Like most of us, I learned how to deal with conflict (rather ineffectively, I might add) at home when I was a kid. In my house, we yelled when we were angry, and I cried when I got upset. Going to work, the unwritten rules I learned were that you did not yell or cry. (I subsequently learned that losing your temper was acceptable if you were a prima donna or a bully with clout.)
I picked up such cues everywhere I worked, learning as I went along what the accepted conflict behavior was at each job I held. On Wall Street, raising one's voice and being confrontational were often the norms. When I moved to Tucson, by contrast, I learned that not disagreeing openly, and smiling and doing what you wanted to do is the norm.
Of course, I am exaggerating somewhat here, but you get my point. Every organization has a conflict resolution culture: its norms of behavior and unwritten rules about how conflict is and is not handled.
In some company cultures, no one deals directly with conflict; it is discussed with others not involved. Confrontation, even in a problem-solving manner, is viewed as impolite. In other cultures, it is more acceptable to complain to your allies and not address your adversaries. Other businesses follow the custom that allows for some confrontation and some undermining of one's adversaries. And, finally, there are those organizations that encourage problem-solving processes, and even offer confidential mediation.
Like organizations, individuals, too, have a personal way of dealing with conflict. For the participants in my "Conflict Resolution for Professionals" seminar, I developed a Conflict Styles Questionnaire. It has turned out to be quite reliable, based on empirical reporting of more than 1,500 professionals (I have never done a formal statistical evaluation). I provide it here so that you can take it to determine your conflict resolution style.
I am confident that you will find knowing how you handle conflict to be a great help to you both personally and professionally; for once you do, you will be able to see in which direction you need to move to become more of a problem solver and less of a problem maker. One of the most common remarks I hear when teaching is, "I hate conflict; I am so uncomfortable with it." Sound familiar? Well, let me reassure you that you do not have to learn how to confront. This usually is people's greatest fear. What they need is The Working Circle.
But before I take you through The Working Circle, I ask you to complete the questionnaire and see how the results compare with the view you currently have of yourself in this regard. Armed with this self-knowledge and The Working Circle, I assure you, you will be able to resolve issues in a much more effective way than you ever have before!
For the following scenarios, using the legend below as a guide, choose a number that best describes how you would most likely handle that situation, and insert it in the box in the right-hand column of the table. When you're done, total the points for all of your responses.
You're really angry, and you're not going to take it anymore! You corner the other person, and without any preliminary discussion, let him or her know how you feel.
You deal with the person straight on, and directly identify the issues, leaving no room for give and take.
You approach the person as an equal and work the issues through collaboratively.
You give in to the other person's desires or demands. It's not exactly what you want, but you take this route to avoid further conflict.
You think about what you would say, but you usually avoid confronting others. You talk to friends or allies about the situation but not the person involved.
Compare your overall score from the questionnaire to the score ranges in the table here. After you find your score range, look to the right of that range to identify your conflict management style of. Then read the consequences of practicing your style of conflict management in the following sections.
Score | Style |
|---|---|
10–23 | Attacking/Confronting |
24–37 | Problem Solving |
38–50 | Compromising/Withdrawing |
Conflict Styles Questionnaire
1. | Your peer recently took credit for work that you did, and now you are at lunch with him. | |
2. | Your manager is four months late conducting your review, and tells you to please wait another two months. | |
3. | You get an e-mail from a staff member telling you that you are playing favorites. | |
4. | The IT technician told you that your system will be down for two days due to his not having received instructions that you said you sent him. | |
5. | A friend of yours at work told you that a member of your unit has been negative and highly critical of you behind your back. | |
6. | A vendor called to tell you that the items you ordered for your manager will arrive two weeks later than promised. This is the third time that this has happened. | |
7. | A client waiting to see your manager tells you that every time she has met with him, he has been late, and if she has to wait any longer, she is canceling the contract. | |
8. | Another supervisor has consistently provided incorrect information when you requested data, and did it again today. | |
9. | A new member of your team has lied about his excessive absences, which were in fact due to going out of town for pleasure rather than illness. | |
10. | You receive a memo from your manager saying that she thinks your unit is not performing up to par. She often jumps to conclusions, and this assessment is erroneous. | |
Total: |
With this style, there are angry accusations; no real problem solving is going on. It is an opportunity for the attacker to ventilate, not solve problems.
If you are confrontational, you deal with the person straight on, and directly identify the issues, but you don't allow for any give and take. Finding fault is more important to you than resolving any issues and/or learning anything from the experience.
You approach the person you're in conflict with as an equal and work through your issues collaboratively. Emotions may be expressed, yes, but blame is not the goal; accountability is. Learning new behavior is possible.
You give in to the other person's desires or demands. It's not exactly what you want, but you take this route to avoid further conflict. Even though you can learn new behavior and express how you feel, you walk away feeling shortchanged more often than not.
When facing a conflict, you think about what you would like to say, but you usually avoid confronting others. Instead, you complain to friends or other colleagues about the situation, but not to the person involved. When you go to bed at night, inevitably you think of all the things you could/should have said. Conflict really makes you uncomfortable.
