By the time most people enter the workforce, they have already walked away from at least one relationship that they decided was not beneficial for them.
Your job as a leader is to encourage relationships in your group or team that are mutually beneficial, so there is a disincentive to sacrifice those relationships.
In my blog post, "More on Happy People", I talked about finding common ground on which to build relationships. This common ground is the place to start rebuilding relationships that have been damaged by conflict. First, I'll discuss when the damaged relationship is between you, the leader, and one of your team. Second, I'll discuss the leader's facilitation role in helping two employees repair their relationship.
Let's use yesterday's vegetarian / hunter conflict to set the stage. You as leader, sat down with the vegetarian and discussed the boundaries of acceptable conversation at work. You were firm with the vegetarian that comments that were critical or derogatory of people who hunt were not acceptable. The vegetarian got very upset with you, and told you that it wasn't fair that they could not express their views at work. You reiterated your expectation that critical and derogatory comments were damaging to the team, and that they would not be tolerated. The vegetarian stormed out of your office, visibly upset.
You also sat down with the hunter, and counseled the hunter to only share hunting stories with people who were not offended by hunting stories. The hunter was receptive to your counseling, and agreed to only discuss hunting with other hunters when no one else was present. The hunter left your office smiling.
The vegetarian observed this, and now thinks you and the hunter are great friends, and they are on the outside of the circle of trust and respect. What do you do?
First, let tempers cool overnight. Think about your common ground with the vegetarian. Where are you most comfortable and compatible with them? Let's say your biggest common ground with the vegetarian is that you both love to read. Because you are the leader, there is a power imbalance in the relationship and you are going to have to extend the olive branch to start repairing the relationship.
As part of your "getting to know you" time with all of your employees, it is important that you find out how they like to get past a conflict. Some people like to just pick up on the other side as if nothing happened. Others want to hash it out. Still others want their emotions acknowledge so they can move on. It is your job to know the style of your employees before the initial conflict occurs.
Let's say the vegetarian is a "hash it out" kind of person. So, the next morning you approach the vegetarian, and say something like this. "Good Morning, I hope you were able to have a good night last night. Would you like to come to my office and talk about yesterday afternoon?" Once in your office, your opening to the conversation would be something like this, "I know what an emotional subject animal rights are for you, but do you see how your interaction with the hunter was damaging to the team?" Hopefully, the vegetarian has calmed down enough to talk things through, and you can share that you have also asked the hunter to not discuss hunting in the workplace.
Say they are a "pick up on the other side" kind of person. The next morning might go something like this. "Good Morning! I started a new Jodi Picoult novel last night, and boy is this one making me think. Have you read 'Handle with Care: A Novel'? This let's the employee know you are OK, and going to your common interest is the first brick in rebuilding the relationship.
Say they just want their emotions acknowledged, the conversation might go like this. "Good Morning, how are you today? Let's go in my office for a minute and talk about yesterday afternoon." The conversation in your office would go something like this. "I appreciate how passionately you care about animal rights, and I know your emotion yesterday was from the true caring heart you have for all creatures. I've spoken with the hunter, and hunting is an 'off-limits' topic in this work group from now on. Are you OK?"
Next, you have to make sure the hunter and the vegetarian get to work on repairing their relationship. The longer the time between the conflict and the attempt to repair the relationship, the harder it can be to extend the hand of reconciliation. My advice is to tell both employees that you expect to see them reaching out to each other to begin rebuilding, and remind them to think about the common ground they found as they were getting to know each other. If necessary, at a team meeting ask a question of one or both of them about their common ground to get the conversation flowing.
Whatever you do, don't turn away and hope for the best. You have to make sure the relationships get restored. Because we all know how to walk away from a relationship by the time we get to work. And without believing in the benefit of maintaining the relationship, it is easy to walk away. When your team stops caring about each other, the happy quotient goes down. Happy people are energized, productive, effective people. You want to lead happy people.
You as the leader have to make certain the expectation is clear that your team will maintain high value relationships. It will pay enormous dividends.
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