Addressing Unfair Workload: Case Studies and Tools for Resolving Team Conflict

In this episode, Simon Goode analyzes three workplace conflict case studies centered on unfair workloads, including a passive-aggressive response to feedback, perceptions of favoritism in task allocation, and resentment from covering for a colleague's lack of effort. Simon Goode explores different conflict resolution frameworks such as the GROW coaching model and the five types of conflict: data, interest, value, structure, and relationship. He emphasizes the importance of clarifying expectations, choosing appropriate conflict modes, and building trust through consistent follow-through.

TIMESTAMPS: 

00:00 Handling challenging team dynamics

05:10 Addressing passive-aggressive conflict

08:49 Applying the GROW model in coaching

12:10 Handling workplace conflicts

16:43 Addressing workplace conflicts

19:24 Addressing hidden team conflicts

23:59 Resolving workplace conflicts

27:34 Discussing collaboration and conflict modes

31:43 Team tensions and leadership challenges

34:17 Finding a middle ground

38:00 Addressing team communication challenges

40:27 Improving team dynamics and feedback

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:21

Hello, welcome back to the Conflict Skills Podcast. I'm your host, professional mediator, Simon Good. I set up this podcast to provide free resources and tools for dealing with conflict. Well, I've got my iPad out again today, and I'm doing some conflict case study analysis. This time we're looking at a particular theme of unfair workload causing conflict. So if you've had to deal with colleagues who weren't pulling their weight at times, or maybe you're in a manager's or team leader's position, an unfair workload is something that's caused an issue that's led to conflict within your team. There might be a number of different tools and options that you might find useful here. So I've got three different case studies that I'm looking at. The first one is a team member who always says yes, somebody who's overly accommodating and maybe has a bit of trouble with assertiveness. Then we've got a protected colleague, a particular person on the team and management never seems to assign them as difficult a task as everybody else. And then the third case study looks at team members who are effectively covering for a colleague who's not putting in the same level of effort with their team. Now, of course, as I go through these different scenarios, I'm really trying to demonstrate some of the different options, some of the different frameworks that I use when I'm called in as an external workplace mediator. The thing is that a lot of those very same tools can be incredibly useful in leadership positions or even when you're dealing with a colleague and there's a challenging conversation that needs to be had as well. As I go through them, though, I'm not necessarily saying that my way is the only way. Obviously, I've got a particular style, particular cultural background, etc. So what works for you in terms of the phrasing and in terms of the direct interactions might be different. But the underlying factors or the frameworks that you use to develop options, some of those can be transposed reasonably directly. So let's have a look at this first case study. And then I might read it first, talk through some of my initial thoughts, and then pick one or two of the areas to go into in a bit more detail. So here's the situation. In a protected team at an insurance company, team leader Sophie gave constructive feedback to analyst Mark about missing deadlines in a client report. Mark said lit little during the meeting, simply nodding and offering a brief okay. Afterwards, however, he stopped responding to her messages promptly and began excluding her from informal discussions he had previously included her in. He still completed his assigned tasks, but his replies became short and clipped whenever she asked clarifying questions. Other team members noticed the sudden coolness between them and started hesitating to involve both Sophie and Mark in the same conversations. Simple coordination that used to take minutes, now stretched longer, and the previously open team atmosphere grew cautious and strained. Goodness, so there's a few different layers that are probably going on in terms of what's influencing the conflict. And it sounds like potentially the kind of situation where Mark and Sophie are both a bit unhappy about it, especially if the other members of the team are considering options for not including them in decisions or in meetings or those kind of areas. I mean, some of us wouldn't mind missing the odd meeting, I guess. But if it's an important meeting and we would better off be there, obviously this is going to create a problem. So where should we start? We'll go back to the start of this the case study here. So the team leader is Sophie, and she's given constructive feedback. Now, obviously, that phrasing is probably Sophie's interpretation of the way that that feedback was given. It was constructive after all. Whereas it's possible that Mark had a very different perspective on that. He might have interpreted it as micromanagement, that she was overstepping the mark or something. Or maybe it wasn't constructive from his perspective. She was dredging up stuff from the past, and after all, what's the benefit of going back into all of those kind of areas? So although Sophie says that it's constructive, that