Conflict Management
Conflict management – or to put it another way ‘avoiding an argument’ – is a topic that’s close to my heart and a blog isn’t going to do it full justice.
This blog is aimed at the property manager and we’ll tackle on-site staff conflict management later in the year. I hope you find the examples useful and relevant.
Before conceiving Cledor, I earned my customer service stripes in hotel management and ‘white glove’ restaurants in Paris and London. The customer was king; nothing was too much trouble and by and large they left the building content and relaxed. Behind the scenes, there was often organised chaos and probably too much ‘robust’ discussion between members of staff. The crucial thing is that the customer saw none of that. There was an issue to be resolved and conflict to be avoided. At all times, we appeared to be in total control when quite often that simply wasn’t the case!
Having worked with property managers for the last 15 years, I have become to appreciate how stressful it can be and that there are similarities when it comes to conflict management. I’ve worked with some superb property managers but also with some seemingly out of their depth and out of control. Almost without exception, those property managers who were able to avoid conflict were (and are) more successful and happier in their role. These property managers realise that being 80, 90 or 100% right is largely irrelevant when dealing with an irate leaseholder!
Ok, so avoiding an escalation and being able to bite one’s tongue doesn’t necessarily come naturally. This is where I hope this blog can help so that you are aware when a situation is making a turn for the worse and you’re ready to do something (positively) about it.
The basic elements of communications
How many times have you been told (or told others) to stop hiding by email and speak to someone? Property managers struggle with the volume their jobs bring, and many feel like they are chained to their desks doing little more than answering incoming emails. That environment may be busy, frantic and pressured, and may lead to you being snappy and impulsive.
Assume you are able and willing to have a conversation – face to face – with an upset customer. You have chosen this positive action to diffuse a conflict and the chances are your positive intentions will be reciprocated.
Here is an example: You’re new to the job and one of your instructions is the management of a block of flats which isn’t too far from the office. Your predecessor left before you started and the handover notes are sketchy. Harriet (we’ll call her) is an owner-occupier in the block and she clearly hasn’t received a satisfactory resolution to her issue. You don’t know why and you don’t even know what the issue is. So instead of answering her angry emails, you pick up the phone and offer to meet with her at a convenient time. She takes you up on the offer which you didn’t expect, and the nerves have started to kick in.
A colleague – who attended an informative training session by Cledor, gives you some coaching. She explains that we communicate with three elements:
Words (what is said)
Tone (how the words are said)
Body language (how the words are delivered)
Your colleague was referring to Dr Albert Mehrabian’s 7-38-55% rule arising from two of his research studies in 1967. These percentages are meant to represent the importance of non-verbal communication and body language when communicating. Dr Mehrabian’s belief was that 55% of communication is body language, 38% tone of voice, leaving only 7% importance assigned to the actual words spoken!
As I discuss in our training course, the importance of the 55% and 38% combined overwhelms the importance of the words so unless your tone and body language complement the words you’re using, the words will have limited impact.
(Your colleague also reminds you to LISTEN first of all!).
So you take this sage advice to your conversation with Harriet. You listen. You take some notes, you repeat back Harriet’s concerns to make sure you understand them. You apologise. You speak softly but with confidence. You sit upright, at a respectable distance from Harriet, and maintain the right level of eye contact. You ‘connect’. You promise to get back to Harriet with the next step, tomorrow, and she has every confidence you will. Conflict managed.
Now you have the small job or working out how you’re going to resolve her issues….we’ll leave that side to you.
Rational vs emotional
Neither is good, neither is bad – it’s all about getting the balance right between ‘thinking’ and ‘feeling’.
Let’s look at an example that will be familiar to many of you; The Evening Meeting: It’s easy for an outsider to say that AGMs should be welcomed as an opportunity to meet your leaseholders/shareholders face to face. After all, you may only see them once a year. Except that the reality is sometimes far from pleasant when the pitchforks are out.
You’ve already done a full day’s work, it’s now 7pm, you’re up at the front with the RMC directors (who, like you, would be rather eating dinner and watching Netflix). After the accountants have been reappointed, the dreaded ‘any other business’ agenda arrives.
