I wouldn’t waste your time defining what conflict is and what the types of conflicts are. What matters to me and you is to to divulge the art of conflict resolution.
Why we need this acumen is essential because conflicts in our lives are inevitable and inescapable. you may encounter contentious situations either at personal, friendly or professional level in life. Our relations are entirely reliant on this skillset as conflict leads to contention, which leads to altercation and eventually bust the relationship chain.
Here is the truth that conflicts can be effectively managed if the discretion is rightly put to the nature and gravity of the conflict. You are going to learn four vital strategies to cope with a conflict out of trivial many in this article which would provide a meticulous discretion to discern the nature and execute the rightful strategy to end it successfully.
The first technique to handle a conflict is to ‘Avoid’ it to the best possible extent. Avoidance helps maintain a relationship and not let it turn sour. And if the relationship is not worthy, then it helps you save your time and energy go down the drain. By avoiding a situation of discord mean you simply accede to what other person’s opinion but without losing yours or simply brush it off your shoulder and engage him or her in any context.
Nevertheless, if the conflict becomes unavoidable, the second strategy is to ‘Collaborate’which implies that you find a point of consensus where both parties agree to their perspective and unitedly move to a direction. The Collaborate approach is a win-win approach to build healthier relations among team, friends or families and sustain synergy toward a common objective.
The third techniques in conflict resolution is ‘Compromise’. This approach works when the other party is all set to lock horns and adopts an unyielding attitude. In this situation, if either you want to carry on in a relation be it personal or professional, the wisdom lies to tilt and accept some terms of the opposing party while persuading for a majority of yours. The Compromise factor is essentially practised at personal and professional level where the opposing party is a part of the tribe you can’t part with.
Sometimes, it is unwise to forego an opposition of opinion when it is likely to create a negative impact in the term or even have tendency to disrupt the current of workflow. In such situations if the opposition in sum amounts to absurdity and baselessness, it must be addressed straight away. there comes the fourth technique, ‘Compete’. Weigh down the opponents viewpoints with your strong stances and firmly step down any anomalous situation before it turns into an anarchy. The techniques is not only aimed to zip the opponent but also zap the argumentative situation.
In a nutshell, conflicts are impartible fragments of life which may raise head anytime. It is the best usage of our discretion with the four underlined techniques to resolve a conflict in an efficacious manner:
- Avoid when the issue is trivial
- Collaborate when the relationship matters
- Compromise when continuity is essential
- Compete when principles or performance are at stake
Conflict does not destroy relationships—poor strategy does. Leaders are not judged by how often they avoid conflict, but by how wisely they choose the right approach. Feel free to raise a query for more understanding to this one of the indispensable leadership skills and do relate your incidence when any of the strategy worked wonder or backfired.