Collision Course

A prospect backs out of a contract after you've put hours into it. A plumber slips a major rate hike into the invoice for a significant job. An office employee is routinely late for work. Someone doesn't like someone else's tone of voice.

A vendor botches the same order four times. A lead carpenter can't seem to tie up loose ends. A high-maintenance designer humiliates a valued trade contractor.

A crew member lets a client's dog out, and it's hit by a car. Staffers are grumbling about you behind your back. A client challenges your business acumen and personal integrity. You and your partner are at loggerheads on how aggressively to grow.

From the mildly frustrating to the emotionally crippling, potentially high-stakes scenarios play themselves out every day in the remodeling world. Some begin benignly or seem tolerable, and many remodelers would rather suffer through them instead of openly confronting them. Other scenarios are clearly huge, a threat to an important relationship or your company's future.

Conflict, it turns out, is a little like cholesterol. There's the bad kind that most people have too much of, and that typically results from acting on the “fight or fiight” instinct. By lashing out, you often say or do things you later regret, exacerbating mutual resentment or anger. Ignoring the problem rarely makes it go away, and often further inflames it.

Then there's the good kind of conflict. Not only can a healthy willingness to step up to problems resolve the immediate issue at hand, but it can also isolate and repair the core issues causing them, can inspire accountability, and, most remarkably, can improve relationships.

How do you respond when things don't work out as planned? When someone doesn't live up to his or her end of the bargain, or they fall short of your expectations, or you and they just can't agree?

The right answer, in short, is to use time, self-awareness, and focus to successfully address the issue. To summarize the strategies of management consultants and remodelers interviewed for this article: Instead of being emotional, be respectful and curious; instead of pointing out what went wrong, share what you want to accomplish; instead of doing all the talking, do a lot of listening; instead of making it all about them, leave room for the possibility that maybe it's also about something you did or didn't do.

In a study of more than 25,000 people across dozens of organizations, researchers at Vital Smarts, a corporate training and consulting company in Provo, Utah, set out to identify why some people are so good at turning difficult conversations into healthy outcomes. “We learned the most when the stakes were high,” says Ron McMillan, a co-founder of Vital Smarts and co-author, with his three partners, of the books Crucial Conversations and Crucial Confrontations.

“Most of us do our worst when it matters the most,” McMillan says. Gifted communicators, in contrast, shined brightest “when they were confronting someone more powerful than themselves, or when the other person was defensive.” For them, he says, “confronting tough issues made the problem go away, the relationship stronger, and the other person change” for the better.

A critical key, McMillan says, is to do it in a way that is focused and calm. “When you feel emotion coming on, hit ‘pause,'” he says. “Ask yourself: ‘What result do I really want — for me, for the other person, and for the relationship?'” What's inside the other person's head, for that matter?

“Emotions start to drain when you ask these questions,” McMillan says. He calls the first 30 seconds into a crucial confrontation “the hazardous half-minute.”

If you can buy time, do. Jim Strite of Strite Design + Remodel, in Boise, Idaho, recently found himself preparing to meet with a client who was withholding a large final payment on a $400,000-plus project. Strite, a longtime meditator with a preternatural sense of calm, focused on “centering” himself, so as not to be emotional. “I knew that if I could get them to understand that I'm there for them, and that I understand where they're coming from, they will in turn start listening to me,” he says.

The meeting wasn't easy, but by essentially listening, keeping cool, and systematically going through the bill and the contract, Strite was paid that day.

Management consultant Theresa Gale also recommends taking a moment before engaging another person in a difficult conversation. First, consider the possibility that you may have done something to cause the problem. “Conflict is a two-way street,” says Gale, co-owner and principal of Transform Inc., which has many remodeling clients. Did you clearly define your expectations? Could you have miscommunicated?

Second, she says, don't get personal. “Take it away from being about the person, and think of it as a challenge to be overcome,” Gale says. One method that works particularly well with employees, she says, “is to use the company as the third person. Define the desirable behavior in the context of the company,” as in ‘This is how we live at Smith Design. These are our acceptable behaviors.'

Third, “practice the skill of curiosity,” Gale says. “Engage in a conversation that is blameless and open, so neither side takes it personally.”

Humility can also go a long way toward defusing a tense situation. “One thing that really good managers understand is that it can help to fall on your sword,” Gale says. If you and another person seem to be on different pages, for example, try saying, ‘I must not have communicated this as well as I should have.' Says Gale: “Relax the ego, stand outside yourself, and you'll create a sense of openness.”

A variation of these strategies helped remodeler Jeff King salvage a relationship when a client unintentionally sent him an e-mail. His San Francisco company, Jeff King & Company, relies heavily on e-mail for communicating with clients. The misdirected message — intended for the woman's husband — indicated that she thought King had been gouging the couple on change orders. She questioned whether they should have hired another company for a particular change order.