Helpfully, the RMC directors field some difficult questions from frustrated leaseholders. But a ‘flashpoint’ occurs about the major works project and it gets quite heated; one of the directors offers to resign and quite aggressively invites a shareholder to take his place!
Then the attention turns to you and the performance of the managing agency you work for. They aren’t happy with how the last year has gone. Some of their issues are understandable and others are down to their misunderstanding of the situation. Either way, they are upset.
Do you match the frustration of the RMC directors and push back?
Do you put your head down in a conciliatory manner and say nothing, hoping the directors will step in?
Are you tempted to tell them all that this is your own time and you’ve already done a day’s work and you don’t deserve this, in an attempt to garner their sympathy?
What you need to recognise in these situations is that we all have the tendency to become irrational and emotional. A balance is needed between rational and emotional – say 50-50. If our emotional mindset rises above 50%, our rational mindset decreases by the same amount and our ability to deal with a situation calmly and productively rapidly diminishes.
The shareholders in the room are acting emotionally, out of frustration. They have a point about some matters but for others, they are off the mark. It doesn’t matter – you have a role to play to bring them back to 50-50 before they reach 80-20 and the situation may turn nasty (see mob mentality).
And the RMC directors are judging you. Retaining this management instruction may rely on your ‘performance’ tonight.
So you take a deep breath and you listen carefully, make eye contact with whomever is talking, you nod in agreement and if you can, make a couple of bullet point notes. Then you command the respect of the room. You speak at the right level – clearly so you can be heard at the back of the room, but you aren’t shouting. You state that you are here to support the board and ultimately all shareholders. You care about doing a good job and you would like to take each point in turn. Your tone and body language are positive. You regain the trust of those in the room. Those who were pushing 70% emotional and 30% rational are coming back to the balanced position. The night ends well and evening meetings don’t seem so bad after all.
Attitude and Behaviour
This is an interesting concept that we explore during our conflict management training.
An example will help explain: A leaseholder called Bruce has joined an RMC board of a block that you manage. He has been on your case constantly – before he joined the board – and your attitude to him is now pretty negative and it’s going to take a lot for your attitude to change. But it is possible to change the way you behave when you need to deal with him. It’s an act, yes, but you can develop the ability to behave in a way that doesn’t reveal your true feelings. And passive aggressiveness is not the answer, by the way.
Here is a diagram of the attitude and behaviour cycle. Your negative attitude toward Bruce is likely to lead to negative behaviour and that in turn affects his attitude toward you (and the situation) which leads to his behaviour getting worse making your attitude to him even more negative than before! Break the cycle and change your behaviour. The situation may well change for the better as Bruce recognises the efforts you have made.
Let’s summarise
Conflicts start somewhere – they rarely materialise out of thin air. We are aware of ‘flashpoints’ whether they occur on the phone, over email or in person. Through our conflict management training, we can show you how to diffuse them fast so that the conflict never arises in the first place.
But when they do arise, there is usually a compromise position to be found. There may be a cost of compromise but better to bear that small cost than to lose a client or risk becoming unhappy in your role.
Whilst some leaseholders may picture themselves in your shoes and display some empathy for your situation, most will not. Remember that you are providing the service and you should always consider why they feel the way they do and utilise the tips in this blog to regain their confidence in you.
Embrace every difficult interaction with your customers and learn from them. Each incident is unique, but you will quickly see similarities. Share your experiences with colleagues – tell them what worked well and what worked less well. Listen to theirs too.
The chance of conflict reduces through developing self-awareness. This means understanding your own reactions when you’re stressed, frustrated or angry – and what works to diffuse your own internal conflicts!
Above all, you have the right to work in a safe environment and if a situation is becoming worrying for you, it’s time to leave. We train a wide range of customer facing people, many of whom suffer awful abuse at the hands of the public. Safety is everything and our techniques apply to property managers as they do with nightclub security personnel. Although Harriet invited the property manager to her flat, a neutral, public area could have been used. The reception area of the block would have been ideal – assuming there are comfortable chairs!
Nick Regnier
Talk to us today about free of charge conflict management training in your office.