It’s a common, maddening occurrence: You innocently open an email from a colleague, customer or boss only to suddenly feel ambushed by its contents. The sender blames you for a problem you didn’t create, unfairly accuses you of sabotaging a project, or negatively interprets something you said. Even worse, he or she cc’s the email to your superiors.

As you stare at the offensive message, your vision blurs. You feel blood rushing to your face. Your heart beats faster. Your stomach drops. Your strongest impulse is to render justice by striking back.

Though it’s hard to remember, you do have a choice in that moment. You can either react out of anger, and fire back a harsh retort, or you can close the infuriating email, and calm down.

Which do you do? Our survey reveals that the usual response is to get ticked off, and retaliate. You then get into a battle with that person that can last for weeks at a time.

Opportunities to take offense in the world of email are high. Email is a form of communication without buffers, interpreters or pauses. The cc mechanism lends itself to either “tattling” on your co-workers or being told on to your supervisors.

But if your goal is to resolve workplace conflicts without hurting your reputation, reacting in anger doesn’t work. Why? Because you’re likely to send your first (and worst) thoughts to the recipient. Angry email responses injure the relationship, and damage your credibility.

The first thing to do when an email makes your blood boil is to calm yourself down. Draft files were created to hold (and filter) our angry e-bursts. Why is it that so few people are able to answer hostile emails in a cool and professional way? Because the temptation to immediately “fire back” an email when you think you’ve been attacked is very strong.

The next time someone sends an e-missle your way, take whatever steps you can to cool down before responding. We recommend: closing the email, getting up from your desk, stretching, taking a few deep breaths, splashing water on your face, or walking around your office floor to collect your thoughts. If you can cool off, you’ll have a much better chance of responding in a calmer, more professional, more effective way.

By Kathi Elster and Katherine Crowley. Used with permission. Visit their website: http://www.ksquaredenterprises.com/

Need help in this area? Working With You is Killing Me, hosted by Kathi Elster and Katherine Crowley, provides the antidote to becoming “hooked” by a toxic co-worker, showing exactly how to take responsibility for addressing the problem and put a stop to it all.

Conflicts occur in our workplace daily.  And when they do, the conflict rarely impacts just the two people involved. The question is—when is it appropriate for a third party to intervene?  It’s always best for the two people to work the conflict out on their own, but sometimes they simply can’t…or won’t.

Anyone who begins to try to help other people in a conflict situation must first come to grips with their own internal conflict about whether or not to intervene. These factors have proven to be important indicators as to the appropriateness of intervening.

• First there is the importance of the issue.
If the issue is extremely important to you or the team/organization, it’s probably worth intervening, even if the other factors listed below are low.
• How important are the relationships?
Even when the issue is less important, if the relationship you have with one or both parties is highly significant to you, you might want to intervene in order to help preserve the relationship(s).
• Consider what would happen if no one intervened?
If you believe the short- or long-range results would be extremely negative, even if neither the issue nor the relationship are important, it might still be advisable to intervene.
• Finally, think about what it is you want in the situation.
Identify your goals in the conflict prior to thinking about helping others. (If you don’t, any attempts you make to resolve the conflict will likely get muddled and the people you’re trying to help may end up feeling manipulated.)

Excerpted from the Leader’s Guide for the CRM program Resolving Conflict.

For more on this topic, check out the CRM Learning program What To Do When Conflict Happens, which features a section on conflict mediation.

Interpersonal conflicts can wreak havoc on an organization. Whether it’s a silent war between departments, a hostile relationship between two co-workers, or a damaging relationship with a vendor, when two or more people are caught in an interpersonal tug-of-war, the organization pays
the price.

In fact, it is estimated that 20-50% of work time is routinely wasted on bickering, backstabbing, vying for approval and other forms of emotional inefficiency. 

Instead of focusing on the work at hand, employees spend time recovering from interactions with a bullying boss, or griping with their colleagues about an irritating co-worker. Sometimes, the most capable employee becomes the least productive worker because he or she is burnt out from months of compensating for less motivated members of the work team.

Emotional inefficiency can develop from something as simple as a constant noise distraction whereby one loud, talkative person eats up hours of other people’s concentration. It can also occur between departments–one team becomes resentful of another team’s inability to meet deadlines. Instead of resolving the problem, a cold war ensues. Both sides quietly sabotage the other.