might be a starting point in terms of, well, what was Mark's take on all of that? Was that actually like a tipping point and things began to get worse after that? Or maybe this was just a single incident in a broader theme or a broader pattern. So she gave him feedback about the missed details in the client report. Mark said little during the meeting, which again makes me wonder if he interpreted it as constructive, simply nodding and offering a brief okay. Afterwards, however, he stopped responding to her messages promptly and began excluding him from excluding her from informal discussions. To me, this is what I think of as a bit of a passive aggressive approach to dealing with the conflict from Mark's perspective. Like he's obviously upset, but he's not being direct in terms of what the thing is that he would like Sophie to change. If I was coaching him and I was called in as a mediator, I'd probably say to him something like, How have you communicated about this with Sophie until now? What what style, was it a meeting? Was it emails? What did you actually say? And how was that received? What kind of a response has Sophie given you in the meantime? So I'm trying to drill down into the patterns of what might be going on as well as beginning to articulate the goal. For me, one of the things that I often notice as I go through these conflict scenarios is that if I was in a senior leadership position, for example, I would really want to take a coaching approach to support both of them. Like I would want to talk to Sophie about what's going on from her perspective, what has contributed to the issues, what would she like to be different moving forward? And then I'll do the same thing with Mark because they're probably both going to have a part to play. But it's not just the practical arrangements that need to be sorted here. When I think of coaching, my favorite framework is the GROW model of coaching, G-R-O-W. Now, though that is an acronym that stands for the four different kinds of coaching questions that we could use. We could ask questions about the goal. Like Mark and Sophie, the two of you don't need to be friends. You don't need to be mates with everybody that you work with. But the two of you do need to figure out a productive working relationship so that the projects that you're both involved in don't um end up with delays or something. So I'm not saying you need to be friends, let's hold hands and skip off into the sunset, but I am saying what would the minimum viable relationship look like? What would you be prepared to do and what do you need from Sophie in return? So I would usually do that in a one-on-one setting first, but then when I bring them into the mediation discussion, we often also begin with the goal. What are we actually aiming for here? What are the issues that need to be resolved? The second kind of coaching question that we could ask, though, is a little bit different. These are the questions about reality. What's happened until this point? When you say that you can communicated that to Sophie, how did you do that? Like what prep did you use? How do you think that was received? How has it been since then? With the reality types of coaching question, our goal usually is to help the person to develop awareness. Like they might be they might become aware of the fact that they contributed to the problem, or they're more aware of the impact that it's having, or maybe it's not as big a deal as they thought through the coaching that we've done, and actually a bit of reality checking means this is something that we can just let go through to the keeper. This would all be different. So I'm asking the questions to get them to articulate the goal. The reason that we do that is because it engenders a sense of responsibility. Like people feel buy-in, they feel ownership of a plan if they've come up with it. So the goal is the starting point to that. Responsibility. Oh, sorry. I have the worst handwriting as soon as I try and stand up in a in a workshop I'm running and write on the whiteboard or something, all of a sudden I can't spell. So we've got the goal questions, the reality questions, the other types of coaching question that we could use are options questions and then questions about the way forward. That's the O and the W from the GROW model. So options, we might say to them both something like, what do you think might work? What do you think we could change? Is there something in terms of other people that we could get some support here? What about the way that we have our meetings set up? Is there something that we could change that would work? So I facilitate brainstorming. And then the final step are the questions about the way forward. Given all of that, where are you going to start? Given all of that, what would the next week look like? I don't want the person to tell me this is a really important issue, and yeah, I can see what's caused it. And I realize that I could go and talk to them directly, but they don't do it. The way forward questions are all about the next steps. What does that look like specifically? And so I'm wanting to do a bit of planning together potentially, but also preemptively thinking through challenges that they might face. Like if you raise this with Sophie and she doesn't want to hear it, how are you going to continue to let her know that this is an important issue to discuss? So there's a few different ways that we could apply the coaching model here. We