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.