5 easy steps to handle conflict.
All types of falling; being economic, political, on ice skates, or in creating a design; hurt. But they also tell us a thing: we need more practice.
Different people experience stress in different ways. However, what is certain is that stress clouds vision. When conflict manifests itself, if we are not familiar enough with conflict resolution practices, most probably we will end up fighting. We will fall.
A working strategy to avoid this fall is to develop our conflict resolution skills beforehand. In any case, we need to remain aware of the fact that a resolution work is a collaborative problem-solving one. That means we need to stay friendly and on the same side of the table with the ‘partner’ in conflict.
Good news is that conflict does not attack. It creeps. We sense it. We sense the discomfort beforehand. This gives us enough time to handle it. But to sense it we need to be not clouded with with negative emotions. Here are 5 steps to handle conflict as early as possible as to make it a productive and even joyful -say skiing- experience rather than a negative and damaging fall:
1- Recognition: recognize there is a problem.
2- Identity the issues underlying the topics. Most of the time there are deeper issues that goes underneath the topics we are fighting about. We need to try ((TOGETHER)) in a ((FRIENDLY)) manner to uncover these issues.
3- Create and array of solutions. TOGETHER. Life is not black and white.
4- Take a step back / say you will stop now and AGREE about a moment to return to this array. This can be after a couple of hours or the next day. It is very important to STOP and to take a distance But it is equally important to AGREE and set a time to come back. The cessation of misunderstanding, and even of the productive work that followed is important. Taking a distance from things — NOT FROM OUR PARTNERS- makes us closer.
5- ? (you know it. ) Talk and laugh. Then start sorting in and out every item in your array of solutions you have created. Do NOT slip into your EGO hole or in pointing at the other. One technique to so that I developed is to picture an image of the universe. Another one that i also use is to imagine this is the last time i am seeing this person. It WILL work. You know why? Because we-humans- are kind creatures.
Now, go get ready for your coming conflict :) ! Good luck !