also would need to consider what type of conflict do we think that we're dealing with in terms of the passive-aggressive stuff. I guess underneath it there's a bit of value conflict that's going on. But it's very difficult to say, like I prefer respectful communication and you obviously don't mind being rude. Or I prefer collaborative and helping each other, whereas you're obviously passive aggressive. Like if we do want to deal with that one, the challenge is that we need to be quite specific about what Mark has done. So that's where we want to drill down in terms of the behavior. Specifically, what do you want him to do? Like which informal discussions would you like him to include you in? When you say you would want him to include you, in what way? Do you mean sending you a meeting invite? Do you mean discussing with you about whether this is the most important meeting to have right now? Do you mean in terms of the decision making after the fact? Like specifically, what do you want Mark to do? Invite me to this, send me this, give me this much notice, give me this information. And so if we can be specific about the behavior, I think it means that we can often then discuss it. This is the first type of conflict, which is what I think of as data conflict. We've got data conflict, interest, value, structure, and relationship. So either Mark or Sophie could use this as a tool to consider, well, what's going to work best here? We could just deal with this in terms of the data. I asked you to do this and it hasn't been done. Like, or this is what I want you to do moving forward, or this is how I'd like things to be organized or arranged between us. This might be that maybe Mark has misunderstood something, or Sophie's decided that this is something that will be followed now, whereas previously it was a little bit more laissez faire. Like it might be a change that she lets him know, or it might be something that he hasn't read, or he's misunderstood it, or it might be just reinforcing previous communication. So we could deal with it just in terms of the facts. And that's where I think that real focus on drilling down to the behavior makes sense. Like when you did this, this was the problem that it caused. Could you do this differently moving forward? We've also got the other four types of conflict though. We could just deal with this in terms of interest. If this happens again, this is the bad consequence for you. If you don't invite me to the next meeting that's coming up like this, I'll need to raise it with one of the senior managers. Or I'll need to consider that in your 12-month performance review or something like that. Or if you can do what I've asked you to do, this is the better consequence for you. If you can make sure that I'm looped in and kept in the loop, then you won't need to have any of those kind of issues to worry about. If you can make sure that you loop me in, then it's possible that as trust develops, we can do these things a little bit more flexibly moving forward. Like this is what I want you to do, and this is the better consequence for you if you'll actually do it. So we could just approach this in terms of the carrots and the sticks. It's not so much that I have told you about this previously, which would be the data. It's more about the interest. If this happens again, this is what's going to happen. This is your last warning. So we could deal with it in one of those two ways, or we could deal with it in terms of the value. Look, I know organizations have really different norms about some of these different elements. I don't know what it was like in the team that you've worked with previously, but I know some managers don't care as much as me about some of these minor kinds of issues. Obviously, from my perspective, they're not that minor because this all goes into the way that the client develops a perception of us. So if we want the clients to think that we're A plus quality, we need to be A plus in terms of the communication that we give to them. So I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying, look, other places you've worked might have been very different. Other teams have different norms, other managers don't care as much as me. And so I'm not saying you're wrong for doing the thing that you've been doing. It might be because of that background at the same time, or and this is how I see things. This is what I would like different moving forward. So you've got this approach, I've got this. How are we going to make this work? It seems like in the old team that you worked with, swearing was something that wasn't such a big deal. Here, though, it's usually something that we try to avoid, especially in front of clients. Other places don't mind about punctuality as much as we do here. If you're going to be more than literally two minutes late, could you make sure that you send me a message so I've got a heads up and we know whether or not we should wait for you? So I do ask you to change your behavior, but it's not because I've told you that previously, that's the data. It's not because I'm going to punish you if you don't, that's the interest. It's more about the value. These are the norms, these are the expectations that we have for one another. So when we're talking about things like collaboration or what was the example in the scenario that I said that I said was a little bit ambiguous, though I excluding from informal discussions. We would want to be quite specific about