Whenever you're in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude.- William James
Conflicts can happen anywhere and anytime.
I am going to illustrate an example of a conflict that happened at my workplace a couple of weeks back. I work at Raffles medical clinic part time in case some of you guys missed out my last post which i briefly mentioned it.
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It was during lunchtime, and the clinic was packed with people. There was barely enough room for everyone to stand and the air-conditional was not working that day. The smell of cigarettes and sweat filled the room as the doors of the clinic was opened to let some air in. All the nurses knew that lunch crowd was the worst, the staff was divided into two groups for lunch so the manpower allocation was down by half. And there will only be one doctor available because they take shifts to have lunch as well.
My colleague whom I will call A was working with me for the first shift. She was having a bad morning because of personal issues. She was incharge of registering the patient and giving them a queue number. Due to the huge amount of patients present she asked them to pass her their I/C and wait for their turn to be called.
This patient, whom i called B, came in hurriedly and told me she needed to see the doctor immediately because her lunch hour was ending and she had to go back to work. I referred her to A who was handing registration and continued my task of dispensing medicine. B then told her that she was in a hurry and requested to see the doctor first. A curtly replied her saying she cannot do that as she have to follow the queue.
B got really upset and insisted that she really needed to see the doctor as she had to get back to work soon. A told her in a louder voice, without looking at her, that it cannot be done and if she don't mind she could visit another clinic opposite as the crowd may be lesser.
B started to roll her eyes and exclaim in a loud voice that she did not deserved to be treated like that and that the service at this clinic is horrible. She started to make a big fuss at the registration counter and even threatened to write a bad feedback for A.
A while later B approached me and started asking me for the feedback form and even asking all the information about A, such as her name, her position at the clinic, how long she've been working and started complaining to me.
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QN. How should i handle this situation in this case?
Of course take into account that there are a lot of patients waiting for their medicine and that we are shorthanded during the lunch hour !
For A, her motivation was just to get to job done while for B she wanted to see the doctor and make it back in time for her work. And in my opinion the reason why both of them acted that way is because they are driven by their feelings. They did not step into each other's shoe to understand each other's position. After attending the lesson on EQ, i learnt that in tough situations like this, it is important to know that one has to empathize with the other party.
Can't wait to know what you guys think and happy chinese new year ! (:
Hi Evelyn, nice quote in the beginning btw. I was wondering whether you will disclose how you really handled the situation when it happened to you at the end of the exercise. Anyway, that is a non-issue. I was just curious about how you deal with it assuming that you have no knowledge of emotional intelligence back then.
ReplyDeleteHere goes my 2 cents. Firstly, I think you are spot on about empathy. I think this situation revolves around being able to empathize with both parties and getting both parties to empathize with one another. Being able to identify their motivations at that point of time shows that you empathize both parties' needs, desires and resultant emotions.
As a third party and if I were you, I will try my best not to be influenced by the emotions of the parties to the conflict as it will just escalate the situation. This will depend on my relationship with A. Do I have a history of past conflicts with her? Am I on extremely good terms with her? Either way, I cannot let my past conflicts or my good relationship with her influence me emotionally and this requires a high level of self awareness because you will need to be impartial to both parties when you try to help them resolve the conflict. Next, I will have to examine my own emotions and mood. Did I also have a bad morning? If so, I will need to regulate that and keep that under control (easier said than done and it requires a lot of restraint on one's part). After all this pre-processing of emotions have been done, the actual attempt of resolving the conflict needs to be taken. This will depend heavily on social skills to communicate the need to resolve the conflict and also motivational skills to motivate both sides to resolve the situation amicably.
As a first step, since B approached to ask for the feedback form, I will ask B to step one side to calm her emotions down and apologize on A's behalf. Next, I will emphasize that I really understand her predicament and explain to her about A's personal reasons (no elaboration about those reasons as that may infringe on A's privacy) for being in such a bad mood. Subsequently, I will ask for her understanding and to empathize with A's situation. Once she is reasonably in a more calm state, I will explain to her about the difficulties she faced since it is clinic policy to not allow people to jump queue. However, understanding the direction she is coming from, we will try our best and ask whether we can provide an exception in this particular case although there will be no guarantee. Meanwhile, she can wait in the waiting area. Once that is settled, I will approach A and explain to her that B understands your situation and has not since not requested for a feedback form. Also, explain to her that you understand her personal problems but "no choice la, we are at the counter servicing customers and it is our job to portray a good image for the clinic. I know it is rude of her to demand immediate consultation but she has her problems also. I am sure if you apologize, she will understand your situation too!". I am sure if you can get A and B to reach a compromise by apologizing to one and another for their attitudes, the issue will be pretty much resolved.
I am a bit shag from writing liao. Later, i edit if needed. haha. Hope I not too long-winded.
Hi Evelyn,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, thanks for sharing your experience. I understand that it is really a difficult situation that you are facing. One party is your colleague who you will still be working with in the future and the other party being the customers. It is hard to decide on which party to side or whether to stay neutral. It seems to be the case that either choice will definitely have some negative consequence that you need to face. In this case, I think we can consider all the options that you have and pick the one which you think it might give the least negative consequences.
People always say that the customers are always right which I do not agree with at all. Yes, customers are important as they are the one who ensures that your employer has revenue to pay for you salary. However, that does not means that we should give in to all kinds of ridiculous requests by the customers. We can always try our best in providing the so called “best solution” or “option” for our customers if we cannot meet their request totally.
I agreed with both of you and Anthony that one has to empathize with the other party. In such situation, both party are emotionally driven hence it might be hard for both to think “clearly” and empathize others. Hence it is advisable for B to cool down first before anything can get into her mind. If I would you, I will try to be the mediator and solve the disputes between both parties. Firstly, I will allow B to rant all her complaints to me and at the same time, I will try to prevent myself from giving any opinions or comments but just giving her the attention that she needed. In the event where she wants me to pass her the feedback forms, I would tell her that the forms are not within my reach now and I will get one for her “after a while” when I am less busy.
After all the ranting and complaints, I would direct her into a seat and passed her some cold drinks to quench her thirst. (I assumed that she will be thirsty after talking so much!) At the same time, I will try to fork out some time to explain to her the situation we are facing right now and hope that she can understand and not complain about A. Next, I will try to fulfill her request by talking to A nicely again and check with A whether there is any way where B can jump the queue. Assuming that the situation allows and A has cooled down and is willing to help B after all the talking that I have made, we can assign B to be the next customer to see the doctor. However, if the situation does not allow B to jump queue due to the large number of customers or due to A unwilling to help B, I will explain to B why it is hard for us to let her jump the queue. (Either stating the large crowd size or it is unfair for us to do so.) By going the extra mile to “help” her again can show that you are really sincere in wanting to help her but just that the situation could not allow us to do so. Hopefully by then she can understand our situation and let this matter pass. Subsequently, I will tell her to set an appointment with us the very next day so that such situations can be prevented and B will be able to see the doctor within her lunch break time frame.
To end off, I think usually all of us tend to be emotionally driven in how we react. Hence it is important to not let emotions affects how we react and make decisions. In term of customer relationship, I think most customer would want to see us to go for the extra mile for them so that they feel appreciated. Thus, I think in this particular situation, A did not make the extra mile for B hence they resulted in such disputes.
Hope this helps in one way or another! :)
Shi Chie