Resolving Conflict 101

Conflict is a part of life. Conflict can be healthy when you know why you are in conflict, you know what your motive is, and you are focused on resolving the conflict. If done with the right intentions, typically your relationship with the person or people you have conflict with becomes stronger. The trick has to do completely with your emotions.

Emotions naturally drive our reactions and behaviors. If unchecked, the conflict remains unresolved or may even get worse. The hardest thing for a human to do is to remove the emotions from a situation where there is conflict. We naturally assume the other person is coming from a malicious state, that we are right, and they are wrong, or we attempt to avoid the conflict all together because “nothing will change” or that we are concerned our own emotions will get the best of us, causing more conflict.

So how do you control your emotions?

Focus on facts.

Facts are proven to be true. Facts have concrete evidence. For example, the theory is that younger workers do not have commitment, they will have attendance issues, they don’t want to work. The fact is when you pull the data across all generations and compare it against those who have attendance and/or performance issues, the data shows that the issues exist evenly across all generations.

Another example, Joe says to Susan, “Did you take my pencil?”. Susan responds, “NO! “I didn’t steal your pencil!”. In this scenario, Susan comes across defensively, taking the question personally. The fact is Joe asked simply, did you take my pencil and did not actually accuse Susan of stealing the pencil. Susan could have simply said, no I didn’t take your pencil. I think it fell off the desk over there. In this case, Susan focused on the actual words said and comes across helpful.

Check your tone and body language.

Many of us wear our emotions on the outside. Hands on hips, elevated tone of voice, eye roll, crinkled forehead. We make the excuse; well, you always know what I’m thinking. Giving away what you’re thinking only makes the conflict worse. The purpose of controlling our emotions is to control the narrative and understand the truth to focus on resolving the conflict, not enhancing it.

When in conflict, the focus is on communication, having a conversation, having dialogue. When your words come from the focus of facts but your tone and body language show how you’re feeling about the situation, it will derail the efforts to resolve the conflict. In the end, what is your goal?

When entering into the conflict resolution process, we want to show we are interested in understanding the conflict, not that we have already made up our minds. Make eye contact, your body should show interest such as your body should be facing the person, a slight tilt of the head when someone is talking, feet facing the person, no slouching. If your feet are faced away and limited eye contact, it shows you have no or little interest in what they are saying.

Understand why you are controlling your emotions.

Controlling your emotions is not the hardest thing. It’s convincing yourself you need to for the greater good. Once you have your focus, you can do anything. Putting aside your ego and/or the blame puts you in control.

Realizing that you win when you remove your emotions is the best part. You may not win the argument, but you actually avoid the argument, enter dialogue, and solve the dispute. Who cares who comes out “on top” if you have a resolution to your problem.

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Conflict Resolution is not complicated, it’s just emotionally driven, until you make it not. Once you remove the emotions, the clouds clear and you become in control. Then it becomes how you have the conversation that makes the process smooth. No one has to win, but someone needs to set the stage for the right outcome. Be the bigger person for the right reason.

An important part of this process not mentioned, just breathe. Deep breaths help to calm you before going into a potentially stressful situation.

When delivering this training, I always ensure we start with ourselves. We can't understand how to resolve the conflict unless we know where we are coming from and what is our true expected outcome.

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