we work in this way, but this is what I would like you to do as a result. So we sort of begin by talking about value, but ultimately get back to data. We could deal with this issue and many others just in terms of structural elements. Like we could ask them to CC us in when they send the report out to their team, which would mean that we know that the task has been done. We're not relying on them to come back to us directly with an update. Or we have more frequent check-ins with them. Or we ask the team leader to go and touch base with them and make sure that the progress is still moving forward. Or we could deal with this in terms of the relationship. That's the fifth type of conflict. This is the interpersonal reciprocal patterns that go on between us. So if Sophie wanted to talk to Mark about this, she might say something like, Look, you don't seem like yourself, is everything okay? Or I've actually been really impressed by the level of collaboration that we've had within the team over the past couple of years. I've noticed though there seems to be a bit of tension that's drifted in. I'm not sure what to make of it. Is it something that you've picked up on and what's your take? So we might deal with this just by giving Mark a chance to have events. Maybe he's upset about something. So if we can just do a bit of empathetic listening, it might help shift things forward. Okay, I hadn't realized that that was the way that that came across when I told you that. Or I hadn't realized that you were feeling that there was this inequality in this other area of the way that the team was working or something. What would work? How are we going to figure this out moving forward? So which type of conflict that we ultimately decide to address? Is it data, interest, value, structure, or relationship? All of them have slightly different starting points. But we could, even though we start with data or start with interest, begin to tick off some of the other ones as well. Okay, so we've offered an apology. That's a bit of the relationship. We've clarified that ambiguous part of the team meeting previously, which we obviously took and there was crossed wires. But I also want to make sure that you know that if things don't change, this is something that I'll need to consider giving you a formal warning for or something, which would be the interest. I think dealing with the conflict in that comprehensive, multifaceted kind of way often means that we get more of a long-term positive shift. I don't know. What do you think? You might have a very different way of approaching those kind of issues than I do, of course. We've all got slightly different perspectives. Anyway, let's have a look at that second case study. Here we're looking at the protected colleague and maybe not being given as difficult a task as other members of the team. Here's the situation. At a software firm, developer Ravi noticed that one team member, Jordan, was regularly given lighter tasks and fewer urgent tickets. Lighter tasks, fewer urgent tickets. The rest of the group absorbed the more complex, time-consuming work and the pressure of tight deadlines. Quiet comments about favoritism began circulating in private chats. During a sprint planning meeting, the frustration finally surfaced when another developer questioned why the workload was so uneven. The discussion grew sharp with raised voices and defensive replies. Trust dropped quickly, and several people became less willing to help one another outside of strict assignments, slowing teams' overall progress. Oh goodness, there's a number of different secondary factors that are playing out here, aren't there? Impacting the other members of the team and getting in what in the way of progress overall, too. What do you make of this? These quiet comments about favoritism began circulating in private chats. It's often the way that conflict begins, isn't it? There's this covert underground element to it. It often becomes overt when it's voiced when people talk about it. It often begins with whining or complaining or something similar, which often then quickly leads to anger and people put the blinkers on and then go into selective perception mode. But at the beginning, you don't know what's going on. You might not have seen all of the private chat comments or you're hearing about things third hand. It's much more difficult to address the conflict in a direct kind of way when we're dealing with those covert underground elements. If I was worried about something bubbling away and I don't know, I'd probably go into investigation mode. Like I'm genuinely curious, I might talk with them about how things have been. Have they picked up on anything? Have they heard any grumblings or rumblings that are going on behind the scenes? And what do they make of it? Is it a view that's shared by other people as well? Or is it just one person that's got their nose out of joint? Like, what's their take? I really do need to get more information, and I don't want to rush in and assume that it's a massive problem when it might be the kind of thing that blows over. If it hasn't, though, then that's where we might need to consider more of a comprehensive option for responding. So that sprint planning meeting is where the frustration finally surfaced. Another developer questioned why the workload was so uneven. That's an interesting phrasing, isn't it? It's not unfair, it's uneven. I think sometimes when we say, look, this isn't fair, we