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We all know this from our daily life at home or in the office: different opinions emerge in discussions and we often do not know what to do. Many people withdraw from the scene („I do not like conflict“) or use verbal violence to make things clear. Both strategies do not work because the conflict is not really solved.

Let‘s explore a bit what is the root cause of conflict and what we can do about it to avoid blockage. As soon as two people show up on the scene there are different appreciations and opinions popping up. This is normal and shouldn‘t bother us too much. Diversity cannot be killed, it can only be suppressed. By the way, this was one of the key elements of the communist trauma in which individuality and own opinions were not appreciated. The restrictive energy of this trauma can still be felt in Romanian culture today.

Conflicts are natural, welcome them.

Despite trainings and personal development books, I still see very often in my work with clients negative examples of how managers deal with conflicts. People are fighting, being aggressive and putting themselves very quickly in a deadlock. Things escalate when they do not need to. People are rarely seeing the big picture and get quickly involved into personal fights about details. Destructiveness is the consequence; the whole company may suffer.

Now, how can we deal with conflicts the best way possible? Here are five golden principles to share with you:

Respect for each other, honour everyone‘s opinion, you are not automatically right because you are the boss or the man in the family. Also, address the conflict with the attitude that you might be wrong and you can learn something from it. If you are lacking respect, you will pay for this behavior: good collaborators will eventually leave you.

Try to understand what is the major motivating force of this conflictual position and take it from there. Maybe the other person‘s opinion is based on fear or disappointment from some previous experience: you may address that first. This is the level of empathy. Most of us have empathy, but we still think that it is a weakness and that only toughness pays off, another big error.

Choose your vocabulary carefully. Is it based on arguments, discovering different approaches, openness or is it aggressive, tempting to discredit or ridicule the other? Personal diffamations create bad energies and destructiveness. Let‘s look only at this little word „Nu“ in Romanian language. How often do you use it as a reaction to what somebody has said? It doesn‘t leave any space of discussion, it creates aggressivity because the other person`s opinion is declared as being false. How arrogant this behavior is. No wonder that a solution is often out of sight. Don‘t blame the other, blame yourself for not being attentive to your own vocabulary.

Be a clever negotiator, especially in complex conflictual situations. Start with what may be a common ground or concern, which we all have in common. Don’t start with polarizing and insisting only on your view. If this common ground is formulated, this already cools down the atmosphere. Then you could ask intelligent questions to better clarify motives and positions. It also makes the process more transparent and a solution easier to be achieved. You may also interrupt the discussions for a small break which experimented negotiators often do to reconsider positions or have some aligning talks backstage.

Keep your emotions in check. Emotions are helpful but if unleached, they largely contribute to blockages and the usage of words you later regret. It is very good that we as humans have emotions, it is even better to feel them consciously. But the gold standard is to master them in such a way that they are not hurting other people.

Be more aware about your possibilities to better manage a conflict. Sometimes you will find to your surprise that the positions are not so far apart and it is mostly excessive ego that blurs our vision.

Dr. Michael Schroeder

michael.schroeder@linarson.com

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