How to Resolve Conflict - Part 1

by Lester Rennard

The subject of how to resolve conflict is such a broad one that it is beyond the scope and limitation of this medium to fully address. The approach to conflict resolution, including methods and techniques, is generally determined by the nature of the conflict to be resolved. For instance, the approach to resolving a contract dispute between two corporations will be different from the approach to resolving a personal conflict between a wife and husband or the account balance dispute between a debtor and a creditor. For the purpose of concluding this series on personal conflict, I will focus my attention on the resolution of interpersonal conflicts between one individual and another. This will be done in two parts.

When we experience a personal conflict, our first natural response is one that is emotional. We may express this emotional response in various ways such as anger, frustration, fear, hostility, indifference, sadness, confusion, withdrawal or an attempt to conceal or suppress our true feelings. We may want to fight back, lash out, seek revenge, get even or just to have our 'why' questions answered. When the dust finally settles, we will ultimately desire to find some resolution and assurance that the issue is put behind us and we can move on with the business of living.

As we previously established, a conflict is not necessarily negative and one's perception of conflict will determine or influence the outcome. The outcome may either be a successful resolution that satisfies the parties involved, a compromise through mutual concessions, an avoidance of the conflict through denial, gloss over and minimization, arguments that end in deadlock or the issue that created the conflict may just resolve itself.

The best approach to resolving a conflict is to first acknowledge the conflict and then identify, establish and define the issues surrounding it. This is best done when the parties involved mutually agree to separate the issues from the personalities in order to make the process more objective. When the issues are separated from the individuals, an opportunity is created for the parties to easier find ways to collaborate for a more successful outcome. It also reduces the desire to maintain a defensive stance or to make personal attacks.

Once the issues are placed on the table and are clearly defined and understood, the search for solution will usually revolve around the identification and reconciliation of interests, wants, desires or expectations. This calls for effective skills in communication - the ability to articulate one's needs and interests and to listen, interpret and confirm both verbal and non-verbal exchanges. The best process that leads to the most successful outcomes is one by which the parties jointly collaborate to generate options to address and meet the needs that precipitated the conflict.

Depending on the nature of the conflict, there may be the need to negotiate for arrangements and adjustments that will mutually meet the needs of the parties involved. As an example, a conflict may arise between spouses where both work outside the home and are not able to find time for each other or even to address routine domestic household needs. They both need the two paychecks to maintain their standard of living and to feel a sense of mutual contribution to the financial needs of their family. Their separate careers also give them a sense of fulfillment.

A creative way to resolve this conflict so that both partners may find more time to spend with each other, get domestic matters under control, continue to maintain their standard of living and fulfillment in their individual careers is to negotiate for an adjustment in one or both of their work arrangements. They may negotiate with their employers to allow for them to work three days at the office and the other two days at home. The time saved in commuting back and forth from the office for the two days working at home will free up time for them to spend together and to address their domestic affairs. They face no loss in income and standard of living, maintain their careers and are more fulfilled in their relationship. An ideal win-win solution.

A less creative couple would build up resentment toward each other, begin withdrawing further away until it ends up in open hostility that results in separation or divorce. This less creative couple perceives the conflict as negative and reacts accordingly. They fail to identify, define and understand the real issue and thus seeing each other as the problem. Since the goal is to get rid of the problem, they end up getting rid of each other. The first couple, on the other hand, sees the conflict as an opportunity to get creative and to collaborate for a solution that satisfies their mutual needs.

Though one may not be able to avoid the initial emotional response at the onset of a conflict, it is important for the sake of finding resolution and maintaining relationships that each party maintains control over how these emotions are expressed.

[To be continued...]

How To Prevent Conflict

by Lester Rennard

In a previous posting, I addressed the issue of how to avoid conflict. Just in case you question the reason for another posting addressing the same issue, I believe there's a difference between 'avoiding' and 'preventing' conflict. Although I believe that you cannot truly avoid conflict as long as you are alive, I do believe that you can prevent conflict as much as it lies within your power.