don't get much shift. And part of it is because we haven't asked specifically about what we would like to be different. In what way is it unfair? Is it because these are high pressure situations or you're dealing with an unpleasant task or it's an unpleasant person that you need to deal with, like someone who's calling the complaint line or something? There might be different elements that jump out at all of us, but we might be able to quantify it. Like the uneven comment makes me think that there we might be talking about time or the number of issues that come up or something else that we can quantify. People often like to be seen to be fair. So if I was in that other developer's shoes feeling a bit like miffed that I wasn't getting as easy a task as other people, I might choose some data to focus on. Look, these tasks take 12 hours on average. I'm just wondering, is there a particular reason why this particular team member never seems to get them? Or these other three people always seem to end up with the urgent issues. Is there a particular reason for that? So initially we can just be reasonably genuinely curious. Like fill me in here. I'm not sure what to make of it. I think if we approach the issues in that genuinely curious kind of way as well, we often get a better response from the people that we're dealing with. Whereas if we say this shouldn't be the way that it is, like that's ridiculous. Using label Like it's unfair. Well, it's not neutral, it's not mutual. Like it's effectively blaming you for something. So what that often triggers is then it shields up mode, and here we here we go. So I like the uneven, and there might be some patterns or even specific data that the person could refer to there. There, though, it says the discussion grew sharp with raised voices and defensive replies. Trust dropped quickly, and several people began less willing to help one another out. So some of this stuff I think is probably going to blow over in the long term. We might not worry about that too much. It's kind of a secondary effect of the other conflict that's going on. But what would you do here? How would you deal with this if you were in Rabbi's position? You're a developer and somebody else never gets allocated the difficult tasks. Well, I suppose again, we could think about this in terms of those five types of conflict. We could talk about the data. I've just gone back and looked through the notes, and this is a pattern that's been there for the last few months. Or we could talk about it in terms of the interests. Can I have that one instead of ra instead of this other person? Or could we share this more different in a different kind of way? We might threaten to make a complaint, just give them some specific information that we're not happy about it. But that's where we do, just be reasonably direct. Or we could talk about this in terms of value again. Look, I'm not sure if if it's possible to have a bit of transparency in terms of the allocation of these cases. I mean, obviously we all know that some work takes longer than others. And so I wonder, is it a goal of you as the team leader to sort of keep us all relatively equal? Or what's going on here? Like I kind of expect that I shouldn't be asked to work when somebody else is finished, but that might not be the case. Maybe they think because they've been around longer and they're a senior person that they should have some unique opportunity or be treated slightly differently. It might be that they know that they're treating the person differently and it's not something that they care about. So we could deal with that in terms of the underlying values, or we could make suggestions in terms of structure. Could you send us out the overall list of the options for case allocation so we can have a think about what ones are going to work best for us? Or could we make the case allocation connected to the rosters so the people who are on this shift get allocated this bit of work? That might mean that the issue resolves itself because inherently you'll make that change that then leads to a difference in the way that the work is being divided. Or we could deal with this in terms of the relationship. Like we might say to our boss, look, this is really rubbing me up the wrong way. Like I'm feeling really frustrated about the fact that there doesn't seem to be any transparency or there doesn't seem to be any equality in the way that this work is being given. Could we think about options moving forward? Could we maybe have a talk at have a chat about it at the team level, something similar? So again, we've got those five different types of conflict that we could go through and and just reflect on. For Ravi, though, he also probably needs to decide how assertive to be here with who was the other person again? Let me just scroll back up. Jordan. In terms of the direct communication with Jordan, he might need to decide how assertive to be. And often that's based on how prepared you are to disappoint the other party. This might be the kind of situation where enough is enough. Like there's a lot at stake, or this has actually caused me significant issues. So I would like this to be different. Could we do this? Could we change this? Could you stop doing this? Could you start doing this? That competing approach is where we're very assertive. Sometimes it's called directing, like this is the way that it needs to be. You need to do this, or I'm not going to do this. It doesn't