Transforming Through Conflict

Conflict is a natural stage in the development of relationship between two people, or between members of a group. But because most of us have been taught to avoid conflict, when we encounter it in groups, we retreat to the safety of shallow relationships with one another. Conflict is often a healthy sign that participants are getting "real" with one another. Its effective resolution results in increased intimacy and trust, which equates to superior group performance.

In all fairsnesss, it does takes a fair degree of intestinal fortitude to walk through the fire of conflict. To skillfully make this journey, you must have developed, to some degree, a certain degree of self-mastery so that you can walk "through" the conflict with the group and not retreat!

Where does conflict come from? Most conflict is the result of inaccurate assumptions made by the conflicting parties. To resolve conflict, it's necessary to uncover these assumptions while maintaining an atmosphere of respect.

A major impediment to conflict resolution is our need to be right. If we can embrace a desire to "understand" the other, or in Steven Covey's words, "Seek first to understand, then be understood," this will go a long way in resolving or avoiding conflict all together.

Here's an example of what one might do to faciliate conflict resolution in a group. Say you're facilitating a working group and Sally is mad at Joe because she doesn't feel he's pulling his weight. The first step in resolving conflict is to get consent from the parties involved to work through it. You ask, "Sally and Joe, would you be willing to work this issue through with our support right now?" If they agree, get each of them in turn to explain their perspective, assumptions, and feelings, without blaming the other.

Since emotions are usually charged during conflict, the challenge for you will be to get each side to stay with the facts, to own their own feelings around the history of the conflict, and to hear each other. When you get to the bottom of most conflicts, you'll usually find that both sides want something or have something in common that can form the beginning of an understanding between them. Getting them to break through the emotion to get to this place and to hear the perspective of the other side will be your task.

Things to keep in mind for conflict resolution: trust that the parties involved can work through the conflict, maintain mutual respect between conflicting parties, facilitate ownership language, make sure everything is spoken and heard by each party, have each party make requests of the other, then check for resolution. nnn