Since you have no power to control how others may act or the choices they make, you cannot avoid the consequences of their choices that may create conflicts with which you may be confronted. You can, however, choose to act or make deliberate choices that may prevent conflicts when dealing with others.

Most interpersonal conflicts arise as a result of differences in personal interests, expectations, desires and wants that are further exacerbated by poor communication. This may include no communication, poor listening or the use of inappropriate styles of communication. In addition, there may be other factors such as environment, timing, culture, language, religion, politics, gender, status (generation gap, social, educational and economic) that affect how individuals communicate and thus the potential for conflict.

An important key to preventing conflict is the deliberate focus on learning, developing and applying effective skills in communication. Armed with the proper attitude and desire for peaceful co-existence and a well developed knowledge and experience in interpersonal communication, one has within his or her power the ability to prevent or at least drastically reduce the cause for many conflicts when communicating with others.

The basic goal of communication is to create understanding. When this goal is frustrated and not accomplished, the result is misunderstanding that sets up a climate for potential conflict. A knowledgeable and skillful communicator will seek to remove or reduce all the barriers that may impede his or her ability to create understanding when interacting with others.

If the barrier, for example, is culture, an attempt should be made to communicate within the cultural context of your listener to create understanding. If you are not familiar with the individual's culture, ask questions and seek help from your listener to understand their culture. Whenever you share information, ask the individual to give you a feedback as to how you are being interpreted in their cultural context. This approach will give you an idea as to whether you are creating understanding or being misunderstood.

Your demonstration of interest in learning about your listener's cultural communication norms will generally impress them and set them at ease to be more receptive to your message and enhance your goal of creating understanding. They may also be more likely to look beyond any minor cultural faux pas to consider your meaning in context. If you are the listener, you may give feedback to your counterpart indicating how you are interpreting what you're hearing in order to also enhance the goal of creating understanding and preventing conflict.

Gender difference also contributes its share of misunderstanding which leads to conflict. Since male and female communicate differently, a skillful communicator will factor in this difference when communicating with the opposite sex. The reality of conflicts caused by trans-gender mis-communication is all too commonly played out in unhappy marriages and dysfunctional families. To prevent or reduce the potential for conflicts in the male/female context of communication, it is important to learn and improve on skills of listening and talking and to carefully choose the most appropriate style of communication to fit any given situation when interacting. In addition, there is also the need to ensure that both are on the same channel while in the transmission and reception mode of communication.

The generation gap between parents and their pubescent teens is a very common trigger for conflict. Each new generation has its own way of doing things that can be completely contrary to those preceding and often times parents are unable to identify with the styles, habits and attitudes of their teens. Many parents are preconditioned to using an authoritarian approach when dealing with their teens who feel their need to demand independence at the economic and emotional cost and responsibility of the parents. When both parties remain intransigent in their demands and expectations, the result is usually communication breakdown and inevitable conflict.

Parents can prevent or reduce much conflict with their teens by seeking to enter into the world of their generation to identify with them and create understanding. This does not mean that you will compromise your family values and lifestyles but you will seek to understand 'where they are coming from', affirm their growing desire for independence and stress the need for wisdom, the relationship between cause and effect and the personal responsibility that independence demands. When teens are affirmed, valued and empowered by their parents or other authority figures who model before them the values they profess and for which they require compliance, they will less likely be conflicting.

In conclusion, while you may not be able to avoid conflicts created by others, you can, with effort and the skillful application of knowledge and determination, prevent conflicts for which you might be responsible.

How To Avoid Personal Conflicts

by Lester Rennard

Can you really avoid conflict? Is there any value in doing whatever is in your power to avoid anything that may cause conflict? Can conflict ever be positive?

Your definition for conflict will have a significant influence on how you go about addressing the issue. If you have a negative perception of conflict, you may be one who will go out of your way to avoid it at all cost. If you consider conflict as not necessarily negative but an opportunity for growth and to resolve legitimate issues, you will choose not to avoid it but to confront it proactively in a positive way.

