"You have no enemies, you say? Alas! My friend, the boast is poor." You might know this poem by Charles Mackay quoted in popular TV show The Crown.
Just as a relationship without fights can betray hidden problems, a career path without conflicts makes no sense.
He, who has mingled in the fray / Of duty, that the brave endure, / Must have made foes! If you have none, / Small is the work that you have done.
You’ve hit no traitor on the hip, / You’ve dashed no cup from perjured lip, / You’ve never turned the wrong to right, / You’ve been a coward in the fight.
Adversarial situations are a natural byproduct of setting high goals and working with different people. If you're doing anything meaningful, it's only a matter of time before somebody's not a fan.
While it's nice to imagine that professionalism conquers all, you can't avoid circumstances where somebody's not planning to make it easy for you. In that case, it doesn't hurt to level the playing field.
This post will give you the conversation mechanisms for dealing with antagonistic conditions. However, this post doesn’t address handling the many different types of conflicts and resolutions, which is another topic in itself. Hopefully, you'll at least be able to move forward with a little more sure-footedness.
1. Relish the Uncomfortable Silence
For any soul in America who’s never watched an episode of Law & Order or any other cop show, let’s review the oldest trick in the book: The Uncomfortable Silence.
It’s such a good trick because even when you're aware of it, you’re still going to want to say something. It feels deeply wrong not to. Everything inside of you is screaming for you to fill the silence.
But once you open your mouth to end the awkward silence, you're likely to do the following things: elaborate, justify, explain, add details, and just keep giving information. Even if you've got nothing incriminating to say, what you've done is lost control. Instead of shaping your story, you're running your mouth.
So now that you know, next time, force your rational mind to overcome your gut instinct. Embrace the awkward silence.
Remember that whatever is painful for you is the same on other side.
Leave the silence be.
Keep your lips sealed like you're taking a secret to the grave.
Make yourself comfortable in your chair and take a deep breath. You can do this all day. Wonder what's for lunch.
Once you're feeling stable, maybe you decide you're ready to share your thoughts. Maybe you keep sitting there because you're done talking.
Either way, your self-control has already spoken louder than words ever could.
2. Don't Complain, Don't Explain, Master the Non-Committal “Mmm”
Our social conditioning for correct behavior also leads us to another conversational pitfall: trying to make the other person understand.
If everyone you've ever worked with has always humbly sought to understand others and fairly compromise, good for you and feel free to keep scrolling.
In case that's not always the hand you're dealt, then you may encounter more sinister situations. They may not be obvious at first but impure motives almost always become clear soon enough.
For instance, debating someone on their feelings instead of trying to understand them is a common method of antagonism. Have you ever felt like no matter how hard you try to explain, the other person has already decided that this is going to be a fight and they're going to win - almost savoring the bloodsport?
Or have you ever known a drama lover who, if you didn't know better, you'd think was actually egging on the brawl?
This behavior often takes the form of a tempting bait: an overstatement ("No one's ever going to map out everything perfectly for you at this job") or a passive-aggressive unfair remark ("I think you need to be respectful of how it works around here").
What happens if you bite?
Your gut reaction here is, "No way - you see. . ." followed by a lot of delicious material for the other person to play against.
At these points, it's clearly not about de-escalating, but about getting a big bite of satisfaction. You don't want that bite taken out of you. You'll lose your time, energy, and most unfortunately, your sanity and sense of safety.
If you're terrified at this point, don't fear. The solution is almost as easy as keeping your mouth shut during an awkward silence, except instead of no reaction, you give a non-committal reaction.
Instead of taking the bait, say: "Mmm." Then silence.
Circle back to step one above and don't feel the need to fill the ensuing silence with any explanation, argument, or defense. If they try to bait you again, rinse and repeat.
Eventually, what else can the other person say? Hook, line, and nothing.
3. But “Never Let It Be Said” What You Don't Want Said
On the other hand, sometimes people take advantage of fear or silence to impose a narrative that works best for them.
While you don't want to engage in a fruitless argument, you also don't want to yield space for others to establish an unfair side of the story.
A lot of it may overlap with the conflict-baiting of step number two, such as the exaggerated unfair claims ("Everyone's busy right now and you can't just do the bare minimum").
You might get the overstatements that completely side-swerve around a concrete issue ("I know you're busy but you're expected to juggle multiple projects and that's part of the job").
On a lucky day when you need something to chuckle over, perhaps you even get the patently false statement ("You don't know much and don't have any expertise to offer, so your main value is to be available when senior people need you.")
You're an expert by now, so here's the one line you need to neutralize someone else's attempts to shape the narrative: “Mmm I don’t know that.”
Non-committal, concise, airtight. Tell them they're wrong without wasting a breath and without revealing a chink in the armor.
Limit Casualties in Battle, Win the War
You might have thought at the beginning that winning meant winning the argument.
In fact, real winning means doing something a lot better with your time than feeding the black hole that is an adversarial conversation.
The last thing you want to do is sacrifice your army on the hill of proving somebody else wrong. All you get in return is the cheapest flavor of satisfaction, with an aftertaste of regret.
Instead, win by neutralizing the enemy swiftly, decisively, and with the least cost.
Then try your best to forget about the small problems in life and the small people who cause them. They're not coming with you on the way to your big dreams.