Keeping One’s Cool:
The Coach’s Role In Conflict
by Cinnie Noble: Bulletin of the Association for Coaching, Summer 2008

The other day, a friend referred to an incident that happened at her workplace more than two years ago. We had had many conversations about it, at the time and for many months later. So when she raised it again, I responded somewhat impatiently “I can’t believe you are still carrying that weight around!”

“And I can’t believe you aren’t being more compassionate!” she reacted. “You know what impact it had on me!”

She was right. There’s no expiry date on a deeply-felt experience, and this had been a huge event in her life. It made me think about my reaction and what it was that provoked me to respond in a way that was hurtful.

As coaches, we learn in our training the importance of ‘walking the talk’, and we reflect on how we model our own conduct. In this situation with my friend, I became quickly aware of the disconnect between my reaction and my efforts to build a strong personal and professional foundation for my work, especially in the area of conflict management.

Habitual Patterns
Conflict is an inevitable part of our lives, and yet many of us are not as adept as we would like to be at dealing with it effectively. We have learned what to do and what not to do from our parents and other primary relationships, and later from our schools, friendships and workplaces. And yet at some point we acknowledge that our learning does not serve us well in all situations and that our habitual patterns are, at times, counterproductive. We may find ourselves reacting in ways that allow irrational, negative or unsettling thoughts and feelings to take over and consume our time and energy.

There are many signs that indicate our conflict management foundation is not solid. For instance, we may demonstrate a tendency to avoid conflict, to yield to the other party, or to walk away from asserting what is important to us. On the other hand, we may tend to argue and want to ‘win’, insisting on the wisdom of our opinion. We may get defensive when someone disagrees with us. Or we may become highly stressed and irrational. Lack of conflict mastery may show up in other ways too, and however it occurs the outcome can prevent us from developing healthy interpersonal and professional relationships.

Avoiding Conflict
Lack of conflict mastery shows up in a number of different ways in our work as coaches. For instance, we may relate strongly to a client’s own conflicts and personalize the situation or relationship.

One example of this was in the case of Janet. For two months she had been coaching Mary Beth, who acknowledged a strong tendency to avoid conflict in her workplace. Mary Beth had been aware that her staff were arguing a great deal, and that she was afraid to address the conflicts. She kept hoping they would just stop, but things had escalated and Mary Beth was worried about how to manage the situation.

Janet was a conflict-avoider herself, and began to realise she was inadvertently leading Mary Beth to handle the situation in the way she did, which was indirect and proving ineffectual. Mary Beth had reported back to Janet that nothing she was trying was working.

Janet became aware that she was relating too closely to Mary Beth and that she too was reticent in situations of conflict. She decided it was not appropriate to continue to coach Mary Beth and referred her to another coach, who helped Mary Beth become more proactive and productive.
The new coach used more experiential techniques and Mary Beth was able to practice approaches aligned with her objectives. Mary Beth was ultimately able to address her team in a meeting and respond effectively to the individuals in disagreement. Meanwhile, Janet decided to work with a coach herself, to work on her own conflict avoidance.

Taking Sides
In that case, the coach had found herself influencing her client negatively, by unwittingly bringing her own unresolved issues into their sessions. In other situations, a coach may fall into a similar trap by going to the opposite extremes of Janet’s avoidance tactics, and taking sides with the client or the client’s adversary. We may demonstrate a lack of neutrality and understanding, losing objectivity and becoming judgemental. We may even find ourselves becoming easily provoked by a client’s attitude, words and actions, because of the ‘conflict baggage’ that we ourselves carry.

An example of this last instance was the case of David, a coach who found himself becoming judgemental of his client, Sam. During their sessions, Sam described a dispute he was having with a colleague, and David realised he understood the other person’s point of view exactly! This was because Sam reminded David of a particular Grade 12 school teacher who was very rigid. During one coaching session, David became frustrated with Sam and said, “You don’t seem to give an inch”, to which Sam sarcastically replied, “Thanks for your support!” and hung up the telephone.
David lost Sam as a client, and also sought coaching for himself. He recognised that he needed to work on his own reactions when those ‘hot buttons’ of rigidity are pushed. This had been a recurring pattern for David, and the loss of Sam as a client was a hard lesson that he did not want to repeat.

Conflict-Competent Coaching

• What trait, reaction, or type of body language would I like to improve about the way I manage conflict?
• What is important to me about improving that particular trait?
• What would it take for me to make that improvement?
• What stands in my way of doing so?

When it comes to engaging in a specific dispute, here are further questions to consider asking ourselves:

• What specifically is it that bothers me about what the other person said or did?
• What is most offensive about that?
• What does s/he not seem to understand about my perspective?
• What am I not understanding about his/her perspective?
• What is at stake for me, if I don’t sort this out?
• What outcome of our differences do I want? What outcome do I want for the relationship?
• What could I do that is different from how I usually manage situations like this, to reach the outcomes I want?

These are just some of the questions that serve to increase our awareness and help us take stock of what works and what doesn’t, in our efforts to increase our conflict competence.

Issues concerning conflict present coaches with a particular challenge. Coaches achieving mastery in this area are able to acknowledge their own areas of shortfall, and work on these areas to build a strong foundation for their coaching. Masterful coaches also reflect on how they may best help clients in dispute, in ways that demonstrate that they themselves come from a solid and neutral base. They keep their personal stories separate from their coachees’ and know when to be coached themselves, to be able to graciously and skilfully ‘walk the talk’.

 

Cinnie Noble, ACC, CM, LL.M. (ADR), is a lawyer-mediator and ICF certified coach who created the CINERGY® model of conflict coaching. She chairs the ACR Workplace Section’s new Conflict Coaching Subcommittee and is co-chair of the ICF’s Special Interest Group on Conflict Coaching.