necessarily mean that we're harsh or rude or disrespectful or something, but we stick to our guns. We're quite firm. And then on the other end of the spectrum, we've got the second conflict mode, which is called accommodating. This is where we basically just say yes. Um, the third option is similar. We could just avoid the issue. Now, accommodating and always saying yes and being a yes person or avoiding issues, that's obviously not going to lead to a lot of long-term resolution. But there might be some strategically sound reason for considering these. Like maybe Ravi knows that there's a new manager coming on board in the next few weeks. So that's a better time to deal with this issue than right now. Or maybe because of this promotion structure that's coming up in the next month or something, they might be able to tolerate it in the short term, even though they are planning to address it if it continues as a pattern after, I don't know, a few weeks or a couple of months or something like that. Or we could consider compromise. That's where we kind of split the difference. Um, look, there's five tasks. I'd be happy to take three if you would at least be willing to take two. It's like nobody gets 100% of what we want. I'm still doing a bit more. You're picking up on some of the work that you previously didn't have to. But at least we can reach a middle ground. That's good because you can get to a quick resolution. It doesn't take a lot of time and energy, and it doesn't create potential complications. Whereas the fifth option that we've got, the fifth conflict mode, is what's called collaborating. So we could compete, accommodate, avoid, compromise, or collaborate. Compromises split the difference. Let's just get to a quick deal. Collaborate is where we sit down or we go back and forth and we see if we can actually come up with something that's a little bit like a win-win option. So here that might be Ravi and Jordan sitting down and discussing broadly how work is done within the team, and they'd think about meeting structure and communication in the midst of all of these other things like work allocation. So it's possible that Ravi doesn't mind doing a little bit more work if they can have this different job title or they can have this other difficult thing that they get to avoid, and Jordan's the one that has to do that. Like there might genuinely be a win-win that does actually work for them both, but not always. For each of these different conflict modes, compete, avoid, accommodate, compromise, or collaborate, each of them have different pros and cons. So we can almost do like a cost-benefit analysis for each of these different options. If we compete, if Ravi decided to just be very direct about this, it would be being very assertive. So what's the downside to that? I guess it's the fact that Jordan might be upset with them. So they might, I don't know, want revenge or something, or there might be some tension that's sitting there. Their boss might think that they're complaining and being a squeaky wheel or something. I don't know, like there's potential downsides as well, isn't there? Or maybe just Jordan doesn't follow what you've asked them to do. So it takes more time actually following up than you doing the work itself. Collaborating is the same. Although it says win-win, there are pros and cons to that approach. Obviously, the pro is that you end up with a good positive relationship if you can get to a win-win. And the other good thing is you're not giving away something that's important to you that you shouldn't, but there's time and effort that's needed. So you need to sit down with Jordan or pick up the phone and call him and talk through the issues, send emails back and forth or whatever. And there might not be a win-win that's possible. Like maybe this isn't a situation where you can give him anything that's useful to him, and he doesn't have anything valuable that's useful to you. So it might be that just splitting the difference realistically is something that that's all you can do. And then the other downside of that collaborating approach is that somebody might take advantage of you, although you have an attitude of let's come up with something that meets both of our needs. They might not. They might be using your collaborative attitude as a way of abusing you, taking advantage of you, and it then might create a bit of a precedent that the person feels like they can walk all over the top of you or something, something similar, can't it? I don't know. I I don't think in that kind of a situation there is necessarily a right and wrong way to do it. But if Ravi decided to deal with this directly with Jordan, thinking about which of those types of conflict and which of those conflict modes it makes sense to employ would be very useful. Okay, so let's have a look at that third case study. Here we've got the situation where you're covering for a colleague's reduced effort. Here's the situation. In a busy retail store, supervisor Elise saw that one sales assistant, Tyler, frequently left early or took long breaks while others stayed to complete closing duties, stock work, and cleaning. Left early, took long breaks. How early, how long? Obviously, I'm thinking about the data even initially. Staff who remained later grew resentful and started making pointed remarks when Tyler was out of earshot. When Elise tried to rebalance the roster and assign clearer closing responsibilities, Tyler pushed back, and some