The note was distressing, King says. “We really pride ourselves on being fair.” Intending to restore his clients' trust, he set up a meeting with the couple. After catching up on the job, he confronted the issue, assuring them that he wanted them to be “my clients for life,” and encouraging them to talk about the source of their concern. The conversation shattered the tension that had been building up and started “this amazing dialogue. They knew we were on their side,” he says.

Robin Burrill of Curb Appeal Renovations, in Keller, Texas, has also had better outcomes using Crucial Confrontations strategies. Warm and emotive by nature, she has cried and once “almost threw up” talking with employees about performance issues. Now she steels herself beforehand, distilling the issues and goals.

In a recent such meeting, “I took the emotion out of it and basically stuck to the facts, and it went well,” she says. “It wasn't, ‘You're doing a terrible job,' but, ‘We want you to succeed, and here's what you need to do to make some major improvements.'”

Metzler Remodeling used the techniques outlined in Crucial Confrontations to survive an aggressive growth plan that was threatening to destroy its cohesive and friendly culture.

The Kansas City company had embraced the design/build model, moved into a new facility, developed more systems, and made key personnel changes including terminations, new hires, and some restructuring of existing staff.

With growth came pains that were both chronic and acute. “We were dropping the ball everywhere,” says Randy Metzler, president. Personality clashes also erupted. The former production manager was a stickler for detail but had been “stepping on my carpenters' toes, and a lot of resentment built up,” he says. Metzler moved the man into the estimator position, where he and the new architect began sniping behind each other's backs.

Other relationships were more directly confrontational, such as when a new salesperson blew up at a quiet drafting assistant after an error that was clearly the salesperson's fault. In hindsight, the incident was the breaking point in a series of increasingly tense moments among Metzler's staff, an easygoing group that was taken aback by the salesperson's seemingly hard-charging manner.

After seeing Ron McMillan speak at a conference, Metzler came back with the intent to “focus on the fact that we had this friction, and it wasn't being talked about.” Working with business coach Trevor Ralston and office manager Laura Lane, he developed training aimed at giving “more permission to our staff to take responsibility for constructively dealing with problems in a safe manner,” he says.

Role-playing was critical to the training's success. In scenarios based on real as well as fictionalized problems, one person — “the confronter” — described “the gap” between his or her expectations and the other person's behavior. He or she then invited the other person to discuss possible solutions. From the sideline, Metzler employees were encouraged to weigh in with their observations: how well the issues were defined, whether the confrontations were effective, what could have made them more effective.

After the training, the design assistant spearheaded a crucial confrontation with the salesperson. Lane facilitated, and the conversation was productive and revealing. The salesperson was surprised to hear that the others thought she had bad intentions. “Both came away with their integrity intact,” Metzler says.

In the time since, constructive engagement has become a part of the culture at Metzler Remodeling, reinforced through ongoing discussions and follow-up training. “Even today I'll hear people referring to how they need to have a crucial confrontation with so-and-so,” he says. “Or even, how they've done a bit more homework before deciding how to go about talking to someone.”

It's a steep and slippery slope from a seemingly ambiguous comment to a full-blown, gloves-off battle when three factors are in place, says Ron McMillan, co-author of Crucial Confrontations.

The first factor is that the stakes are high. What's being said or implied speaks to somebody's integrity, performance, or some other personal issue. The second is opposing opinions. And the third factor — strong emotions — often spins out of the first two.

“Suddenly we're not talking about the weather or the ball game,” McMillan says. “We're talking about things that really matter to each of us.”

He and his colleagues say you should first identify the “target” of your conversation — the real issue, or at least the most important one. Distill the issue or violation to a single sentence (lengthy descriptions tend to obscure the core issue).

To identify and distill the target, think CPR:

Content refers to a one-time incident, such as a disagreement or someone caught smoking in a client's home.

Pattern refers to a behavior that has recurred over time, such as a lead carpenter's history of ignoring punch-list guidelines.

Relationship refers to when a series of disappointments has undermined trust or respect. McMillan says these are the toughest conversations to have, but if you don't have them — or if you address only the content or pattern — you'll have the same conversation over and over.

With the issue defined, consider the possible consequences of drawing attention to it. The confrontation is probably worth having, McMillan says, if there was a clear broken promise or if your conscience says that not speaking could make matters worse. If it's a one-time problem with a person you may not see again, it may not be worth the effort.

If the other party is emotionally charged, one skill set that Ron McMillan recommends employing AMPP:

Ask an open-ended question to get the conversation rolling. If he or she goes silent, gently persist. “No, really, I'd love to hear what happened.”

Mirror the other person's strong emotion. “You seem pretty upset. Want to share it with me?” Make it safe for them to talk.

Paraphrase for understanding. Don't parrot, but take your best guess at what you think the other person is saying. “So you're upset because you think I'm micro-managing you?”

Prime the pump. Flesh out the details of what they're not saying, in a way that assures them you won't get defensive or angry. “I'm wondering if the problem began with the Johnson project, when I started asking for weekly progress reports?”