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June 27, 2008

8:34 am | 0 recommendations | 3 comments

The Best Way to Resolve Conflict

| posted by Bud Bilanich

Interpersonal competence is one of the five keys to success in your life and career.  I discuss it and the other four in “Straight Talk for Success.”  If you want to become interpersonally competent you need to be self aware, and use your self awareness to better understand others.  You must build strong, long lasting mutually beneficial relationships with the important people in your life.  Finally, you must become adept at resolving conflict positively.

How good are you at each of these three?

Today I’d like to focus on conflict resolution.  I know a little bit about conflict resolution.  It was the topic of my dissertation at Harvard.  Way back in the 1970’s Ken Thomas and Ralph Kilmann developed an instrument to measure a person’s tendencies when in a conflict situation.

They came up with five predominant conflict styles: Competing, Collaborating, Compromising, Accommodating and Avoiding.  Their research suggests that all five are appropriate depending on the situation.

In my executive coaching experience, however, I have found that the Collaborating style is the best default mode.  When you collaborate with others to resolve conflict, you focus on meeting both your needs and needs of the other person. I like this style because it helps you bring together a variety of viewpoints to get the best solution.

When you collaborate, neither person is likely to feel as if he or she won or lost.  Also, collaborating with the person or persons with whom you are in conflict creates the opportunity for you to work together to build a solution that best addresses everyone’s concerns.

I find that when I work collaboratively with someone, I focus on our similarities, not our differences.  This creates a bond that not only helps us get through our conflict, but helps us strengthen our relationship.

The common sense point here is simple.  Interpersonally competent people are adept at resolving conflict in a positive manner.  Collaboration is the best choice of the five most common handling styles.  When you collaborate with others – especially those with whom you are in conflict -- you not only are likely to resolve your conflict in a positive manner, you will strengthen your relationship with the other person.  It’s a win-win.

That’s my take on handling conflict productively.  What’s yours?  As always, I’m interested in your perspective on these thoughts.  I welcome and appreciate your comments.  Thanks for reading.

Bud

Tags: Careers, career success, common sense, life success, success, success skills
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Recent Comments | 3 Total

June 28, 2008 at 1:46pm

Carel Two-Eagle

Collaboration works "if" the other side is willing to, but where conflicts arise, too often I have found that the other side has only an "us vs them" mentality and refuses to recognize that it takes 2 to tangle, just as it does to do nearly anything else in society. They view efforts to find common ground as an admission by 'our' side that we see ourselves as weaker - in position or in strength, or both. They see & operate from only 1 perspective - that of competition. There is no compromising or accomodating such people, and avoiding them, or trying to, results in confirming their original thesis - that 'you' are weaker than 'they' are. It's a catch-22 situation. Sometimes, the only way to resolve conflicts with such sorts is to acknowledge their perspective and then go on around or without them. There is always more than one way to skin a beast, after all.

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June 29, 2008 at 8:33pm

Jay Tatum

I agree you your assessment and concur with the five styles of conflict. Creating, finding, and keeping common ground requires conflict resolution to check egos at the door, to the degree this can be done, in order to find that common ground.
In my practice on pastoral care and counseling I have often found it more important for me to define my position as I am either approached or as I approach conflict. I prefer the Stephen Covey model and particularly the Think Win-Win or No Deal approach. As Carel mentions, there are times when it's a bust and common ground may not be possible to achieve, particularly when others are approaching conflict from the competetion side and it is all about them.

I think back on some of my early education and training and remember a professor spending an entire class on the topic of conflict. He said, "Conflict is good! It let's us know what's important to us." While I probably understood that at some rudimentary level emotionally, the way he chose to express it has stayed with me for years. Rather than back away from conflict, his encouragement helped me to recognize that what it says about the attitudes, values, and assumptions are as much within me as they are with others. As always, Bud, your insight serves us all well. Thanks.

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July 1, 2008 at 6:14pm

Bud Bilanich

Thanks for your comments Carel and Jay.
I agree that some people are more difficult than others to deal with in a collaborative manner. However, that doesn't stop me from trying -- especially in a situation in which I will have to deal with the other person with some frequency.
I'm OK if he or she sees me as "weak" because I look for common ground. The important thing is that I don't see myself as weak for using collaboration as a conflict resolution strategy. I have worked hard to get myself into a win-win mindset. I think it takes strength to counter difficult people with an open, collaborative mindset.
I'm interested in discussing this more. Please feel free to leave additional comments.
All the best,
BB

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