Restoration

Even after a conflict has been resolved, there can be lingering resentment among the participants. In order to restore a productive and harmonious work environment, it is often necessary that people forgive past wrongdoings and focus instead on the future.

To understand why restoration is still necessary even though a conflict is resolved, it can be helpful to think of the differences between criminal justice and restorative justice. Criminal justice seeks to find out who violated the law so that guilt can be determined, and to ensure that punishments are carried out. Restorative justice has the person who committed a crime seek forgiveness from the people they have wronged, and then work to fix any harm that was done.

For example, if someone accidentally drove their car into their neighbor's fence, instead of the neighbor calling the police, filing a lawsuit, and getting a judge involved, the person driving the car would apologize and help their neighbor fix their fence.

When societies are small - as in the case of a tribe, town, or village - restorative justice is preferable so that everyone can get back to living harmoniously with one another. When societies get very large, however - as in the case of a city, state, or country - people don't have to live and work with the people they wronged, so once the case is settled and punishments decided upon, everyone can go their separate ways.

While it might be debated if criminal justice and restorative justice are mutually exclusive, it is important to note that the motivation for restorative justice is for everything to be restored to a normal harmonious state so that everyone can get back to working together in peace.

If a workplace were to follow the approach of restorative justice, then after a conflict is resolved, the first step would be for people to apologize for their contribution to the conflict. If people are unwilling to apologize, then it may very well be that the conflict has not yet been fully resolved.

Apologies are a very special and very powerful form of human communication, but are often done poorly. The all-too-common, "I'm sorry you feel that way," is just one example of the type of insincere apologies that people often resort to when they think they have nothing to apologize for.

A sincere apology generally has three parts: admitting your mistake, committing to never doing it again, and saying how you are going to fix whatever harm was done.

If you had eaten your colleague's lunch out of the fridge, a good apology would be to say, "I'm sorry I ate your lunch - I shouldn't have and promise I won't do that again. Please let me buy you lunch to make up for it."

If you missed an important project status meeting, afterwards you might apologize to the meeting organizer by saying, "I'm sorry I missed your meeting, it was very unprofessional of me, and I will try harder to always be on time. I'll follow up with everyone to make sure I get caught up on whatever was discussed and to answer any questions people might have wanted to ask me."

If you and a colleague got into a heated argument that led to a conflict where you said things you definitely should not have, you should apologize by saying, "I'm really sorry for what I said - it was inappropriate and uncalled for, and you didn't deserve it. I will do everything in my power to never say those types of things again. I don't know if I can do anything to make things right, but if you can think of something I can do, please let me know."

Note that in all three examples no excuses were made, as excuses tend to undermine an apology, as they shift accountability away from you to something else. For example, if you said, "I'm sorry I ate your lunch, but it wasn't labeled and I was hungry," or, "I'm sorry I missed your meeting, but I had a flat tire and couldn't make it," or, "I'm sorry for what I said, but you really made me mad," then the apology becomes nothing more than you informing someone that you actually did nothing wrong because there was some other factor beyond your control that led to your wrongdoing.

Another aspect of all three examples was that there was a personal commitment made not to repeat the same mistake. Making such a commitment is critical to rebuilding trust and healing any damaged relationships, as people will find it hard to truly move on if they feel the same thing will happen again.

If your conflict involved more than one person - either as a participant or a witness - then you should find a neutral moment to apologize to each person individually. Something that can be easy to forget is that the conflict makes everyone uncomfortable, even if they were not directly involved, so even though you have resolved the conflict with the person directly involved, the people not involved will still feel uncomfortable in your presence. As you apologize to each person the same rules should apply: you should admit your mistake, commit to never doing it again, and say how you are going to fix whatever harm was done.

If a colleague witnessed the conflict take place, you might say to them, "I'm sorry that I got into a yelling match with Sam in the middle of our status meeting. Sam and I sat down and discussed what happened, and have found a better way to work together so that something like that won't happen again. I wish we had not had our fight in front of everyone, but I promise in the future I'll make sure that if I need to, I'll just pull someone aside to work through any issues before or after the meeting."

If you apologize to someone who didn't feel like you had to apologize to them, they will still appreciate the gesture. Further, by apologizing you have reassured them that you won't disrupt workplace harmony ever again, which will make them more relaxed at work, and make it easier for everyone to forgive you, as they see that you are making a commitment to do better.

It may seem like overkill to also apologize to people who only witnessed a conflict, but when it comes to restoring workplace harmony, doing too much is often better than doing too little.