You may find yourself at constant odds with you boss, or you may find that you and your spouse regularly argue over family matters, such as vacation and holiday plans. Conflict often signals that two or more people have unmet needs or competing goals in a relationship or situation. Whatever the reasons for conflict situations in your home or work life, you can take simple steps toward diffusing and resolving the conflict in healthy and effective ways.
Step 1
Learn how to disagree with other people without arguing. Even though you will often encounter frequent differences of perspective and opinion with other people, those differences do not have to result in heated conflict. Instead, Cherie Carter-Scott, in "If Love is a Game, These are the Rules," encourages sorting out your differences and not letting disagreements escalate into arguments.
Step 2
Avoid win-lose outcomes where one person "wins" and one person "loses." In fact, as Gary Smalley explains in "The DNA of Relationships," if one person loses in a conflict, then ultimately everyone loses. Instead, avoid defending your own position and attacking the other person's position as that cycle can repeat itself indefinitely and never result in actual resolution.
Step 3
Brainstorm creative solutions that take care of the needs and concerns of every individual involved. This solution, also known as a win-win outcome, will help each person to not feel as if she had to give something up or "give in" to the other person. For example, if you want to see an action movie and your spouse wants to see a romance, try to find a movie that sounds appealing to both of you, so that neither of you compromise and both individuals feel satisfied.
Step 4
Discover a shared desired outcome for the situation. For example, even if you and your spouse cannot agree on vacation plans, you may be able to agree that you both want a vacation that will allow for you to reconnect and to enjoy time together. Carter-Scott recommends that, to find this shared desired outcome, "you look beyond the specific desire" of each person "to the underlying purpose beneath."
Step 5
Check with everyone involved to ensure that a chosen resolution works, particularly if the resolution requires extended time to enact, and then make any adjustments that might be necessary. Some conflicts, such as choosing a movie for a date night, can be resolved in a short amount of time. Other situations, such as a disagreement over a process at work, may require some time for an agreed-upon resolution to be completed.
Tips and Warnings
- Look for a broad resolution that will work on more than one occasion if you are dealing with a conflict situation that recurs. For example, if your family always fights over holiday plans, try to develop a creative solution that will help to minimize future conflict over holidays as well.
- Do not try to avoid conflict. Instead, embrace it as an opportunity to meet needs in your own life as well as in the lives of the other people involved. Conflict, when handled in healthy ways, can actually strengthen interpersonal relationships.
References
- "The DNA of Relationships"; Gary Smalley; 2004
- "If Love is a Game, These are the Rules"; Cherie Carter-Scott; 2000
