Mediating / Negotiating Conflict Resolution:

Mediating / Negotiating

Conflict Resolution: Moving Towards a Collaborative Style

What would it take to move someone else from their routine style of handling conflict, to a collaborative style of resolving conflict? What could you do to move a small group to a collaborative style?

Much of what we engage in on a daily basis is habit, from what we eat, to what we wear, and to also how we manage conflict. Like bad habits, ineffective strategies and personal styles of conflict management can be difficult to change. It is important to remember that workplace conflict may be inevitable, but it is not inevitable that the habit of conflict resolution that has evolved within a specific work team will be the most effective strategy to deal with conflict. Nor is it true that one's personal conflict management style is necessarily effective in all situations. A competitive style of management might be ideal when leading an army or a football team, but not when engaging in a debate with a spouse or child. An avoidant style might allow someone to feel better for a few minutes, but problems rarely go away, and constantly compromising may leave a person feeling cheated, rather than empowered.

One of the most effective strategies of conflict management, particularly for small groups is the collaborative process of conflict management, which tries to equitably meet the needs of all people involved yet reach a better solution that would not have been possible, had not the conflict taken place. In a collaborative style, people can be assertive but still cooperate effectively and acknowledge everyone else's point-of-view has some validity. "This style is useful when you need to bring together a variety of viewpoints to get the best solution; when there have been previous conflicts in the group; or when the situation is too important for a simple trade-off"("Conflict Resolution: Resolving conflict rationally and effectively," Mindtools.com, 2007).

To shift either an individual or a group to a collaborative style requires an analysis of how conflict is currently being managed. In other styles of conflict management, such as the competitive style of conflict management, often there is an organizational culture or an unchallenged but false personal conviction that there must be a clear winner and loser in a dispute. One party must dominate and the other accommodates or acquiesces. A competitor must be reminded that not every conflict is a zero-sum game, and that a more creative and innovative solution can be reached. Collaboration, it also must be stressed, is very different from compromise, a solution in which both parties concede something, and essentially emerge as equal or unequal losers -- collaboration is a form of innovation, a new solution that is unexpected, that might never have been generated had the healthy conflict never taken pace.

Often people do not really understand what real collaboration entails. Teaching good listening skills and establishing an informal procedure of facilitation during a meeting or in interpersonal conflicts can help bring a group to embrace the principles of collaboration, first in action, then in spirit, and teaching an individual such skills enables the person to approach conflict with a less fearful or hostile approach. Good, collaborative listening skills that can be applied by a group or by an individual can be as simple as asking everyone engaged in a dispute to paraphrase the oppositional party's words, so it is clear that real listening and dialogue is taking place. For example, in a group meeting: 'I understand that you're angry about the fact that the administrative staff is consistently late, and you think a time clock is the best way to address this issue, but I'm not sure this addresses the real, underlying issue that most of the staff is unhappy with their schedule.' or, on an individual basis, when faced with the prospect of being forced to wait: 'I understand that the restaurant is understaffed tonight, but my wife and I were looking forward to dining here, and unfortunately we have theater tickets for a performance in an hour. Could you perhaps seat us at a table in your bar and serve us there?'

Self-awareness of how an individual functions or how a group functions is thus critical to creating an effective conflict management style. Without understanding one's personal bias, not simply in terms of specific issues, but in terms of one's level of comfort with conflict, a habitual shift will never take place. Encouraging an individual or members of the group to take a personal inventory, to see if their style is avoidant, competitive, accommodative, or collaborative, and why, is an excellent way to generate such internal self-dialogue, which will then hopefully yield a greater willingness to break bad habits. Self-exploration as to 'how has this style hurt me in the past' may make even a competitive individual realize that shouting loudly does not necessarily yield real and productive change.