team members felt the changes still did not go far enough. The closing shifts became tense, conversations grew shorter, and cooperation on the shop floor noticeably declined as people focused only on their own tasks. Oh my goodness, it's such a common fallout factor from conflict, isn't it? Everybody just goes into their silos, they just all look after their little patch. Often they don't want then to be in a team with these people because it implies interdependence. And if I'm not confident that these people can stand on their own two feet, the last thing I want is to be bound by them as we all go down with the ship, if you know what I mean. So staff are getting resentful and they're making pointed remarks when Tyler's out of the earshot. When Elise tries to rebalance the roster and aside clearest responsibilities, Tyler pushed back. And then there's that funny comment that some of the other team members still feel that it didn't actually go far enough. It's very challenging, isn't it, when you're the meat in the sandwich. I can very well imagine poor Elise must be finding this all quite stressful. Especially if you're the kind of team leader that does actually care about your team. If you're a supervisor that wants the best for your staff, and there's nothing necessarily that you can do to help a situation, it can be very challenging. So we've got the pointed comments. What's the data here? What's the behavior? We've got the leaving early, but I wonder how specifically early that person is leaving. And how would you deal with this if you were a lease? It sounds like until this point, what she's been focusing on is that structural layer, changing the roster, more specific outlines of what the close-up looks like, that kind of thing. And there are some situations where just a structural intervention can work. It might have been possible, at least in her mind, to come up with something of a win-win that people could at least accept, even if they weren't happy with it. But we've also got those other four types of conflict as well, don't we? Elise might be better off just deal with dealing with this as an interest conflict. She might talk to Tyler directly about if you leave again before you're finished time, then I'll need to give you a formal warning. Or you're not going to get as many shifts, or this is the negative consequence for you. Or if you can do the thing that I've asked you to do, if you can make these changes, this is how it would be better for you moving forward. Or she could go back to the data. Look, I just want to clarify when you're rostered on closing up and that's your shift, this is what I expect from you. We could deal with this in terms of values. Like, fair enough. Like I can understand to you, you probably feel like you've already stayed back late three days this week. So enough is enough. And for you, that's the line in the sand that you've just said that look, I'm not going to keep staying back late when I'm not getting paid for it. Have I got that right? From our perspective, this is how we've been thinking about it. Or I know this is how other members of the team consider the same issue. So it's not so much you're wrong and I'm right. It's like there might be a, at least in your head, a valid reason for doing what you're doing. On our end, we also have a valid concern for asking you to do things differently. How can we get on the same page moving forward? What would a middle ground look like? Is there some kind of a compromise that you would be willing to accept? Or are there some other tweaks or changes that we could consider that would lead us to more of a win-win that works for everybody? So we could deal with it in terms of the structure, changing the roster, interest, rewards, punishments, carrots and sticks, data, going back to clarify the behavior and what's expected, job descriptions, you know, checklists, or the value, the underlying perspectives of what we both think is important. Then we've got the final category of relationship. And especially if we're thinking about a retail environment, it's possible that is it Tyler? Let me go back up for a second. Yeah, Tyler's the younger person. It's possible that they're a bit overwhelmed. And so Tyler might be unhappy about something that's going on, but not exactly sure how to deal with it themselves. For me, if I was in a lease's position and I was the supervisor, I'd probably use that same grow model of coaching that I outlined previously. The goal, reality, options, and way forward. If I was Elise, I might meet with Tyler, take them out for a coffee or something, and I might say, Look, how are you traveling? You don't seem like yourself. I remember that you seem to be quite a positive kind of person. And I've noticed ladies lately you seem to have a bit more of a weight on your shoulders. I don't know if I'm misreading things and it might be connected to stuff outside of work anyway. But I just want to touch base and see how you're traveling. Or maybe it's offering an apology for something that Tyler's upset about previously. Now, one of the questions that I would be very curious to ask, though, would be to ask Tyler, how are things between you and the other members of the team? Like what have you noticed in terms of the dynamics? Nothing, okay. A few of them have talked to me about when you're finishing up together, who's usually in charge of doing what. Have they talked to you about any of these kind of issues? Have you been given