How to Defuse Conflict in the Business Environment
Making Peace
by Sylvie Olivier
Most businesses are experiencing increasingly frequent conflicts among coworkers. These can range from minor disagreements to fairly heated arguments, and can even escalate to shoving or physical altercations.
Perhaps you tend to find yourself frequently caught up in these conflicts? Or maybe you’re a regular witness to them, unsure of how to respond?
What should you do in these situations? Know that with some very simple steps, it’s possible to defuse and even neutralize all types of conflicts.
Whether you’re personally involved in the conflict or simply witnessing it, the quickest way to defuse the conflict is to MAKE PEACE with the situation, just as it is.
Making peace doesn’t mean holding back while feeling frustrated. Making peace means giving yourself permission to FEEL what’s inside you, no matter how intense the emotions are, while breathing deeply.
Before I share some simple, practical resources with you, let’s take a look at how conflicts arise.
Signal Vibratoire
To be able to make a choice other than getting stuck in the energy of conflict, it’s crucial to understand how your vibrational signal works.
As humans, we are energy transmitters and receivers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
The energy that makes up our vibrational signal encompasses many aspects of ourselves, including patterns inherited from our parents, our upbringing, and our culture. In addition to our mental archives—which consist of conscious and unconscious beliefs—the emotions that have crystallized within us since our earliest childhood also color our vibrational signal.
Much like a radio or TV station, if we want to listen to a different kind of music or watch a different show, we have to change the radio frequency or TV channel.
The same is true for humans. If your vibrational signal includes mental archives of effort, control, lack, expectation, or impatience, it will trigger crystallized emotions such as anger, disappointment, guilt, blame, or helplessness.
These mental archives and crystallized emotions vibrate at distinct frequencies and are constantly transmitted through your vibrational signal, creating situations that generate conflict, and you find yourself in the role of either the victim, the savior, or the bully.
We all play all three roles (victim, savior, and bully) in our lives until the mental archives and crystallized emotions that keep this trio in place are dissolved.
We have all played the role of the victim at certain times, feeling in a state of helplessness in the face of another person, our bank account, external circumstances, or even a “higher authority”—which might be our boss or the government.
To feel stronger and more capable, we’ve played the role of the savior, by speaking out against perceived injustices, by protecting those we consider weaker, and by offering assistance to the most vulnerable.
And finally, even if it’s hard for some to conceive, we’ve all played the role of the bully to perfection, often by being very hard on ourselves, by lashing out at those we consider “spineless” because it’s upsetting to see them allow themselves to be abused, by confronting the stronger ones who impose their rules, or simply to vent an excess of inner anger.
No matter what your position is, it’s important to realize that they’re all limited and that they invariably lead to mood swings, impatience, frustration, helplessness, guilt, blame, or shame.
Here’s a suggestion to assist you in making a different choice and feeling more at peace and lighthearted.
Make PEACE
Making peace means:
- Acknowledging the situation as it is.
- Accepting to see beyond the circumstances.
- Giving yourself permission to feel what is present.
- Breathing through feelings of frustration, guilt, blame, or shame.
- Breathing through the fear of losing face, what you’ve achieved, or your reputation.
Making Peace, is simply giving yourself permission to experience the situation as it presents itself.
Making Peace is simply giving yourself permission to let crystallized emotions be released by allowing them to flow through you.
Making Peace is simply shifting the usual trajectory of thoughts on autopilot to ultimately make a different choice.
By allowing ourselves to feel what is supposedly unhealthy, inadequate, inappropriate, unpleasant, or bad, we encounter these emotional vibrations buried within us and offer them an outlet with much greater gentleness than if we wait for the pressure valve to blow on its own!
SUGGESTED RESOURCES for Making Peace
- The 4-Breathing Technique
To assist you in incorporating this practice into your life, I suggest using the 4-Breathing Technique, guided by videos that are simple and quick to follow.
I suggest incorporating these breaths into your routine every day: morning, noon, and night, or three times at times that work for you.
- “Being at Peace with What Is” Harmonization
You can also choose to take a pause and listen to this “Being at Peace with What Is” harmonization to release an excess of emotions and gently reconnect with the calm within yourself.
Of course, there’s a difference between Making Peace and Being at Peace. That said, the step of Making Peace is a key that bridges the gap between feeling the conflict brewing within and feeling at peace in any situation.
In Conclusion
We’ve been conditioned to do whatever it takes to be right in order to feel worthy and be recognized.
I suggest you take a pause for a few minutes to let go of this quest. Is being right, at all costs, really that important to you?
Would you like to feel freer and lighter?
By creating a space between yourself and this quest to be right and to do everything to earn your colleagues’ respect at work, you are simply perpetuating the energy of conflict in your vibrational signal.
By choosing to Make Peace with yourselves, your colleagues, and any situation, you contribute to maintain a more harmonious and peaceful work environment, which fosters great team cohesion, leading to greater growth for everyone, including the business you work for.
Let’s celebrate peace at work!