Exploring Conflict Hooks with the Help of ‘Frasier’
This month I had the pleasure of leading a workshop with Laura Weiss called “Understanding Conflict Hooks at Work,” at Community Boards, a conflict resolution center in San Francisco. Laura is a skilled strategist, facilitator, and mediator who works with senior leaders and their teams. We had fun!
The premise of the entire exercise/workshop is that conflict hooks are your personal hot buttons.“They come from within you, not really from someone else pressing them, though that’s how we generally talk about them (he just presses my buttons). They’re based in your identity, or how you see yourself (and want others to see you) in the world. The idea is that when you perceive a threat of some sort to an important part of your identity, you’re hooked. It may be a real threat. Yet as often as not, it’s a perceived threat…you feel threatened whether or not the other person intended to convey that threat.” (Lenski)
Typically, we give this workshop to teams in the workplace, so participants know each other already. Most people in this group of 16 had never met before so we had to be particularly intentional about the way we set up the room and introduced the workshop, in order to create an atmosphere of comfort and safety needed for an experience diving into self-awareness that can feel vulnerable.
Once we had introduced the concept of conflict hooks and offered an example (more on that later), Laura and I talked about our own hooks - true confessions! Hey, we all have them (probably more than one), and candidly sharing ours felt right as we hoped everyone would open up.
What does ‘conflict hook’ mean?In this group, it was fascinating how 16 people could have 16 varying responses to that question. A common thread, however, was this: it’s about a physical, visceral, nearly out of control reaction when someone pushes our buttons. Some go silent, others get loud! You know when your buttons are being pushed, don’t you?
At this point we introduced an exercise, adapted from the marvelous work by Dr. Stella Ting-Toomey and Dr. Lenski on 6 common ‘hooks’ (identities) people tend to have. Everyone in the group wrote down and then shared their own stories based on which of the 6 core identities they felt described them best. Threats that push our buttons can be real or not. But they’re real to us. And we can feel threatened whether or not the other person intended to convey the threat. And…. we react, sometimes in ways we might regret later. Try out that exercise right here.
I loved watching as, one by one, the group had their aha! moments of realization that these hooks have to do with their identities and self protection mechanisms, not the reality of the threat: I am pushing my own button! Therefore, I have the choice to respond to that perceived threat in any way I decide to. Powerful!
Some Play Time: Identifying Conflict HooksSo, now what? How do we practice this? This was an exciting part of the day because now we have the promise of action, change, and results. We gave them tips on how to notice hooks in their everyday lives, how to detect when their hooks are pulling them in, and ways to make a choice as to how they’re going to respond.
Now it’s your turn to participate, to give you an idea of how the Conflict Hooks Tool works:
1. First - If you haven’t already, please read: Workplace Conflict: How to Manage Your Hot Buttons. It gives an overview of the 6 core identities and the Resologics exercise.
2. Now - Here is the example I mentioned earlier. It’s a scene from the sitcom ‘Frasier. Watch it, then answer these questions:
- What do you think hooked them?
- Who had which of the 6 core hooks?
This awareness is a great first step to understanding how conflict hooks can work, and show up in your organization or team. You may also realize how powerful it is to have this self-awareness, as well as sensitivity to what others may be experiencing during your interactions with them (whether or not you intended to push their buttons!).
The action step here is choice. This tool, and a workshop such as this one I’ve shared, show us how in the moment we’re getting ‘hooked’ we can make a choice to respond with intention. Our response can either move a conversation forward constructively, or can precipitate conflict that’s headed for negative outcomes, and unnecessarily.
I’ve heard from clients after having given one of these workshops to their teams, and the results are very gratifying. They report how team members understand each other better, can identify when their own conflict hook is happening, and what a reaction by another person might mean.
This understanding has helped create the trust and cooperation that are the hallmark of a strong team. And they do much better with conflict, harnessing its creative, expressive power without turning to destructive, negative confrontations.
I welcome your questions and feedback - how did this tool work for you? I’d also like to connect more personally, to talk about what’s going on in your organization and teams, so please, contact me anytime: mark@resologics.com | 800.465.4141
Spotted by : Alison Peters
Written by : Mark Batson Baril at Resologics
Posted on: May 10, 2017
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