These daily excerpts from Randy Kay's book Daily Keys to Success will show you how to grow your potential while expanding your personal success to lead a life of significance. You will benefit from 365 topics with ideas, tools, and tactics for living life fully.
Conflict happens when two people express different views. Armed with the proper skills, we can all learn to resolve conflict. There are basically two types: 1) Inflamed Conflict – where someone expresses anger or frustration and needs to calm down; and, 2) Situational Conflict – where someone’s concerns or desires simply differ from another person’s.
The way to resolve Inflamed Conflict is to first calm the angry person down. Use the skill of reflective response—restate the person’s concern to let them know you’ve heard and understood their feelings. For example, you might say: “I feel your frustration over not receiving a merit increase.” This begins to mentally disarm the inflamed person, who might respond: “Yeah, I’m really upset that everyone else got a raise and I didn’t!” Next you recognize the emotional impact with a sympathetic acknowledgement: “And that left you with a feeling of unfairness.” Gradually, the angry person’s outrage is being defused. The resolver can enter into Situational Conflict resolution by then focusing on a rational solution.
The first step toward resolution is to recognize that people have different conflict styles, based on their level of assertiveness and cooperativeness, so it’s important to offer a solution based on the other person’s style. Some people want to just “win” (high assertiveness, low cooperativeness) while others want an accommodating solution (low assertiveness, high cooperativeness); and, still others want to compromise (moderate assertiveness and cooperativeness) or collaborate (high assertiveness, high cooperativeness).
Finally, there are the avoiders (low assertiveness, low cooperativeness). Finding the right balance relies on assessing the other person and offering a solution that matches their style with yours. If Sally is a compromiser, her conflict resolution would offer a fifty-fifty split. Joe, the collaborator, is looking for an “out-of-the-box” solution. As the resolver, you need to reconcile your own style with the needs of the other person in order to achieve a resolution that works for both of you.
“No pressure, no diamonds.” ~ Mary Case
“An apology is the superglue of life. It can repair just about anything.” ~ Lynn Johnston