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Repairing coworker relationships.
The 3 Fs to help you work through conflict.
Maxy Lotherington
January 29, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes
There are a lot of types of conflict in the office – and one of the worst ones is when you just aren’t getting along with someone you work with. Whether it’s a manager you feel is picking on you or a teammate who just seems to always disagree, it can really wear you down. (And it’s happened to all of us!)
Today is for you if you’re ready to move past venting into working on your relationship! And if you aren’t there yet, well, hopefully this calms you down a bit 😉
🧠 The 3 Fs: facts, feelings, and fiction.
When you’re next really frustrated with someone, untangle your thoughts into the 3 Fs: facts, feelings, and fiction.
Facts: these are observations, impacts, and outcomes – things that really, inarguably happened.
Feelings: your emotions based on what you observed, or believed you observed.
Fiction: stories you’ve made up based on those facts and emotions.
There’s almost always a fiction element to your conflict, and it can often be the biggest driver of your next step. Fiction is usually tacked onto the facts, which can make it feel real, so take some time to really separate them. Here are some examples of how easily fiction is added to facts:
Fact | Fiction |
|---|---|
They didn’t reply to my email when they said they would | → because they don’t care about my project |
They didn’t want to adopt the new process I proposed | → because they’re so change-averse |
They didn’t answer all the questions I had about the new organisational structure | → because they’re hiding some bad news |
So, now we’ve got our three buckets: you know what happened (the facts), you know how it made you feel (your feelings), and you know what conclusions you’ve jumped to (the fiction). What now?
💬 Having the difficult conversation.
For some incidents, simply going through this exercise can calm you down because you recognise that your conclusions were unfair. But sometimes that fiction can gnaw at you because you’re scared it might be true – and in those cases, you need to address it head-on.
If you’ve decided to have the conversation, make sure to be clear about the facts and your feelings – and if you’re brave, you can even share the fiction (framed as fears). You can also invite the other person to share their facts, feelings, and fiction with you so that you can work on a pathway forward together. ❤️
You can also incorporate the SBI (situation, behaviour, impact) model if you need some help figuring out how to frame the feedback.
That’s it for this week! Have you had any other coworker challenges? Let me know 📧
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