year, examples of experiences when things did not go well between them.  Much of it was difficult, confused and angry.  But they did their best to listen to each other, trying to suspend the knee jerk response to call the other a liar.  Or worse.

We heard from Ben that the straw that broke the camel's back of their relationship, for him, was something that had happened 6 months ago.  It was the thing that ignited the flame of action in him, compelling him to begin filing critical incident reports regarding Sally's behaviour and sending them over her head to senior management without her knowledge.  New, state of the art technology had just been set up in the unit, a real feather in the cap for this small town office.  Sally was enthusiastically extolling its various bells and whistles to a small group of staff who had gathered around the machine.  Comments were made about how all of the accessibility features would hopefully make life easier.  Now, Ben had an invisible disability that he was extremely sensitive about.  When he heard Sally's comments about life being easier, he felt that like he had just been sucker punched below the belt.  That Sally was "calling him out" and making a spectacle of his disability.  He felt disrespected and totally humiliated.

Sally, hearing this for the first time yesterday, was utterly shocked.  She said she had no idea that Ben had ever dealt with any challenges whatsoever and that this was totally new information to her.  Ben had a very difficult time accepting that this could even remotely be true.  He had lived for the last 6 months, believing in his soul that Sally had been intentionally seeking to humiliate him in the hopes that he would finally quit.  Sally was appalled and angry that he would ever imagine that she could possibly be so cruel.  The tension of their opposing narratives and the uncertainty of no longer understanding what was true was acute.

Sally eventually disclosed to Ben that her grandson also struggled with a disability (a fact unbeknown to us).  If anyone would ever say something malicious to him about it she would <insert choice of torture here>.

And gradually the conversation shifted.  After some dialogue, Ben was able to begin the process of letting go the long held belief that Sally was intentionally out to get him.  Sally was able to offer an apology for saying something (however harmless the intent) that was really hurtful and humiliating for Ben.

And then they made a plan for managing their relationship going forward.  They put in place the nuts and bolts for how to have conversations related to performance management issues, for how to manage their extremely different communication styles.  They came up with a long list of agreements and through them, committed to work at rebuilding the trust that had been destroyed.

I am convinced that, left unattended, the relationship between Sally and Ben was headed for utter disaster.  They never would have been able to have the kind of conversation that happened yesterday and today on their own.  Even if HR would have called them both to the carpet and insisted on some basic behavioural agreements, and even if those agreements looked very similar to the list that the two of them came up with today, that wouldn't have resolved a thing.

The surprise connection that Ben and Sally made after she shared about her grandson's experience was what turned the corner for them in our conversations.  That's not to say that things will be easy for them; I'm sure they will continue to have struggles in their relationship. But they both have a little more good will today than they had yesterday.  And this is why we left their community a few hours ago feeling positive about their capacity to make things work.

Every person has the potential within themselves to transform conflicted relationships.  But sometimes that potential is so fragile and so naked that it would never risk coming out of hiding unless it knows it has a safe container in which it can expose itself to be seen and shaped by the other.  That is what the process of mediation offers.  That is the power of facilitated conversation.