Handling workplace conflicts

Amy Gallo's book offers hope to those in a toxic work environment. She argues oscillating between suffering in silence and lashing out in anger in not their only option

Getting along: How to work with anyone (even difficult people)
Author: Amy Gallo
Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
Pages: 281
Price: Rs 1,099
Clinical psychologist, author and public intellectual Jordan Peterson often says in his lectures (available on YouTube) that the world is full of suffering and malevolence. What is true of the world at large is especially true of the workplace.
 

Youngsters starting their careers must not just equip themselves with the right technical knowledge and skills. They must also be prepared for the fact that they will encounter malevolence at some point or the other in their careers. Developing the skills required to navigate minefields at the workplace will play a bigger role than they imagine in determining their ability to survive and thrive. The lack of those skills, on the other hand, could cause them serious setbacks. 
 

Amy Gallo, a contributing editor at the Harvard Business Review  and an expert on conflict management, has written just the book both youngsters and veterans should read. 
 

Ms Gallo begins by asserting that brushing workplace problems under the carpet is not a viable strategy. Humans are prone to negativity bias. If we have 10 civil encounters during a day but one uncivil one, the latter is likely to linger in our mind. Left unaddressed, problems grow, take up a disproportionate amount of mind space, make us miserable, and prevent us from giving our best. According to the author, the ability to handle workplace problems and conflicts is a learned skill that must be  developed consciously.
 

Those unschooled in how to handle negative encounters oscillate between suffering in silence and lashing out in anger. The latter occurs due to a phenomenon called the amygdala hijack. That is when the fight-or-flight response takes over. Instead of reacting calmly and rationally, there’s an uncontrolled, often disproportionate, outburst. Such behaviour can render an employee’s situation untenable.
 

Office workers would do well to have these lines by Viktor Frankl, Austrian psychiatrist, psychologist and holocaust survivor, framed and placed prominently on their desks: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
 

Instead of lashing out, if we were to pause and think, we would realise we are not entirely at a tyrant’s mercy. We actually have more options than we had imagined.
 

The bulk of the book is taken up by the major archetypes a worker is likely to encounter: The insecure boss, the eternal pessimist, the colleague who revels in playing victim, the passive-aggressive peer, the arrogant know-it-all, the tormentor, the biased co-worker, and the political operator. Ms Gallo offers specific tactics for dealing with each one of them.
 

In the latter part of the book is a chapter that offers nine overarching principles one can apply to dealing with anyone. Here, the author emphasises the need to overcome naive realism—our tendency to believe we alone view the world objectively while others are uninformed, irrational, or biased. Another cognitive bias she discusses is fundamental attribution error. When others make a mistake, we believe it is due to an inherent flaw in their personality. But when we make the same mistakes, we take a more charitable view and attribute them to situations beyond our control.
 

A central message of Ms Gallo’s book is that workers must clean up their side of the street. They must realise that sometimes their own thoughts, mental makeups, biases, and reactions unwittingly contribute to problems. We must be careful about the way we interpret events and learn to ask ourselves: What if I am at fault here? The hallmark of a mature person is the ability to understand their biases—the lenses they wear and which colour their world view. We must understand that our point of view is just that—our point of view. Others with different life experiences are likely to view matters differently. Putting ourselves in others’ shoes and trying to view things from their perspective is an exercise we must undertake consciously.
 

Some places and people, however, are irredeemably toxic. If that is so, our focus, says Ms Gallo, must then shift towards protecting our career, reputation, and mental peace. Options include defining boundaries, reducing interactions with toxic colleagues, and hunting for another job. 
 

In the popular perception, quitting is often equated with defeat. Instead, it should be viewed as an opportunity to start anew. A crucial piece of advice in the book is that quitting should not be the last resort. Instead, we must possess the intelligence to assess a situation and begin preparations to bail out before the toxic environment takes a heavy toll on our well-being.
 

Ms Gallo’s book is well-researched and well written. Real-life examples make it easy to relate to situations. The writing is fluid, which makes it easy to glide through the text. This is a book worthy of gifting to youngsters whom we wish well in their careers.