Learn to Manage Conflict to Strengthen Your Relationships and to be More Effective
Conflict is Inevitable Part of Our Life
Conflict is an inevitable and integral part of our life. Hardly any individual can have a life that is free of conflict. Conflict is a periodic and natural occurrence in any relationship. However, as soon as people hear the word ‘conflict,’ they think that it is something that they should not talk about. Even a majority of people think that they should avoid conflict. There are some obvious reasons for individuals to avoid conflict.
A large number of people think that if they say certain things to other persons, things that they don’t like about other persons or something that other person has said or done, it may have a negative impact on their relationship. In order to avoid that uncomfortable situation, people keep on suppressing their views and feelings. They think that it is the right way to keep relationships healthy and strong. But it generally doesn’t help. Rather it leads to more problems in relationship as bad feelings and views keep on accumulating, most of the time without awareness of the people involved. On the other hand, many individuals express their views very openly and expect others to agree with their views. They want others to behave in accordance to their views, which may also lead to conflict.
When you try to avoid conflict or you freely express your views and expect others to act the way you think is right may lead to negative outcomes. Not being able to understand and manage conflict may have serious implications for your effectiveness at workplace and in your personal life.
Cost of Poorly Managed Conflict
By now you have understood that conflict is an inevitable part of our life and lack of conflict management skills can have serious implications for you. If you are not able to properly manage conflict, it can have negative impact on your personal as well as professional life. If you get into conflict with other persons, you will not be able to get or do many things as people with whom you are in conflict are least likely to help you.
In addition, if you are not able to manage conflict you may have strained relationships or relationships can even get damaged permanently. You lose a lot of your time and energy because of conflict, which can be used for some constructive work. Conflict can also have a negative impact on your physical health and psychological well-being. Conflict can have a negative impact on your effectiveness at workplace. It can derail your career or business. I have seen numerous people who, despite being very hard working and intelligent, lost their jobs or business opportunities because they were not able to manage conflict effectively. You can see all around you that as individuals, groups, organizations, societies, or even countries get into conflict, they suffer immensely and many times a large number of people lose their lives.
Benefits of Effective Conflict Management
Conflict can be a source of energy but it depends on you how you use that energy. That energy can be used constructively or destructively. If you are able to constructively use the energy created by conflict, it can lead to several benefits not only for you but also for your family members, friends, colleagues, subordinates, department or organization. Conflict management can strengthen your personal and professional relationships. It can help you in better understanding other persons or parties. Their perspective, worldview, values, beliefs, expectations, and goals. Research has shown that people who can manage conflict effectively perform better than individuals who are not able to manage conflict. They progress more in their career and emerge as leaders.
Individuals who can effectively manage conflict develop a higher sense of confidence and can gain more power at their workplace. Effective conflict management can save a lot of money for you and/or your department and organization. In addition, conflict management can create opportunities for you in your career and business.
Understanding the Process of Conflict
Before you learn the ways to manage conflict, I believe it is important for you to understand what happens to people (psychophysiological process), which they hardly are aware of, when they experience conflict. Conflict occurs when interdependent individuals or parties perceive incompatible goals and scarce resources and the possibility of interference from others in achieving those goals. Please remember that it is primarily an individual’s or party’s perception that initiate the conflict, this perception may not be the reality most of the time. When individuals feel threatened, they experience an increase in psychological stress and anxiety. This in turn fosters emotional reactions such as fear or anger, and physiological arousal.
High emotions and accompanied physiological arousal during conflict lead to (a) restricted information processing and (b) constriction of behavior. Restricted information processing occurs because anxiety, physiological arousal, and emotional responses narrow the range of cues individuals can attend to and increase their tendency to react with habitual or automatic responses. Anxiety, emotion, and physiological arousal also constrict the range of behavior by creating an increased drive to “just do something” about the situation. Since during conflict individuals are highly emotionally charged, their cognitive capability diminishes, they are not able to effectively process information and they act impulsively. This is the primary reason that during conflict even highly intelligent and mature persons at times behave irrationally.
How to Manage Conflict?
The primary reason for occurrence of conflict is differentiation. It means that individuals have different perspectives, preferences, goals, expectations, values, world view etc. This differentiation makes individuals to take positions and as conflict escalates, they keep on hardening their positions. However, conflict can be resolved when people move from differentiation to integration. In integration, individuals or parties begin to acknowledge and accept differences, find common ground, explore possible options, and move toward some solution – sometimes one that meets everyone’s needs, but sometimes simply one that they can live with.
Below I suggest certain actions that can help you in effectively managing conflict in your personal as well professional life:
- Try to understand other side’s perspective:It is important to understand other person’s or party’s interests, goals, perspective, and values. You may not always agree with their viewpoint, but taking time to understand other person’s ‘side of the story’ can help you in making another person feel understood, which can help in minimizing the conflict.
- Understand and manage your emotions:During conflict, emotions overwhelm people. They are not able to understand their emotions and their impact on their behavior and their interactions with others. Hence, it is important for you to understand your emotional state, especially during conflict situation. You may not always be aware of exactly what emotions you are feeling. But once you have understood your emotions, it will be easier for you to manage your emotions.
- Own up your emotions and discuss them with the other party:When people get into conflict, most of the time their focus is on blaming other person for the conflict. If you want to break the vicious cycle of conflict and resolve it, then instead of blaming the person tell him or her how his or her behavior has impacted you. Tell other person how his or her behavior or words made you feel. That can help another person to better understand your situation or emotional state, which can help in resolving the conflict.
- Focus on issues, not on the person: While trying to resolve the conflict, your focus should be on the issue at hand rather than at the person or party involved in the conflict. When focus is on the person, it makes another person defensive. It increases rigidity in his or her views and behavior, which can further complicate the situation. Hence, rather than individual your focus should be on discussion of the issue.
- Listen actively: A very important way of reducing conflict and strengthening your relationships is to actively listen to another person. Most of the time people are occupied with so many things in their daily life that they hardly get time to listen to others. If you can simply pay your undivided attention (without any distraction) to the person with whom you are talking, it can make other person feel happy and valuable. It can help you in understanding his or her perspective, and ultimately it can help in resolving the conflict.
