my boss asked me to reflect on my conflicts with coworkers and I don’t want to

I’m off for the holiday, so here’s an older post from the archives. This was originally published in 2020.

A reader writes:

I’ve worked for four years in a research laboratory and my supervisor is an associate professor. Her husband is a professor and a director of the research group (and that’s how she easily got her position). As part of standard procedure, the university requires all employees to complete what is called a performance development review.

In our meeting, she highlighted two development goals. One was to improve individual conflict management skills by reflecting on all instances of conflicts and how those can be handled better. The second was to improve my skills in communication and dealing with feedback from other colleagues, especially staff members who are on a higher academic and professional level than myself, and to write and reflect on all instances where inappropriate responses were provided to queries by other staff members.

I replied that I disagreed that these should be listed in the development goals on my personal form, as the conflicts are common and have largely resolved by various means. Also, the conflicts were a thing of the past and I do not want to recall them. I agree that they can be improved on, but I do not want this to be on my permanent record, as it reflects badly on a HR record. For the second point I replied to her saying that I would have appreciated if private feedback was provided at the time rather than only bringing it up during the performance development review. (And to keep a long story short, I didn’t agree that my response was inappropriate. My [negative] response was based on the decisions made at that time.)

This was her response:

The development objectives will stay recorded in the PDR system because they are areas that I as your direct line of manager has identified that you need to DEVELOP in. The activities are activities created by me to make you reflect on some of these instances and identify ways you can mitigate future conflicts. They do not go into the online talent system. At the next PDR meeting, the report by me will be “have you achieved the goals set out by me pertaining to the activities or not?”

You can choose to go through with this PDR process set out by me as your direct line manager, or you can choose to ignore it. At the end of the day, I submit a report and that goes on the record.

My conflict management strategies in the past pertaining to all the complaints against yourself have been to work out the entire situation by listening to all parties, set up meetings and work it through with everyone including yourself. The example provided is just an example and not an isolated incident, nor is it only coming from a particular individual. It is simply the most recent example.

I just felt that it was very insensitive and bossy response, not to mention her already insensitive way of putting such items as “development goals.”

Oooooh, no.

You need to do what your manager is asking.

She’s clearly saying that if you don’t, it will be insubordination and likely have serious consequences for you.

When your manager tells you that you’ve had multiple conflicts with coworkers and you need to reflect on those incidents and figure out how to handle them better in the future, you cannot dismiss that by saying those conflicts are in the past and you don’t want to have to think about them. She’s saying clearly that she has determined that, in order to succeed in your job, you do need to recall them and work on alternate strategies.

There’s no option here to just say, “No, I don’t want to.” Or rather, it’s an option, but it means you’ll be putting your professional standing and your job in jeopardy. If you worked for me, that would put you far along the path to getting fired.

The multiple conflicts themselves are already a serious problem. Refusing to work on it when asked is a real F-you to your boss … and really reinforces that you’re a problem for the team. (In fact, it reinforces the very feedback she’s giving you.)

And make no mistake, based on your boss’s email to you (both the actual content and the clipped, frustrated tone), she already thinks of you as a pretty big problem, and she sounds ready to to act on that.

Now, should she have addressed issues with you as they came up? Yes. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have standing to address it now, and if you fight her on that rather than addressing the problems themselves, you’re going to look like you’re deflecting, missing the point, and continuing a pattern of combativeness that’s already been flagged as a problem. You’ll have much more luck if you first do what she’s asking and then later say you’d like to receive feedback in a more ongoing way, rather than hearing about problems for the first time in a formal review.

I’m not sure why you thought her response was insensitive (it was certainly direct, but in a context where that was necessary) or bossy (she is in fact your boss), or why you find framing this stuff as “development goals” to be insensitive. These are development goals, and there’s nothing weird or insulting about calling them that. It also seems to be the terminology your organization uses. Personally, I think it’s rather soft; I would call them “performance requirements” because they would be!

The best thing you can do is to drop your instinct to push back or defend yourself and just … do what she’s asking you to do: reflect on the past conflicts and how you could have handled them differently. That’s a reasonable thing for a manager to ask, and it sounds like it’s based in real necessity here.

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