Conflict management is essential to your career development and resulting career advancement. If you take time to learn the techniques of effective conflict resolution, you will find that this knowledge will become invaluable to you in your professional and personal life journey. Let’s get started!
7 Steps to Effective Conflict Management
Step One. Learn to identify the four most common causes of conflict - (i) the goals of teams members and/or other are not aligned; (ii) expectations for team members and/or others have not been clearly defined; (iii) someone abuses their power and authority or engages in manipulative behavior to get what s/he wants and -the biggest cause of all - (iv) poor communication. In our coaching and consulting businesses, we often find that improving the flow of communication eliminates most sources of conflict.
Step Two. Recognize the traits of the most common form of conflict - negative and disruptive conflict. Conflict that is negative and disruptive requires that there be winners and losers. This form of conflict does not allow for win/win resolutions.
Step Three. Realize that some forms of conflict are healthy and productive. Healthy conflict leads to productive discussions of new ideas, clarifies issues and expectations, and reduces stress by getting issues out in the open which (when the process is properly facilitated) can result in “shared” resolutions. As a leader who managers others, it is important for you to discern pretty quickly whether the conflict presented in your organization (or home) is negative or productive.
Step Four. Know the differences between four effective conflict management styles and how each style can be used to your advantage. Four primary styles are (i) cooperative and collaborative problem solving, (ii) compromise - which results in all parties “giving up something” so that everyone wins, (iii) competitive - which results in a win/lose situation (this style must be used skillfully) and (iv) accommodative - which results in one side allowing the other to “win” in order to keep the piece (this style is most often used for situations in which maintaining the relationship is of paramount importance).
Step Five. Learn to identify “difficult people” and develop strategies to manage their personality types. Seven common types of difficult people include the (i) whiner, (ii) gossiper, (iii) defeatist, (iv) slacker, (v) martyr, (vi) nitpicker and (vii) blamer. Sign up for our upcoming Conflict Management eCourse and tele-class series to discover strategies for managing these personality types along with many more personality types.
Step Six. Deliver a clear message when resolving conflicts. Two important components in delivering clear messages are– (i) avoid asking questions when the situation requires that you make statements (or make a decision) and (ii) make certain that you distinguish your * thoughts and interpretation from your *observations of factual occurrences. There is an important difference between the facts and your interpretation and judgments of the facts. When resulting conflicts, make certain that you acknowledge and communicate this difference.
Step Steven. Be FAIR and most importantly CONSISTENT.
There you have it - conflict management in a nutshell. For those of you who would like more detailed information on the important topic, be sure to purchase our eCourse and teleclass series on Conflict Management - which will be available in November 2007. Visit our Resource Page in late mid October for more information about signing up for this high impact and informative program.
Until tomorrow …. Take Great Care!
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