Conflict Resolution Models in The Literature

Some years back I collected a summary of the most known conflict resolution models and literature at Gofore. I think this is such general topic, which might bring additional value also to others here in LI.

Personally I've found these methods extremely useful. The concept of reaching a win-win deal under highly stressful and high stake situation is such a humane and beautiful idea.

Getting to Yes - Fischer & Ury 1981

1. Separate the people from the problem. Human beings are not computers, and emotions typically become entangled with the objective qualities of the problem. Taking positions makes this worse because peoples egos become tied to their positions. Before working on an actual problem, the "people problem" should be disentangled from it and addressed on its own. The participants should come to see themselves as working side by side, attacking the problem, not each other.
2. Focus on interests, not positions. Good agreements satisfy underlying interests, yet most often participants focus on stated positions. A negotiating position obscures what you really want, and compromising between positions is not likely to produce an agreement that will address the real need that led people to adopt those positions.
3. Brainstorm multiple options looking for mutual gains before deciding what to do. It is difficult to design optimal solutions while under pressure. Pressure narrows your vision. Having a lot at stake inhibits creativity. So does searching for only one right solution. These constraints can be offset by setting a designated time to brainstorm for a wide range of possible solutions.
4. Insist that the result must be based on some objective standard. When interests are directly opposed, a negotiator may be able to obtain a favourable result simply by being stubborn. This can be countered by saying that neither side is not enough and that the agreement must reflect some fair standard independent of the opinions of either side. Neither party need give into the other, bot can defer to a fair solution (eg. market value, expert opinion, law).

Nonviolent Communication?- Marshall Rosenberg 1999

Nonviolent Communication is based on a fundamental principle: Underlying all human actions are needs that people are seeking to meet. When we focus on needs, our deeper creativity flourishes, and solutions arise that were previously blocked from our awareness. At this depth, conflicts and misunderstandings can be resolved with greater ease.

The Components of Nonviolent Communication

1. Observations?are what we see or hear that we identify as the stimulus to our reactions. Our aim is to describe what we are reacting to concretely, specifically and neutrally, much as a video camera might capture the moment. This helps create a shared reality with the other person. The observation gives the context for our expression of feelings and needs. The key to making an observation is to separate our own judgments, evaluations or interpretations from our description of what happened.?Learning to translate judgments and interpretations into observation language moves us away from right/wrong thinking. It helps us take responsibility for our reactions by directing our attention to our needs as the source of our feelings, rather than to the faults of the other person. E.g. "you're rude" is an interpretation and "you didn't say hi, when you arrived" is an observation.
2. Feelings?represent our emotional experience and physical sensations associated with our needs that have been met or that remain unmet. Our aim is to identify, name and connect with those feelings. The key to identifying and expressing feelings is to focus on words that describe our inner experience rather than words that describe our interpretations of people's actions. E.g. "I feel lonely" is a feeling and "I feel you don't love me" is an interpretation.
3. Needs?are an expression of our deepest humanity. All people share key needs of water, food, rest, shelter, connection etc. When describing a need focus on the need itself and not on a strategy to meet the need. Whenever, the description of a need includes a person, a location, an action, a time etc. it is describing a strategy rather than a need.
4. Requests?are made in order to follow certain strategy to fulfil a need. It is common that a request is answered by "no". This "no" is information to alert us that saying "yes" to the request would be too costly in terms of the other person's needs. We can then continue to seek connection and understanding to allow additional strategies to arise that will work to meet more needs. E.g. "You must always be on time" earns "no", but "Could we spend 15min talking on how important it is to be on time" earns "yes". This builds trust and understanding that propably will get the "on time" request fulfilled over time. Shifting from demands to requests is a a leap in focus and in faith: We shift from focusing on getting our needs met, to focusing on the quality of connection that will allow both of our needs to truly matter, and ultimately also to be met. Making clear requests and moving our consciousness from demands to requests may be challenging. It requires imagination to identify a strategy that could meet our needs without being at the expense of the needs of others. E.g. from "Don't yell at me!" to "Would you be willing to lower your voice or talk later?".

Use of Empathy

Expressing our observations, feelings, needs and requests is one part of NVC. The second part is empathy: The process of connecting with another by guessing their feelings and needs. In times of conflict, verbally communicating to another person that we understand their feelings and that their needs matter to us can be a powerful turning point in problem situations.

Demonstrating understanding doesn't mean we have to sacrifice our own needs. Connecting empathically with another person can be a catalyst to meeting our own needs for understanding, connection, contribution, or others. At the same time, empathy can be a powerful tool to meet the other person's needs. The ability to understand and express the other person's feelings can aid us in finding strategies that meet both of our needs.

When connecting empathically, we use the same four components:

1. Observation: When you [see, hear, etc] ....
2. Feeling: Are you feeling .....
3. Need: Because you need .....
4. Request: And would you like .....?

Often in a conversation you can skip observation and request, while observation is usually clear on context and request was the starting point for the conversation.

Use of Self-Empathy

In self-empathy, we bring the same compassionate attention to ourselves that we give to others when listening to them using NVC. This means listening through any interpretations and judgments of ourselves that we are making in order to clarify how we are feeling and what we are needing. Often self-empathy comes easy, as we access our sensations, emotions and needs, to attune to how we are. However, in moments of conflict or reactivity to others, we may find ourselves reluctant to access an intention to connect compassionately, and we may falter in our capacity to attend to the present moment.

