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Question of the Month: How Do You Manage Conflict?
Which of the following methods is the most effective means for dealing with conflict in work and at home? Which approach do you most frequently use?
A) Avoid it at all costs since conflict tends to make enemies of colleagues, friends and family.
B) Assertively put forward your point of view clearly articulating exactly why your position is right.
C) Directly communicate with the party or parties involved seeking to identify areas of common agreement before addressing areas of disagreement.
D) Divert negative energy away from conflict situations by drawing the attention of the party or parties involved to less divisive matters.
A. Avoiding conflict is ineffective as a general practice
There may be occasions when avoiding a conflict is a productive tactic, such as when one of the parities involved is overly emotional or there is insufficient time at the moment to effectively deal with the situation. Avoiding conflict is ineffective as a general practice, however, because the issue generating the disagreement is likely to remain a festering irritation. In fact, the longer a conflict continues unresolved, the more likely it is to produce harmful results in your relationships, self-respect and emotional health.
(Select a better choice)
B. Unresolved and emotionally escalated conflict is likely to injure relationships
The most aggravating cause of emotions going ballistic in a conflict is to insist that you are right and the other party is wrong. When a disagreement becomes an issue of right and wrong, it tends to escalate into a personal matter of defending your ego and verbally abusing the disagreeing party. When things reach that stage, a conflict cannot be resolved. Unresolved and emotionally escalated conflict is likely to injure relationships, undermine office morale, and produce harmful consequences to health and emotional wellbeing.
(Select a better choice)
C. YES! Confront the disagreement directly and quickly
Effectively dealing with most conflicts involves confronting the disagreement directly and quickly. In doing so, your first challenge should be to approach the disagreement with a view of seeking a winning outcome for the parties involved and preventing the interactions from degenerating into a fight over whose position is right and wrong. That necessitates staying respectful of the other person even if you find their position faulty and their behavior disagreeable. Responding to inappropriate behavior in kind generally does not lead to productive outcomes. A resolution to most conflicts can be achieved, or prevented in the first place, by practicing active listening (see the VisionTRAC blog on "Listening in Leadership and Life.")
(The best answer!)
D. Avoidance can fuel the conflict instead of defuse it
Diverting energy away from a heated conflict may occasionally serve as a useful temporary tactic for calming the emotions of the parties involved. For example, a while back my wife and I were heatedly engaged in a conflict when she accused me of glaring at her aggressively. My immediate reaction was to become further infuriated by her accusation and lash back unkindly. Before responding, however, I was able to calm myself and asked her to demonstrate what I had done to give her that impression. As she mimicked my facial gestures, we both broke out in uproarious laughter, which immediately dissipated our anger. We then were able to return to the issue and resolve it in civil terms. While diverting attention from a heated conflict may serve as a temporary cooling off tactic, it is not an effective approach for resolving conflict in the long term. Consistently using diversion as a smoothing tactic can be an avoidance technique that is likely to fuel a conflict rather than defuse it.
(Select a better choice)
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