Conflict Resolution Techniques

if you want to resolve a conflict there are a handful of different techniques you could use my name is Lydia Richards I'm CEO of team works I'll walk you through these techniques and give you a sense of the benefits and drawbacks of each all in this quick overview so here we go conflict resolution techniques have two different characteristics really one is how much I get of what I want and the other is how much the other guy gets of what they want we'll start with avoiding here really neither of us gets what we want we just look the other way or bury our head in the sand and avoiding is actually a perfect way to handle some disputes if they're so small you really don't care that much or like how about the guy who just cut you off on the freeway that is a perfect time to use the technique of avoiding careful though if careful though if either of you and the conflict really do care then avoidance may make the conflict worse or bigger or you'll come up with another one soon next is accommodating or giving in now this is a useful technique when you see that it's more important to the other person than it is to you if you can give in cheerfully by all means do it the trouble is when we accommodate and it's the wrong technique when we feel like we had to give in then we could move to the victim corner which can be so very toxic relationship of course work best when people kind of take turns giving in when there's a back-and-forth to it so the rule of thumb accommodate if you can really just let it go cheerfully and if you can't then you'll need to consider one of the other options I don't suggest the next one that is competing or dominating it's sort of the opposite of accommodating it's when either by pow or rank or intimidation one person pressures the other so that they can get it the way they want it now this is by far the best approach in some situations like on the battlefield or in an emergency you would not want to fire fighters in a deep dialogue about who's going to put out the fire when this technique is used in a non-emergency situation it's called bullying it's just icky you may win the battle but it will likely be at a very high price in fact competing or dominating is most likely to generate even more conflict down the road so the next is compromising now this is a very special thing it's where both of us get some of what we want but both of us leave some of it on the table as well it's not a win win it's sort of like a tie compromising is about getting as close as you can and then splitting the difference now one of the benefits is it is fast you don't have to get into feelings or history you just cut it down the middle now while compromising can settle a dispute it cannot bring about long term alignment if emotions are high and everyone is deeply committed to their position compromising is not the best solution because in compromising on an emotionally charged issue you run the risk of playing that never ending game of whack-a-mole where you might settle this dispute but another one pops up somewhere else let me give you a for instance a New York law firm rang us up to help settle a dispute among its partners the firm was moving and the battle lines were drawn about whether or not there should be a snack vending machine in the kitchen and everyone was going to the mat for their position for and against the managing partner just wanted the whole thing to go away he was looking for a compromise one day at lunch he estimated that he personally had spent about 25 hours trying to strike a compromise on the vending machine debacle his assistant shook her head no she said it's closer to 40 hours and at many hundreds of dollars an hour well that is Bank and the really hard part is that he had chosen the wrong technique he had chosen to compromise on an emotionally charged issue which means this question might get settled but the vending machine was never the real issue it was only the battlefield on which an entirely different war was being fought when we sat down with those involved we found that it had much more to do with power and respect than it had anything to do with a vending machine and once those issues of power and respect were addressed in a meaningful way the whole vending machine problem pretty much disappeared I think they did end up getting one put in the back room but by then no one even cared because the real issue had been addressed then there are two other ways to strike a compromise that I just want to mention briefly here one is mediation which is where a third party helps you come to an agreement but everybody in the end has to say yes I'll agree to that and then there's arbitration which is binding so that means you agree to go to arbitration and then you agree to stick with whatever the decision is in the end then there is the holy grail of conflict resolution collaboration it is the gold standard collaboration is the way to create a win-win outcome the challenge is it takes time and patience and a willingness to get into some messy areas it includes a lot of listening deep listening sometimes when people really don't feel like listening to one another in successful collaboration everyone feels seen and heard and valued and trust grows collaboration is a creative process which can open up entirely new possibilities and the good news is this is all really possible in fact research by Martin Deutsch has demonstrated that win-win or collaborative conflict resolution is possible in 80% of conflicts the benefit is that once collaboration is complete people really do understand one another better they trust one another more I usually actually like one another a lot more which means that they are less likely to enter into that next conflict so there you have it conflict resolution in a nutshell

Channel: Lydia Richards

Views: 283,562

Keywords: Conflict Resolution, Conflict Management, win/win, conflict resolution strategies, strategies, Conflict Resolution Techniques, techiniques, conflict resolution styles

Id: NJH0XV9jGIE

Length: 7min 30sec (450 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 29 2016