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 Today’s
IT workplace is becoming increasingly intolerant of performance
deviations, and there is no dearth of triggers for conflicts. Desikamani
G says that we have become habituated to living in a conflict-full
environment
Increasing number of men and women working in
an IT environment are facing serious health challenges. We note
with sadness the increasing relationship problems and burnout that
IT employees are facing in their personal lives. The root cause
of most illnesses today is the mind, which gets fatigued and abused
by a variety of factors. Over-work and lack of rest is a primary
cause.
Interpersonal conflicts
However, I would rate interpersonal conflicts
as the most dangerous and almost lethal factor. For a man who is
not very adaptive in his behaviour and low on maturity, it is a
sure-shot killer over a period of time. The effect conflicts have
on the long-term productivity and realisation of potential of an
individual are significant.
Today’s IT workplace is becoming lesser
and lesser tolerant of performance deviations, and there is no dearth
of triggers for conflicts. On the flipside, it has become so habitual
to live in a conflict-full environment, that one begins to feel
weird on a completely conflict-free day.
The source
Interpersonal conflicts are triggered when the
behaviour exhibited by one person does not match the behaviour expected
by the other person who he is dealing with. Heavily dependent on
preferences of one another, and given the fact that nature has made
so many varieties of us, sources of this type of a conflict knows
no limits.
In fact, every time I visit an ATM I notice people
either yelling or showing their anger or irritation to the machine
and the less subtle ones to a security guard outside the ATM. The
interface may have changed from the irritable queue and the customer-unfriendly
teller of the nationalised bank to the air-conditioned environs
of an ATM, but the basics of our approach don’t change much.
Interpersonal conflicts drain people of energy
and affects productivity—both long-term and short-term.
Stimulus or emotion
Since the source of all conflicts is in the mind,
with some effort it is possible to work on this killer problem which
depletes happiness out of many IT lives. A quick reflection of our
responses to stressful situations will lead us to the root of this
problem.
Imagine driving a car on a seemingly empty road
early morning. You naturally tend to drive fast and suddenly you
notice an old man on a bicycle coming out of the lane from the left,
10 feet in front of you. What do you do? Of course hit the brake
and halt to a screech. And then… “abuse the old man”
is a very mild description of your possible behaviour.
Look at the chain of events—you applied
the brake (stimulus)—you threw abuse at the old man (response).
Is that all?
What lies between the stimulus and response is
an emotion which is the key trigger of interpersonal conflicts.
In this scenario, what were you responding to? You thought you responded
to the stimulus but you actually responded to the emotion. What
do you want to respond to—stimulus or the emotion?
Chain reaction
Their reality is that it is the behaviour of
people, and more importantly different preferences we have as individuals,
which cause interpersonal conflicts. And behaviours which are not
in line with our preferences cause negative emotions. The stimulus-emotion-response
chain follows.
I have a firm belief that almost all people in
this world come with good intentions. However, it is their behaviour
which is misunderstood or does not match the preferences of the
other person and therefore causes conflict.
In my organisation development consulting work,
I have often empirically proved to companies that even a small change
in the way we respond to behaviour induced conflicts at workplace
leads to significant improvement of productivity.
All it calls for is to work on a paradigm “different
is not equal to wrong”. This actually requires us to listen
carefully to understand behaviour preferences of people and give
them the right to be what they are. This is especially true of the
IT environment.
Bottomline, the strategy for happiness in the
IT workplace of today or tomorrow is simple, “understand preferences
and adapt your behaviour to the situation or the person.” Research
on successful people the world over has tons of evidence to back
this.
Whenever I take people through this idea in a
training intervention, there’s always the cynical response,
“its much easier said than done.” I quite agree. Adaptation
of behaviour is quite stressful and calls for skill and practice.
Isn’t that what we call as maturity? And there’s always
a small price to pay. A more pragmatic way of looking at life would
help us conclude that stress arising out of adaptation is far less
harmful and easily manageable than the stress resulting from interpersonal
conflicts. Isn’t your happiness and health a matter of your
choice?
Desikamani G is Chief Mentor of Mentor Consulting,
Chennai. E-mail: desikamanig@mentorsmail.com
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