If you still insist that conflict is negative and should always be avoided, here are a few suggestions as to how you may live completely without conflict:
1. Run off to a deserted island where you will be the only living creature there.
2. Go to sleep and never wake up if you live alone and have no connection with anyone else whatsoever.
3. Become humanly perfect and interact only with other perfect mortals like yourself.
4. Breathe your last breath since you will face no conflict in your new state on this side of eternity.

The reality is, if you are alive and well and must communicate and co-exist with any other living creature, you will have conflict and the ideal is not to focus your attention on trying to avoid it. Since there is such a prevailing universal negative view of conflict, most conflicts we experience do have a negative effect. The simple reason for this effect is attributed to the fact that our attitudes have a way of determining and influencing our outcomes.

Conflict, when viewed positively, may provide an opportunity for growth. It challenges us to think outside the box and to find new ways to meet the challenge before us. Growth happens when we are forced to draw upon internal and external resources, hitherto undiscovered, to meet the demand posed by the conflict in order to resolve it.

When you are faced with a conflict, your character is tested and your true self usually has a way of rising to the surface. The ideal virtues of patience, tolerance, forbearance, grace and forgiveness are given an opportunity to either flourish or perish. The outcome will give you a clue as to whether or not you have been growing in these areas of character development. If the result is less than stellar, you may then need to make the necessary adjustments for change and improvement or a complete make over or transformation.

So whenever you're faced with your next conflict, whether it comes through your spouse, children, other family, boss, co-workers, creditors, debtors or anyone with whom you interact, why not seize the opportunity to transform what may be coming across to you as negative verbiage and attitudes to generate a good outcome for you and your stakeholders!

Next time - How to Prevent Conflict

The Biggest Challenge to Effective Communication

by Lester Rennard

Our natural tendency when we are engaged in a conversation with another person is to focus so much attention on our own input and interest that we often fail to hear what the other person is trying to say. The result is usually misunderstanding and frustration that create unnecessary conflict. Do you find yourself guilty of thinking about what you are going to say or how you're going to respond to your conversation partner even before the person is finished speaking? Are you sometimes forced to scrap your mentally prepared response after realizing that you missed the point of what is being shared and your response would completely be inappropriate?

You, no doubt, might have fallen into this trap at one time or another and can therefore identify with the above scenarios. For many others, focusing on their own thoughts and response instead of on what is being shared by their partners in a conversation is a perennial problem that makes them very ineffective communicators. If you find yourself guilty of being wrapped up in your own thoughts when you should be listening and it happens more often than you would care to admit, here's an idea that might help you to become a much better communicator and delightful conversationalist.

First, it is important to remind yourself that communication is not all about you having your say. It is about first seeking to understand the other person's point of view before demanding to be understood. You earn the right to be heard and understood by your partner when you offer him or her the respect and courtesy of hearing what they have to say.

The best way to do so is to practice active listening. When someone engages you into a conversation or discussion in which you choose to participate, determine to give the speaker your full attention. You will need to suspend your own thoughts on how you are going to respond and instead observe the person's body language, tone of voice and other non-verbal expressions, since such non-verbal expressions constitute a greater part of what's being communicated than what is actually verbalized. Listen to what is not being said just as much as you are focusing on what is being verbalized. Enter into the person's experience by exploring and following, rather than attempting to lead, as he or she expresses his or her thoughts, shares feelings and wants. Acknowledge what you believe you are hearing and observing and occasionally summarize what is being said for clarification and allow your partner to confirm your understanding or to make corrections.

Do not be too anxious to make a point by interrupting the person or changing the subject. It is very much in order to ask questions for further information or clarification regarding the issue that your partner is addressing after he or she has fully shared their story. It is only when your partner is finished sharing and is convinced by your attentive listening, demonstrated by your expressions and attempts of gaining understanding through your acknowledgements, summarizations and requests for further information and clarification that you may respond by sharing your own thoughts.

If you should adopt and practice this attitude of active listening, you would virtually eliminate any chance for misunderstanding, prevent unnecessary conflicts and gain mastery over the biggest challenge to effective communication. The final payoff is that you would earn the reciprocal right to be heard and understood by your partner, and your conversations and communication would bring mutual satisfaction and fulfillment.