Self-empathy at times like this has the power to transform our disconnected state of being and return us to our compassionate intention and present-oriented attention. With practice, many people find that self-empathy alone sometimes resolves inner conflicts and conflicts with others as it transforms our experience of life.

Summary of Principles of NVC

1. State concrete actions you?observe?in yourself or the other person.
2. State the?feeling?that the observation is triggering in you. Or, guess what the other person is?feeling, and ask.
3. State the?need?that is the cause of that feeling. Or, guess the?need?that caused the feeling in the other person, and ask.
4. Make a concrete?request?for action to meet the need just identified.

https://www.wikihow.com/Practice-Nonviolent-Communication

Difficult Conversations - Stone, Patton & Heen 2000

First separate 3 different conversations:

1. "What happened?" conversation usually involves disagreement over what happened, what should happen, and who is to blame.
2. "The feelings" conversation is about the parties' emotions, and their validity.
3. "The identity" conversation is an internal conversation that each party has with herself, over what the situation tells her about who she is.

The key to having effective, productive conversations is to recognize the presence of these deeper conversations, avoid the common errors, and turn difficult conversations into learning conversations.?Learning conversation starts from the perspective of a "third story"?that describes the difference between the parties views in neutral terms. The opening should then invite the other party to join in a conversation seeking mutual understanding or joint problem solving.

Leadership and Self-Deception??-?The?Arbinger Institute 2000

Self-deception affects?everyone. It’s like being stuck in a box–despite our best intentions, we have a biased view of problems, are blind to their underlying causes and our roles in them. It erodes our effectiveness and happiness levels in work and life, and can spread like a virus to infect everyone around us.

How we get in "the box"

As human beings, we intuitively know what we should do for others. When we’re?out of the box, we see what we can do and we help also other. (e.g. holding the door for someone, apologizing for a mistake, sharing a useful piece of information).?However,?we often don’t do what we know we should, in other words, we betray ourselves.?Once we betray ourselves, we start to create justifications?for our lack of action. We exaggerate others’ fault,?inflate our?own virtue,?magnify things that justify our self-betrayal, and?blame others for making us feel and act the way we do. And this will affect on how we see the world.

In "the box"

Some boxes may become so innate to us that we carry them with us, and we constantly see things through our?biases and self-justifying?lenses. When we’re in the box,?we focus on blame and justifications, which trigger others to also get into their boxes; A downward spiral begins and we basically collude to stay in our respective boxes.

Thus, when we’re “in the box”,?our effectiveness is limited?and no amount of skills and techniques will work (including tolerating others, changing our outward behavior etc.). Self-deception can be one of the biggest hindrances to organizational results, with symptoms like a lack of commitment, trust and accountability, conflict, stress, poor teamwork, and communication issues.

Out of "the box"

To get out of the box,?we must do our best to help others succeed.?Success as a leader depends on being free of self-betrayal and creating an environment of openness, trust and teamwork, where people work hard for the collective good, not individual accomplishments.?

The Anatomy of Peace -?The?Arbinger Institute 2006

The book presents the same concept of "the box" as the Leadership and Self-Deception. The box means, that one is in a blame-frame, where he sees other people as objects, other people feel less real than himself, other people's concerns are smaller than his own.

"The Box" mindset

• View of myself: Above the mass, self-sufficient, Better than
• View of others: Inconsiderable, arrogant, dismissive
• My feelings: Dissapointed, lonely, resentful
• View of the world: Igonring me, competitive, unfair

In the box?we think?

• "Better than": I am superior, important, right, inferior, world needs me
• "I deserve": I am mistreted, unappreciated, victim and others are mistaken, ungrateful. World is unfair and unjust
• "Worse than": I am not as good, helpless, jealous, depressed and others are privileged, against me or ignoring me
• "Must be seen as": I need to look good, fake it. I am afraid, overhelmed and stressed. Others are judgemental, threatening. World is dangerous, watching and judging.

Getting out of "the box"

1. Look for the signs of the box (blame, justification, horribilization, etc.)
2. Find an out-of-the-box place (out-of-the-box relationships, memories, activities, places, etc.).
3. Ponder the situation from this new perspective and ask
4. What are other sides challenges, trial, burdens, and pains?
5. How am I adding to these challenges, trials, burdens, and pains?
6. In what other ways have I neglected or mistreated this person?
7. In what ways are my better-than, I-deserve, worse-than, and must-be-seen-as boxes obscuring the truth about others and myself and interfering with potential solutions?
8. What am I feeling I should do for this person? What could I do to help?
9. Staying out of the box
10. Act upon what I have discovered; do what I am feeling I should do.

Outward Mindset - The Arbinger Institute 2016

An?outward mindset?focuses on others; On what is important to all stakeholders. An outward mindset means that we genuinely see, hear and listen others. We evaluate their needs, objectives and challenges rather than focusing on our own. When we do this we start seeing options that would never occur us when thinking inside. Those who work with an outward mindset take responsibility and hold themselves accountable for their impact on the overall results of the organization.

An?inward mindset?is focused on self-benefit and self-concern. Maybe just you, your family, your team etc. Not all the stakeholder. When people focus on themselves rather than on their impact, lots of activity and effort get wasted on the wrong things: Collaboration suffers, innovation is limited and people disengage due to the boredom inherent with inward-mindset thinking and working.

Adopting an outward mindset?requires ongoing effort. We will slide back under stress. As we adopt an outward mindset, we discover that we and our organizations are more alive and individuals are more engaged.