How transparency helps reduce conflict

The start of a new year is not only an opportunity to look forwards to what we want to achieve over the coming year, but also an opportunity to reflect on our achievements and how we have grown over the previous year.

In a discussion during supervision with one of my team this last week, they reflected on a particular interaction which for them had been a ‘game changer’ in terms of how they approach their work.

A few months ago, my colleague contacted me as they had recieved a ‘challenging’ email from a person that we were investigating. It was aggressive in tone and asked numerous questions about the investigation procedure – some of which we could answer but others were outside our knowledge or understanding.

We worked together to draft a response. My colleague had initially preferred a shorter response, to close the matter down. I talked about the importance of answering every question the ‘angry employee’ had asked, to make sure that we had attempted to address their concerns. If we did not have an answer, our role was to highlight who they could approach in order to get an answer. It took time to craft, but at the end I felt that we had demonstrated our fairness and transparency through our response.

The next email from the ‘angry employee’ was……..well not angry. They described how they appreciated our attempt to reassure them by providing the information that they had been seeking. From then on, all the correspondence between my colleague and this employee was professional and polite.

None of this should be a surprise. One of the ‘prongs’ of Organisational Justice is interactional justice - which relates to the fairness of the interactions between a supervisor and an employee when determining an outcome (Bies and Moag, 1986). This can either be on an interpersonal basis, which considers the respectful treatment of an employee (Niehoff and Moorman, 1993); or on an informational basis, where the fairness of the explanations given are considered (Colquitt, 2001; Greenberg, 1993).

By taking time to ensure that emails from others are answered in full, we’re not ‘shutting people down’ and denying them a voice. We’re demonstrating transparency and respect. Since then, my colleague has adopted this approach and has found that their relationships with others has tangibly improved – just by taking a bit more time to reflect and ensuring there is attention to detail in a response.  

References:

Bies, R. J., and Moag, J. F. (1986) ‘Interactional justice: communication criteria of fairness’. In Lewiciki, R.J., Sheppard, B.H. and Bazerman, M.H. (Eds.), “Research on Negotiation in Organization”, Vol 1.  JAI Press, Greenwich, CT, pp. 43-55.

Colquitt, J. A. (2001). ‘On the dimensionality of organizational justice: A construct validation of a measure’. Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 86 pp.386-400.

Greenberg, J. (1993) ‘The social side of fairness: Interpersonal and informational classes of organizational justice’. In Cropanzano, R. (Ed.), “Justice in the workplace: Approaching fairness in human resource management”, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum pp.79-103.

Niehoff, B.P., Moorman, R.H. (1993), ‘Justice as a mediator of the relationship between methods of monitoring and organizational citizenship behaviors’, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 36 (3) pp. 527-556.

How to behave in an interrogation

Whilst on a weekend break in Tallin, enjoying the Christmas market, I decided to visit the KGB prison museum situated a few doors down from my hotel. It might appear to be an odd choice of tourist attraction, but I’d read that this small museum gave an insight into life in Estonia under Russian rule. I don’t know much about Estonian history and felt this might be a good way to educate myself on this particular era.

For many years, the KGB prison in Tallin was where they tortured those who they suspected of anti-Soviet behaviour. In one of the small prison cells (there are 5, plus a ‘cupboard’ which was used to hold prisoners) there was a document that caught my interest.  Labelled ‘How to behave in interrogation’, it was a document created by a dissident Estonian, written from the perspective of a KGB officer. The instruction manual attempts to describe what a KGB officer will say to a dissent during an ‘interrogation’, thereby giving the illusion of fairness and transparency. However, as the document progresses, the tone of the language changes. Regardless of how a dissent responds, the outcome is biased; they will be found ‘guilty’.

I found myself comparing how this document is the absolute opposite of how workplace investigations should be approached. Organisational Justice theories are central to workplace investigations, especially interactional justice which relates to the fairness of the interactions between a manager and an employee when determining an outcome (Bies & Moag, 1986). Informational justice, a sub-section of interactional justice, relates to how an individual perceives the fairness of the explanations given (Colquitt 2001; Greenberg, 1993). In other words, the content of the information given to an employee is key when judging whether something is fair. Whilst a supervisor might provide an employee with a detailed description of what is going to happen, it does not mean that this is fair. 

In a workplace investigation, the start of an interview is a key stage for an investigator in ensuring organisational justice. Before the first question is asked, an interviewer will spend time providing information to the interviewee, such as the format of the interview, the taking of notes and generally outlining the process. This information not only provides reassurance to the interviewee that it will be a fair process, but it helps build a rapport between the interviewee and the interviewer.  When an interviewee feels comfortable, their ability to recall past events also increases (Vallano et al., 2015; Nahouli et al., 2021).  And of course, the introduction also acts as a form of consent, required under Data Protection law. Without consent, notes cannot be taken and the interview cannot progress.

I recognise that the principles of organisational justice would not have benefited Estonian dissents under Russian rule. However, they do apply to the current-day workplace – as investigators, commissioning managers, and line managers in general.  But in the meantime, I’ll leave you with a few paragraphs of advice about KGB interrogations…..

References

Bies, R. J., and Moag, J. F. (1986), ‘Interactional justice: communication criteria of fairness’. In Lewiciki, R.J., Sheppard, B.H. and Bazerman, M.H. (Eds), Research on Negotiation in Organization, Vol. 1.  JAI Press, Greenwich, CT, pp. 43-55.

Colquitt, J. A. (2001). ‘On the dimensionality of organizational justice: A construct validation of a measure’. Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 86 pp.386-400.

Greenberg, J. (1993) ‘The social side of fairness: Interpersonal and informational classes of organizational justice’. Cropanzano, R., (Ed.), Justice in the workplace: Approaching fairness in human resource management. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum pp.79-103.

Nahouli, Z., Dando, C. J., Mackenzie, J. M., Aresti, A. (2021). ‘Rapport- building and witness memory: Actions may ‘speak’ louder than words’. PLOS ONE, 16(8), Article e0256084.

Vallano, J. P., Schreiber Compo, N. (2015). ‘Rapport-building with cooperative witnesses and criminal suspects: A theoretical and empirical review’. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 21(1), pp.85–99.