2 Crucial Rules for Small Business Conflict Resolution

By: Michael | Published: May 7, 2010 | Filed under: About small businesses, Shiner blogs

Guest Post by Peter J. Favaro

This  conflict resolution advice comes from 25 years of experience as a divorce mediator, custody evaluator and conflict resolution educator for the New York court system. My best advice on conflict resolution is deceptively simple: if you can follow some simple rules, you can de-escalate any conflict, and by virtue of that skill you can also control the outcome of the disagreement. Here are the rules:

Rule One:

• All conflict is the same whether it occurs between two people, two groups of people or two nations of people
• When you become aware of the intensity and direction of conflict you can predict the outcome.

When conflict is de-escalating, the outcomes are:

win/win

win/compromise

compromise/win

compromise/compromise

When conflict is escalating, the outcomes are:

win/lose

lose/win

lose/lose

When conflict is quickly and powerfully escalating, the outcomes are:

win/destroy

destroy/win

destroy/destroy

If you can become aware of the direction your conflict is taking, you can take steps to control the outcome.

Rule Two:

Escalation is driven by insult. When people are in conflict and conflict is escalating, poor communication results in people perceiving insult where none was intended, delivering insult where none is intended; and of course, insulting people intentionally. To effectively de-escalate conflict you must direct the conversation from “you” statements to “me” statements which seems very counter-intuitive (usually talking about yourself can be perceived as arrogant), but should be squarely focused on your own contributions to the conflict. For instance, one way to change the direction of an escalating argument is to simply say:

“I am embarrassed at how I am arguing with you. What can I do to make this conversation less adversarial?”

or

“I wish I could find a way to make this conversation easier for the both of us. What do you think I could contribute to make this conversation more positive?”

Often, (but not always because there are incurably difficult people in this world) you will see that this dynamic will bring discussions, negotiations and arguments to a much more manageable place.

Learn these skills, develop your ability to de-escalate conflict and you will be more successful in every aspect of your business and personal communications.

Good luck,

Dr. Peter

Peter J. Favaro, Ph.D. is a psychologist, author of more than fourteen books and developer of the Self Enrichment Model of coaching. Dr. Peter’s office is at the Tribeca location. Contact him at pfavaro@aol.com