Dear Yogesh,

One of my coworkers recently said I didn’t involve him in a decision I made, but I believe I did. He asked me to relay his input to another person, which I did. He then claimed that I decided to meet with this person without inviting him. When I try to explain my side, the situation only seems to escalate.

How should I handle being?

Deepanshu

Dear Deepanshu,

It sounds like you’re facing a classic "crucial conversation"—a situation where the stakes are high, emotions are running strong, and the facts are being seen differently by both parties. Here are a couple of options for addressing this:

Option 1 – Address the Incident Directly

Your first option is to address the specific situation, focusing on finding common ground through Mutual Purpose and Mutual Respect. It seems that you both have different perspectives on the incident, and that difference in perception is driving the conflict. The key is to create a safe space for an open conversation and work towards understanding each other’s viewpoint.

In teams where there’s little trust, or in situations involving multiple steps and people, it can be helpful to document commitments to ensure clarity and prevent misunderstandings. By writing down who does what, by when, and how follow-ups will happen (WWW.F – Who does What by When and how you’ll Follow up), you can avoid relying on memory and reduce the likelihood of assumptions.

That being said, even with written commitments, misunderstandings can still arise. It sounds like the conversation you had with your colleague may have lacked some important details—perhaps he expected to be invited to the meeting, and that wasn’t communicated. If you had covered all bases during your original conversation, you might have avoided this issue. Still, the goal now is to resolve the misunderstanding quickly or move past it if resolution isn’t possible.

Option 2 – Clarify Future Collaboration

Another approach is to focus on how you can work better together in the future. You might begin the conversation by saying something like:
“It seems like we have different views of the meeting with Sarah, and we haven’t been able to agree on the facts. I think it would be helpful to talk about what we can learn from this and how we can work better in the future to avoid situations like this one.”

By focusing on improving your future collaboration, you can find common purpose and respect, which will open the door to productive dialogue. The goal is to learn from the past and use that knowledge to make better decisions going forward. This way, rather than dwelling on the past, you can create new agreements that prevent misunderstandings from happening again.

For example, you might decide that moving forward, when you make commitments with each other, you’ll also plan for potential conflicts or changes. How will you check in if something unexpected happens? How will you adapt the plan if needed? This approach will help both of you stay on the same page and address issues proactively instead of reacting after the fact.

Handling Escalation

Regarding your statement that explaining what happened made things worse, this is common in high-stakes conversations. If you keep the focus on how you’ll handle similar situations in the future, it’s less about debating the past and more about finding ways to collaborate moving forward. By clarifying your process for dealing with misunderstandings, you set the stage for more constructive conversations in the future.

When conflicts arise, it’s important to look at what can be learned from them, rather than clinging to the past. Use those lessons to shape your future interactions, and you'll likely find that these issues become easier to resolve.

Best Regards,

Yogesh

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