In the fast-paced world that we all live in, good, timely communication is key. Without this people are in the dark and don’t know what you are doing for them.
As a Chartered Building Surveyor working for multiple clients as well as helping to manage our team of professional staff at Earl Kendrick, my time can sometimes be difficult to manage. It is easy to become distracted with the latest email demanding a response – I have 3 while writing this article. Sometimes I can spend half a day just emailing people and then realise that I haven’t produced any output for a client, or have I? Those short emails keeping people informed and responding to questions do help push projects forward and can turn out to be my saving grace. I know that my clients and colleagues appreciate it when I respond quickly, however the speed of a response isn’t everything.
Tips on handling a dispute
1) When you get an email that raises a difficult issue make sure you read that email twice.
Responding initially when you have misunderstood can leave you to making erroneous statements that later undermine your credibility. Seek to understand not only what they are saying but why.
Sometimes a quick phone call to understand and clarify matters can prevent a dispute from occurring at all.
2) Your first response should, most of the time, be to pause and reflect, rather than make a knee jerk reaction.
I recommend sending a holding email which acknowledges there is a matter to consider – do not agree to there being a dispute or argue against it as this can add fuel to their fire. Ideally include a timeline for providing a response as this shows a commitment to the situation and relationship.
3) Check your perspective and understanding of both the situation and the people. These are two different matters and a dispute can be about/from either or both.
When you do respond consider all viewpoints. Although I personally believe there is such a thing as “the truth”, frequently not everyone will agree on what is right in a given situation. Sometimes this is driven by people wanting the course of the argument to always fit into their perspective.
4) Get advice before you commit to anything formal or substantial.
As a qualified Expert Witness surveyor, I have been trained to think methodically about buildings and it is important to know with as much certainty as you can the facts of a situation. When you don’t actually know something then it is best to either find the answers or stay silent. Trying to bluff you way through a dispute is always a bad idea so get to understand the details of what has gone on is important.
“The truth shall set you free” is a phrase that I try to live by. Being honest about a mistake can disarm someone and de-escalate a complaint in an instant. However, you need to know the implications of a confession before you make it. In the wrong circumstances you can void your insurance and make matters worse. Whatever your intentions are, remember that there is more than one angle to every situation. Getting advice, even informally from a colleague, is a chance to learn before you make a mistake.
How to respond to a dispute
There are, in my view, two ways to respond;
The first is to answer in detail each matter raised. This often can lead you to closing off several tangents, usually smaller and less significant, issues, leaving the core of the argument exposed and constrained. When taking this approach, you need to recognise that you will be ‘fighting in the trenches’ and that there will inevitably be several email or phone call exchanges where you go through the facts about several issues simultaneously. This approach to responding to a dispute can be time consuming but is also effective at getting to the heart of the problem. Part of this response reaction is also defensive. Where someone inaccurately makes allegations or is simply ill informed when raising concerns this approach can be excellent at enabling you to put the record straight and clear up confusion. Sometimes this can make a situation go away all together as the challenger realises they don’t actually have a problem to complain about.
My warning about this approach to dealing with a conflict is that you need to know your opponent. If they are inclined to bring up more and more issues during the course of the dispute then it might not be the best approach. This can lead to a situation where both sides dig their heels in and the result is that ‘no one wins’.
The second way to respond is to speak in broader terms of the context of the issue(s) and to try to gain a shared perspective. This response doesn’t seek to answer every detailed concern raised, but instead groups them together to reply more to the person than the circumstances. In this situation acknowledging the other parties’ feelings and viewpoint is the dominant language used. This approach seeks to avoid falling into traps set, where the other party might be trying to get you to agree one fact and then to turn that into another argument.
Making this approach successful in closing down a conflict is dependent on the two parties being able to see the others viewpoint. Where there is a mutual willingness to solve matters this approach to de-escalation can often be less time consuming and shorten the dispute duration. Agreeing to disagree over minor matters can leave the parties free to move on to more important things.
This approach does however risk the detailed points of a complaint being left unresolved, only to be later re-raised. In the worst cases the truth in this situation is that the parties are already preparing for their next dispute.
Concluding a dispute
The end of a conflict is often overlooked as an important moment, especially for the second response type spoken of above.
However you respond to a difficult situation it is valuable to end matters in a way that leaves opportunity for a future relationship to exist. It is reasonably rare (in business) that a dispute is so difficult that the parties never interact again. As the saying goes, it’s a small world. Thus, I suggest that you try to end a dispute with agreeing that it is done and that the next time you interact you hope for there to be no conflict.
My last words on this topic for now will be that I recommend you always be professionally polite and as your dispute concludes, wish the other party well. That final impression of caring about the other person may make them less likely to want to have another dispute. If that next person happens to be you, then you might be unknowingly grateful to someone you don’t know and have never met – because inadvertently they paid it forward by being kind when they didn’t need to.
Michael Burkinshaw Grad Dip, MRICS, APAEWE (Expert Witness)
Technical Director & Head of Insurance Surveying