any feedback? Like how's the last communications or conversations that you've had with people gone? That's where I'm wanting to help drill down into the reality of the situation for them. I.e., it's not just me asking you to do this because I think it's important. There's other people that are also sharing a similar kind of view. Or we could talk to Tyler about the goal. Look, you don't need to be friends with everybody that we work with. That's not my expectation. But you do need to find a way to work together effectively as a team. And this is what that looks like from my end. It's making sure that all your tasks are done, making sure that if there's somebody that needs help, that you're willing to help each other out if you finish your tasks, whatever. Like there might be some specific deliverables or bottom lines that you need from them. But then I would be asking them to describe to me what a positive working relationship would look like. What would you do differently? How would you greet each other? How would you manage it when you've got different ideas about what should happen? So we bounce between the goal and the reality. Then we also could talk through options like what do you think might work here? How could you mend some bridges? I wonder if there's some way that you can communicate that to the rest of the team in a way that they're able to hear. And then that final category of the way forward questions, what is your next step? Given all of this, where will you start? The last thing I would want is Tyler to say to me, No worries, I'll go and talk to the team about it. And then they don't. It's very stressful talking to the team about it. So they might just procrastinate and avoid it. So I again would be going through those next steps. When? What do you need from me? Is there any reason that you won't be able to do that? What will you do if they tell you that they're too busy or they give you a negative reaction earlier on? How could we within the team continue to build trust as we move forward? I've noticed that the end of the scenario there, it talks about the closing shifts becoming tense, conversations growing shorter, etc. There might also be some specific requests that Elise makes about the behavior from here. Could we make sure that when we're having these discussions that we do it all together in the room? Or could we make sure that when these kind of issues come up, we take notes and then we raise it with the other people that are involved directly, rather than going straight to a senior manager if we're upset about something? Like there might be some specific expectations that can be clarified within the team as well. For me, it's one of the areas that I find very challenging as a mediator is how do you rebuild trust after there's been conflict and people do feel like they've been treated unfairly, for example? How can you shift things forwards and get things back on track? It's very difficult. And if we think about a topic like trust, we can't just magically decide to trust someone. Like I can't just decide to feel differently. If I'm trusting you, what I'm really doing is giving you the benefit of the doubt, at least to some extent. And if we say to someone, trust me, I think what we're really saying is, can you give me the benefit of the doubt? Like I am gonna do what I've said that I'm gonna do. And that's what I've noticed is the point where trust actually is built. It's not when I say that I'm gonna do it, it's when I do it. So in terms of managing the short term, my approach as the team leader would be about clarifying expectations. I'd like to meet together as a team and go through the closing. Um, what does that closing process look like? Who's expecting who to do what by when? So very clear in terms of that expectations. And then I think that as people are doing it, once they're actually doing what they've said that they're gonna do, that's often how trust is actually built. Whereas that decision to trust someone or asking someone to trust me, yeah, I'm not sure how much difference that actually makes, at least in the short term. It's that clarifying expectations and then the follow-through, that's what would be very important here. So if I wanted to shift from this negative spiral that we've been going down, let's try and have a few team meetings where things are positive, or let's try and get a little bit of momentum in terms of catching up on the work from last week or something similar. But I don't know, in a very similar way to the other two, that's just my take on that situation. If you were in Elise's shoes, you might very well do something completely different. If it's been useful for you, I'd love to hear from you. You can shoot me an email, it's podcast at simongood.com. Otherwise, just make a comment down below. If you would like more resources for dealing with conflict similar to what I've gone through today, then consider hitting follow or hitting subscribe. If you've got an idea for a topic that I can cover in a similar kind of way with three different scenarios, or maybe you've got a case study that you'd like me to lose to use, send that through as well. But otherwise, thank you very much for listening. I hope that it has been useful, and especially if you're dealing with one of the conflict areas that I've discussed. I wish you all the best with it. And otherwise, thank you. Hopefully, see you again in a future episode of the Conflict Skills Podcast. Bye for now.