Some might tell you what they think you want to hear; others may feel alienated and perceive that they are never given an opening to talk to you. This style shuts others down, causing them either to withdraw or attack back. Creative problem solving is not an option.
The person you confront becomes defensive, or argues with you to prove his or her point or demonstrate innocence. He or she may feel put on the spot, surprised, or alienated. People know you don't mince words. This style allows for minimal creativity in problem solving; rather, fault finding is the norm.
People who are problem solvers make others feel included and valued. This is generally viewed as a win-win approach. When people deal with problem solvers, they feel that creativity is encouraged and rewarded, as in an open exchange of ideas. Even disagreement is treated as an opportunity for creative problem solving.
Compromise is an effective tool in conflict management; it allows for a win-win approach. If, however, you use compromise as the predominant way to resolve conflict, you may be viewed as too nice, or even wishy-washy; others may feel that they can manipulate you. You may come away from a conflict resolution session feeling as though you didn't get what you really wanted. Compromise does offer some chance for creativity in addressing conflict.
If you typically withdraw in the face of conflict, no one will know what is important to you or when something has upset you. And you feel as though your needs go unmet. People may note your absence but not understand why you have withdrawn. Withdrawing does not allow for creative problem solving, and issues may never get resolved. You have a lot of should have/could have thoughts.
This is a style that rarely is necessary or helpful in problem solving. Extreme anger or intense intimidation accompanies this style. In practice, this style may be effective in the short term, but does not work long term.
When there are no options to discuss, this is a style that can work. Confronting generally means meeting face to face. In American culture, "in your face" is the colloquial term used for being confrontational. In certain circumstances, confronting someone is the only way that your opponent will listen. But after getting someone's attention, it helps to then switch to the problem-solving style.
This is the optimal style, useful for eliciting creativity, empowerment, and mutual respect. Thus, it is the style supported by The Working Circle. It can be used even in highly charged situations, where the stakes are high and the conflict is a long-standing one.
For the compromising style to be effective, each side needs to be willing to give in a little. It is a productive method when the stakes are not very high or one side has a greater investment in the outcome than the other. The downside to is that you might walk away without that win-win feeling if you were the one doing most of the compromising.
You may withdraw from conflict when it is not important to you to become embroiled, when you are highly intimidated by your adversary, or you are simply afraid of conflict. So, you say nothing. For those who withdraw, conflicts don't get resolved, resentment can grow, and situations can even get worse. This is especially true if the conflict revolves around important issues.
So many people equate conflict resolution with being confrontational. This is not the case! Confronting is what took place in my childhood home in Brooklyn. ("Who ate the cookies?!") It's what I see at many corporations. ("Who screwed up?!") It's what you hear in the news, from opinionated talking heads representing either side of the spectrum.
Many participants of my seminars will say at the beginning, "I am so uncomfortable with conflict. I hate confronting!" By the end of the class, however, they have achieved a much higher level of comfort because they have been given a process to follow, and they realize that resolving conflict does not have to involve confrontation!
Other participants will announce, "I'm here because my manager sent me, but I think this is a load of crap!" Welcome to class! I smile, recognizing that before me is a professional who enjoys conflict, and confronts others regularly. They are a far greater challenge to work with because they tend to reject the balanced, masculine/feminine approach to conflict resolution. Those who do adopt The Working Circle, however, learn to develop better working relationships, and find that more people want to cooperate with them.
Knowing your Conflict Resolution Style will help you in various ways:
Self-knowledge can lead to self improvement.
If you see that your current style is getting you into trouble, you can start to shift to another.
You can better understand the styles of other people, leading you deal to more effectively with them.
You can learn how and when to use a variety of styles, depending on the situation and your level of comfort.
The range of styles can be superimposed on a continuum.
Traditionally in our culture, the attacking style is seen as a masculine trait, and the withdrawing style as a feminine trait. This in not to say that only men attack or only women withdraw. I am sure you can come up with numerous examples of men and women who act in ways that are not gender-specific.
Because The Working Circle balances masculine and feminine approaches to conflict resolution, we can them superimpose the masculine and feminine traits on the conflict style continuum, as shown here.
Doing too much of anything is rarely a good thing. Sometimes it is advisable to withdraw (e.g., the boss who threatens to fire you when you are not ready to leave). Sometimes, though infrequently, it is advisable to attack (enter the market before a competitor does). With The Working Circle, we want to learn to use the problem-solving approach as much as we can, relying on neither the masculine nor feminine approach too often.
In the next chapter, I will describe eight different classic situations that occur in most people's careers at one time or another. For each, I will highlight the traditional masculine and feminine approaches, and then use The Working Circle to achieve a balanced, problem-solving tactic. I am confident that the more you use the balanced style, the greater your chances of becoming a winner—and enabling others to win with you.
Note: Please feel free to use the Conflict Resolution Questionnaire with coworkers, friends, and family. If you do, I'd love to hear from you about how it worked.